President pushes for tax reform

Could tax simplification really be on the horizon? We can hope. The recently-formed President's Economic Recovery and Advisory Board has been given three tasks:

1. tax simplification
2. closing tax loopholes and reducing tax evasion
3. reducing corporate welfare

From the press briefing Tuesday:

"One of the key things that the Volcker board will be examining is ways of unifying, streamlining, making more consistent the various credits that are out there: Making Work Pay, the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Child Tax Credit, and what have you. And in addition, with regard to the tax gap, there are hundreds of billions of dollars in uncollected taxes each year."

The board has only the following two restrictions on the options it brings to the President:

• No tax increases during 2009 or 2010
• No tax increases on families making less than $250,000

The board will report back to the President with options for tax reform by Friday, December 4th.

More information is available from the Wall Street Journal. We at TY will be watching the developments closely, and hoping for some real simplification of the tax law.