JimBowie1958
Old Fogey
- Sep 25, 2011
- 63,590
- 16,776
- 2,220
I do too, but I want to also keep the mortgage and charity deductions.I support a flat tax.
Last I read, a 17% flat tax on all income over the poverty line would be the equivalent of a 10% tax across the board.
The Mortgage Interest Deduction Is So Popular Even Flat-Taxer Rand Paul Wants to Keep It
U.S. Sen. Rand Paul wants a flat tax, but he also wants to save the mortgage interest deduction. Is that canny campaigning?
www.realtor.com
In consultation with some of the top tax experts in the country, including the Heritage Foundation’s Stephen Moore, former presidential candidate Steve Forbes and Reagan economist Arthur Laffer, I devised a 21st-century tax code that would establish a 14.5% flat-rate tax applied equally to all personal income, including wages, salaries, dividends, capital gains, rents and interest. All deductions except for a mortgage and charities would be eliminated. The first $50,000 of income for a family of four would not be taxed. For low-income working families, the plan would retain the earned-income tax credit.
An ambitious plan, to be sure, and in a way we're surprised his ambitions don't extend to the mortgage interest deduction. But after all, the MID is possibly the most popular tax deduction in America. According to the National Association of Realtors®, 80% of homeowners with mortgages claim it. Even with a falling homeownership rate, more than 60% of Americans own a home and homeowners tend to be older—and older people tend to vote. Very canny campaigning?
In fact, it's reminiscent of 1996, when the Washington Post reported that:
Malcolm S. "Steve" Forbes Jr. has made a flat tax that eliminates all deductions a central platform of his campaign. Other Republicans, while attacking the Forbes plan, have embraced modified versions of a flat tax that retains the mortgage deduction.