WASHINGTON - Texas Gov. Rick Perry's optional 20 percent flat tax plan would save millionaires hundreds of thousands of dollars a year while conferring relatively little benefit to taxpayers earning $100,000 per year or less, an analysis of three Republican tax plans conducted for the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News has found.
Georgia businessman Herman Cain's 9-9-9 tax plan gives wealthy Americans an even larger reduction in payments to Uncle Sam than Perry's plan, according to the study conducted by Houston accountant Edward M. Gardner.
Lower-income taxpayers would fare best under Cain's proposal, and worst under Perry's plan, unless they were married and had children.
Under former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's 59-point plan, middle-class families earning less than $50,000 would do slightly better than under Perry's proposal. But Romney's approach would provide less tax relief for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans than the plans from either Perry or Cain.
Differences touted
"Governor Romney has a pro-growth economic plan that will keep taxes low, remove the death tax, and eliminate taxes on savings for the middle-income taxpayers hurt most by the Obama economy," said Romney spokesman Ryan Williams.
"His plan cuts taxes while also bringing the budget deficit under control and restoring the confidence in America's fiscal health needed to promote investment and job creation."
Perry spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger called Perry's plan "a bold, fundamental restructuring of the tax code, not a reformulation of the status quo" - an allusion to Romney's approach.
No fear of 'pundits'
Cain says he won't back away from his plan to cut individual and corporate income tax rates to 9 percent, while adding a 9 percent national sales tax - "because the so-called pundits criticize it" as weighted heavily toward the rich.
"You instinctively know that it's far better than the mess we have today," Cain said at a recent Nevada campaign appearance.
The study compared five hypothetical taxpayers: an unmarried individual earning $30,000 per year; a married couple with two children earning $50,000; a two-parent household with a $100,000 income; a family of four with $250,000 in income and $25,000 in capital gains; and a married millionaire with two children and $250,000 in capital gains.
All models assume the average level of consumption and itemized deductions for each wage level.
Alternative to Obama
Texas Democratic Party Chairman Boyd Richie dismissed all of the Republicans' plans as giveaways to the rich. The GOP candidates believe "working families should carry the burden while those who live off investments should pay no taxes at all," he said.
Whatever the differences in details, Texas Rep. Kevin Brady, the top House Republican on the congressional Joint Economic Committee, said that any of the GOP plans is better than President Barack Obama's economic approach.
Obama would effectively raise taxes on families earning more than $250,000 by allowing the temporary Bush-era tax cuts to expire, Brady said.
Next year's presidential election "is a clear choice of two paths," he said, "one with higher taxes or one with more taxpayers."
David Hendricks in San Antonio contributed to this report.
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar