Issue Position: Tax Reform

Issue Position

Every year Americans spend 6.1 billion hours and $431 billion dollars trying to comply with the tax code. It is a nightmare of loopholes and special interest giveaways. President Obama and the liberal progressives in Congress are planning the largest tax increase in American history. At a time when small businesses, which have created two-thirds of all new jobs over the last decade, are struggling just to survive, the President and his liberal allies are planning what the Washington Post has called a "Taxmageddon." On January 1, 2013, Americans face a $494 billion tax increase--the largest in American history. These tax increases included capital gains taxes, expiration of business investment exemptions, the return of the death tax and the return of the marriage penalty.

I am committed to stopping these devastating tax increases, and I am committed to creating a flat and broad-based tax structure that expands our tax base.

This is why I am an advocate of moving towards a Flat Tax. The current income tax system attacks success, imposes enormous compliance costs on taxpayers, rewards special interests, and makes America less competitive. A flat tax would go a long way towards correcting these problems. More importantly, it would get the government out of the way of our economy and job creators.

I support moving towards a flat tax system with a single low tax rate, which would reduce penalties against productive behavior, such as work, risk taking, and entrepreneurship. A flat tax will eliminate many special interest exemptions and loopholes. Such a system will also solve the problems of complexity, allowing taxpayers to file their tax returns on a simple form. A flat tax system will also eliminate the tax code's assault on capital formation by ending the double taxation of savings and investment income. By taxing income only one time, a flat tax is easier to enforce and more conducive to job creation and capital formation.

Under a Flat Tax system, I will support three taxable deductions: a child tax credit, a mortgage interest tax deduction and a charitable contribution deduction. We want families to have children and own homes. This system would end the class warfare instituted by President Obama and liberals in Congress while eliminating all special interest loopholes that have been created over decades of tax code manipulation by lobbyists and Washington insiders.

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