Larry Bucshon on Tax Reform

Reduce both business & individual tax rates

Tax cuts and investment incentives create jobs. I will work to:
• Provide immediate tax relief for working families by reducing the lowest individual tax rates from 15% to 10% and from 10% to 5%.
• Provide immediate tax relief to Small Business by reducing its tax rate from 35% to 20%.
• Oppose any tax increase for new spending.
• Make unemployment benefits tax free.
• I oppose the Value Added Tax (VAT)--a national sales tax.

Adopt a single-rate tax system.

The Contract from America, clause 4. Enact Fundamental Tax Reform:

Adopt a simple and fair single-rate tax system by scrapping the internal revenue code and replacing it with one that is no longer than 4,543 words--the length of the original Constitution.

Repeal tax hikes in capital gains and death tax.

The Contract from America, clause 10. Stop the Tax Hikes:

Permanently repeal all tax hikes, including those to the income, capital gains, and death taxes, currently scheduled to begin in 2011.

Supports eliminating the estate tax.

Project Vote Smart infers candidate issue stances on key topics by summarizing public speeches and public statements. Candidates are given the opportunity to respond in detail; about 16% did so in the 2010 races.

Project Vote Smart summarizes candidate stances on the following topic: 'Budget, Spending, and Tax Issues: Do you support the elimination of the federal estate tax?'

Repeal the death tax, immediately and with no expiration.

Repeals the federal estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer taxes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

• Subtitle B of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (relating to estate, gift, and generation-skipping taxes) is hereby repealed.
• The repeal shall apply to estates of decedents dying, gifts made, and generation-skipping transfers made after the date of the enactment of this Act.

Death Tax is a pernicious double tax.

Heritage Action Summary: This bill would repeal the estate and generation-skipping transfer taxes, as well as cut the top gift tax rate.

Heritage Foundation recommendation to vote YES: (4/16/2015): Collectively, these measures repeal the pernicious double tax known as the "death tax," and result in a tax cut of $269 billion over 10 years. The death tax hurts economic growth and therefore limits the ability of Americans to prosper. Repealing the death tax would generate an average of 18,000 jobs annually and increase the overall net worth of American households by $300 billion a year. The federal government should encourage, not punish, Americans who work and pay taxes their whole lives, save enough to support themselves through retirement, and retain the ability to fulfill the American Dream by passing along a better life to their children.

Secretary of Labor Robert Reich recommendation to vote YES: (robertreich.org 6/4/2015): At a time of historic economic inequality, it should be a no-brainer to raise a tax on inherited wealth for the very rich. Yet there's a move among some members of Congress to abolish it altogether. Today the estate tax reaches only the richest 2/10 of 1%, and applies only to dollars in excess of $10.86 million for married couples or $5.43 million for individuals. That means if a couple leaves to their heirs $10,860,001, they now pay the estate tax on $1. The current estate tax rate is 40%, so that would be 40 cents. Yet according to these members of Congress, that's still too much. Our democracy's Founding Fathers did not want a privileged aristocracy. Yet that's the direction we're going in. The tax on inherited wealth is one of the major bulwarks against it. That tax should be increased and strengthened.

Legislative outcome: Passed by the House 240-179-12; never came to vote in Senate.