Tax Policy

The Post asked readers to craft plans for putting the federal government on a path to fiscal health. Submit yours in 250 words or fewer at letters@washpost.com . Many taxpayers are looking for a government that is simpler and fairer and works better.  One way to achieve that is to simplify the tax code. A flat tax could be fair if every adult had a $15,000 standard deduction ($30,000 for married couples), with all other income taxed at one rate.  That rate would be determined by the budget that Congress passes each...

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the Finance Committee, announced last month that he wants to spend the rest of his final term in office reforming the tax code , and there are signs that Republicans want an overhaul this year, too. Good. The tax code is an unruly, inefficient monstrosity that only tax attorneys could like. Congress has used it as a vehicle for interest-group giveaways and other forms of wasteful, underhanded policymaking that unwisely distort the economy.

OIL COMPANIES enjoy a series of exceptions from federal taxes. Democrats want to rescind some of those exceptions, saving about $21 billion over 10 years, and put that money toward deficit reduction. So at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on Thursday, lawmakers asked the leaders of five large oil companies to explain why Congress shouldn't take away their tax breaks. Rex Tillerson, chairman and chief executive of Exxon-Mobil, argued that firms have to make very large investments to get at oil that is increasingly difficult to...

Terry McAuliffe offered a plan to reduce and reform a handful of local taxes Friday, seeking to position himself as the Virginia gubernatorial candidate best-equipped to stimulate job growth in the commonwealth. McAuliffe's (D) opponent, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R), a longtime proponent of smaller government and lower taxes, is expected to unveil a broader plan to reshape Virginia's tax system next week. McAuliffe's proposal calls for ending or cutting the Business, Professional Occupation Licensing tax, the ...

The clash between the establishment and the insurgency in the fight for the 2012 Republican nomination is shifting to a new arena: tax policy. Texas Gov. Rick Perry and businessman Herman Cain, two of the candidates pursuing the votes of the most conservative bloc of Republicans, are both touting radical overhauls of the federal tax code. But former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, the candidate most closely associated with the party establishment, has opted against such an approach and has offered a proposal...

The big idea: As the 2012 presidential campaign moves into full swing, the news media, bloggers and activists will continue to write stories about how various wealthy taxpayers are not paying their fair share of taxes. Are the commentators using the correct information to make this judgment? The scenario: During the 2004 presidential campaign, Sean Hannity reported on his show that Teresa Heinz Kerry, the wife of Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), paid only a 14.4 percent average tax...

Sen. John McCain 's camp is attempting to convince Americans that their taxes will increase dramatically with Sen. Barack Obama as president. The presumptive Republican nominee has repeatedly said that Obama would enact "the largest tax increase since the Second World War. " A surrogate for McCain, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, insists that Obama has not proposed "a single tax cut" and wants to "raise every tax in the book. " There are significant differences between the two...

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the Finance Committee, announced last month that he wants to spend the rest of his final term in office reforming the tax code , and there are signs that Republicans want an overhaul this year, too. Good. The tax code is an unruly, inefficient monstrosity that only tax attorneys could like. Congress has used it as a vehicle for interest-group giveaways and other forms of wasteful, underhanded policymaking that unwisely distort the economy.

Americans faced a broad increase in taxes Tuesday for the first time in at least two decades, ending a prolonged period of declining taxation that has become a defining characteristic of the U.S. economy. Despite the tentative agreement reached late Monday to avoid much of the fiscal cliff, many Americans will see a higher tax bill because of the expiration of the payroll tax cut , which was enacted in 2011 as a temporary measure to boost economic growth. The tax holiday...

A Republican proposal to preserve tax cuts for the nation's wealthiest households next year would cost about $80 billion more than a Democratic proposal to extend the cuts solely for middle-class taxpayers, according to official estimates released Thursday. The GOP measure, introduced by Senate Republicans, would devote an additional $50 billion to retaining the George W. Bush-era tax cuts for taxpayers in the top two tax brackets. Reducing the estate and gift tax, which...

