What's poppin', policy wanks wonks? In my last attempt at tax reform, I had attempted to reform everything in the tax code. That's a lot. Here's something a little easier (probably). Something better than once-in-a-generation full on tax code reform: go back to the tax code we had before the 2017 tax bill went into effect. The following table is based on the 2017 tax tables (because I didn't want to calculate CPI-based adjustments to income levels).
Notes:
- Up the 28% and 33% by 2% (to 30% and 35%). The 33% rate would be then merged with the pre-existing 35% bracket
- The 39.6% (GODDAMMIT BILL CLINTON c. 1993) bracket should be raised to 40% (because the numbers are way easier to deal with, probably)
- The 70% bracket (the mid-point of the Laffer Curve's optimal range [67 - 73] for highest tax rate) is located at $10,000,000.00 and up, as suggested by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
- No Head of Household brackets because I guess I have a war against HoH filing I guess
- Get rid of deductions because it's class warfare (or keep the deductions that the 2017 TCJA provided)
- Keep the 2017 TCJA's Standard Deductions
- Do all the FICA tax changes in my original blog post
- Same Excise Tax changes I proposed in the original blog post
CAPITAL GAINS TAX RATE CHANGES
- Merge Single Payer and Married/Filing Jointly brackets into the Single Payer thresholds
- Replace 0% Tax Rate with 10% Flat Tax Rate
- 15% Flat Tax Rate threshold is at $38k like normal
- 20% Flat Tax Rate threshold at $250,000
- 25% Flat Tax Rate threshold at $500,000
- 30% Flat Tax Rate threshold at $1,000,000
I am aware that the goal with this attempt at Tax Reform (II: Incremental Boogaloo) was a small change (or a series of small changes), but the Long-Term Capital Gains Tax Rates probably should be changed to decrease income disparity. If you were interested, you could look at Hillary Clinton's Capital Gains brackets that she proposed in her 2016 campaign.
If I think of something, I'll comment it below or something. And, of course, like+comment+subscribe or whatever.