Tax Day is a Reminder of the Need for Comprehensive Tax Reform
For Immediate Release
In light of today’s deadline for filing federal income tax returns, Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, made the following statement on tax reform:
Every year, ordinary Americans invest time and money into filing their taxes; we owe it to them to have a tax code that is as simple, fair, efficient, and pro-growth as possible. Over three decades have passed since the income tax was last reformed, and it’s time for an upgrade.
Tax reform should focus on growing the economy, and that means it must be enacted in a fiscally responsible manner. Tax cuts don’t pay for themselves, and with the debt higher than at any time since Truman, tax reform should help improve rather than worsen the fiscal situation.
The current tax code is littered with tax breaks that lose almost $1.6 trillion a year – more than enough to finance responsible tax rate cuts. In many instances, ridding the tax code of these breaks would further contribute to economic growth.
Two important reasons not to deficit-finance tax cuts are: 1) it will make achieving any responsible fiscal goal much more difficult, and 2) as study after study has shown, cuts that add to deficits are worse for growth over the long run than those that are paid for.
Thus, any lawmaker who supports not paying for tax cuts should be able to explain why they think adding to our massive national debt and decreasing the growth effects of tax reform is a good idea, when clearly it is not. We can and we should make fiscally responsible tax reform a central part of a pro-growth agenda.
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For more information contact Patrick Newton, Press Secretary, at newton@crfb.org.