Last month, Sen. Max Baucus summoned members of the Senate Finance Committee to a closed-door meeting to discuss the first full-scale rewrite of the 5,600-page U.S. tax code in more than 25 years. The task would be gargantuan, and much of Washington has called it impossible in these contentious times. But after two years of watching President Obama and congressional leaders take on tax policy and other areas of the committee's vast jurisdiction, the Montana Democrat who is the panel's chairman was ready to reclaim his turf.

GOP senators plan to ask pointed questions about Jack Lew's work at Citigroup — and his pay at the bailed-out bank — when the Treasury nominee appears before a Senate panel for his confirmation hearing Wednesday, officials said Monday. Some Republicans think Lew has not provided satisfactory answers about his exact responsibilities at the bank during the financial crisis, congressional staffers say. The issue is relevant, they say, because the Treasury secretary has...

PARIS — For a brief moment before Christmas, self-doubt gripped France. The beloved French actor Gerard Depardieu — who recently played Obelix , an even more beloved French comic book character — announced he was moving to Belgium because President Francois Hollande had threatened to tax millionaires at 75 percent of their income. The nation plunged into depression. Opponents of the wealth tax geared up to attack the president. Pictures of Depardieu in his new "home" in Nechin, a Belgian town just across...

The U.S. government may default on its debt as soon as Feb. 15, half a month earlier than widely expected, according to a new analysis adding urgency to the debate over how to raise the federal debt ceiling. The analysis, by the Bipartisan Policy Center, says that the government will be unable to pay all its bills starting sometime between Feb. 15 and March 1. The government hit the $16.4 trillion statutory debt limit on Dec. 31 , but the Treasury Department is...

McDermott Will & Emery has hired two senior tax attorneys from Sutherland Asbill & Brennan, the firm announced last week. Partner Stephen Kranz and counsel Diann Smith joined McDermott's state and local tax practice group in Washington. Kranz's practice focuses on state tax controversy and tax policy matters, including representing companies in tax audits and litigation. He previously served as general counsel to the Council on State Taxation, a trade association that represents the nation's...

The Dec. 31 editorial " California's climate-change experiment " did a good job highlighting some of the pitfalls of California's cap-and-trade law. Another core problem with that law is that, while the cap on greenhouse gas emissions is fixed, the price for those emissions is not. Without a predictable price signal, the private market will not invest in the innovative solutions that would effectively slash the use of fossil fuels. A better approach would be to impose a defined carbon tax on the fossil-fuel suppliers, with a set...

PARIS — For a brief moment before Christmas, self-doubt gripped France. The beloved French actor Gerard Depardieu — who recently played Obelix , an even more beloved French comic book character — announced he was moving to Belgium because President Francois Hollande had threatened to tax millionaires at 75 percent of their income. The nation plunged into depression. Opponents of the wealth tax geared up to attack the president. Pictures of Depardieu in his new "home" in Nechin, a Belgian town just across the French...

LONDON — The Great British Boycott of Starbucks had nothing to do with whole milk in the skinny lattes or ice chunks in the mocha Frappuccinos. Instead, in a country where the use of creative accounting by U.S. corporations has enraged the public, the Seattle-based American icon was allegedly paying single-shot taxes on Venti-size sales. Across Europe , austerity-driven cuts during hard economic times are shedding light on a culture of tax evasion by the rich. Nearly broke Greece is gripped by a...

Americans faced a broad increase in taxes Tuesday for the first time in at least two decades, ending a prolonged period of declining taxation that has become a defining characteristic of the U.S. economy. Despite the tentative agreement reached late Monday to avoid much of the fiscal cliff, many Americans will see a higher tax bill because of the expiration of the payroll tax cut , which was enacted in 2011 as a temporary measure to boost economic growth. The tax holiday was preceded by a...

PARIS — France's Constitutional Council, in a stinging political rebuke to the Socialist government, ruled Saturday that an emblematic new law that imposes a 75 percent tax rate on earnings above $1.3 million is unconstitutional. The ruling was based on technical grounds, and President Francois Hollande's government pledged to make the necessary adjustments. But Hollande had made the 75 percent rate an anti-rich symbol during his presidential campaign, and, as a...