The U.S. Taxation Yesterday and Today - the Grass Roots Reform Movements

This paper studies the U.S. most recent tax reform movements to help Korean tax researchers and tax administration understand the U.S. tax system and its reform movements so as to establish Korea’s better tax system. Since the Tax Reform Act of 1986, there have been many movements in the United States to reform the collection and management of taxes. Especially, there have been very active grassroots reform movements leading to congressional hearings and legislative efforts for fundamental tax reform in the legislative branch. Currently, there are two prominently competing grassroots reform proposals: the Flat Tax and the Consumptions Tax (referred to as The National Retail Sales Tax) to replace the income tax code. On the other hand, in January, 2005, President George W. Bush announced the establishment of the President's Advisory Panel for Tax Reform, a bipartisan panel, to advise on options to reform the United States income tax code to make it simpler, fairer, and pro-growth to benefit all Americans. In addition to the federal level tax reform efforts, there have been some states’reform movements to eliminate or replace the current corporate income tax. Lawmakers in these states want to make their tax systems competitive for jobs and investment in the international marketplace. Through several deadline changes, the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform on November 1, finally issued its recommendations to Treasury Secretary. After 12 public meetings in five states and Washington D.C., the Panel reached consensus to recommend two tax reform plans labeled the Simplified Income Tax Plan and the Growth and Investment Tax Plan. Therefore, it is expected that the Treasury will make his own recommendations to President Bush. President Bush then will submit a bill after further fine tuning the Treasury’s proposals to Congress. Congressional leaders are also expected to share their ideas for this process. Regardless of pros and cons from American Taxpayers, a long deliberated tax reform movement since the previous tax reform of 1986 will give a birth to a new American tax reform which might add another chapter as 2005 Tax Reformto the U.S. Taxation history. However, as did the previous reforms, a reaction of more of the same will be expected to follow.