75-10-B6
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Tax Loopholes
TranscriptHang on to your pocketbooks in Washington they're talking tax reform again. I'll be right back. From time to time I'm going to talk about loopholes in the tax laws and this is one of those times. Politicians dearly love to make the people believe they have some magic way of extracting taxes from some mysterious "they" who are not now paying their fair share. Under the guise of tax reform they would have us believe that we'll all be home free-or partly so just as soon as they close the loopholes and catch up with that mysterious they and make them cough up. Congressman Corman of California introduced a bill into Congress H.R. 1040. He had 43 co-sponsors the bill states, quote, "Our taxing system is riddled with loopholes that deprive the Treasury of billions of dollars each year weakening our competitive free enterprise system and undermining the morale of the hard-working wage earner and small businessman to whom tax loopholes are not available... In 1970 more than a hundred Americans with incomes of $200,000 paid no income tax." Unquote. That's a pretty strong statement and if it's true we all should be pretty darn mad. Now the Congressman is right there in Washington where he has access to all the facts-which makes you wonder why he didn't mention that in 1970 there were 15,306 individuals who earned $200,000 a year and 15,200 of them (99.6%) paid an average tax of a $177,000 each, for a total of 2.7 billion. The Treasury Department which collects the tax says the 106 who didn't pay had various losses and deductions which amounted to more than their gross income but all were being audited. Now it does seem strange that 15,200 people smart enough to make $200,000 a year were too stupid to find the loopholes the other 106 found. Unless of course those supposed loopholes are all in the Congressman's head. Why is it that so many loophole closing politicians start out by proclaiming they want to lighten the workers load and wind up telling us how much more money government will get if the loopholes are closed just once i'd like to hear one specify the loophole he wants closed and then how much of the citizens tax burden will be relieved. Take the oil depletion allowance. If it were eliminated totally the government would get one billion dollars or less and the government spends that much every single day. The truth is most of what our politicians call loopholes are the deductions the working people depend on to keep their income tax from being more intolerable than it is. And eliminating those deductions would vastly increase government revenue. When they talk among themselves here are some of the things they call loopholes and how much closing them would cost you: deducting the property tax on your home and the interest on your mortgage-$5.7 billion; making you pay tax on the tax you've already paid to local and state governments-$5.6 billion; tighten up on charitable contributions-$3.5 billion. (Then of course government would have to pick up the tab for those charitable services now paid for by those contributions). Not allowing you to deduct your doctor bills would meet another $3 billion out of your pocket. Anyone ready for a $17.8 billion tax increase? This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening. |
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