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Written by AIER Research Staff
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Friday, 08 May 2009 00:00 |
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President Obama’s proposal to curb offshore corporate tax havens is just the latest example of what has become a permanent feature of the American political landscape: The drive to reform the tax structure. Both major parties constantly tout changes they say would make the system better for the economy, more equitable, or just plain easier to follow.
What all these proposals and the debate that surrounds them miss is that the income tax is beyond reform. The problems begin with the fundamental difficulty in accurately defining both income and taxable income. And they multiply with a complex tax code that is often designed to reflect motives other than evenhanded taxation. AIER took a close look at the irreducible drawbacks of the income tax more than 10 years ago in the September 1996 Issue of the Economic Education Bulletin. Please visit the AIER online archive to read the article entitled “Why the Income Tax Will Always Need Reform and Why it is Beyond Reforming.”
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