Justus For All

None Sine Causa

Giuliani, Forbes and a Flat Tax

6:48 am on Thursday, March 29, 2007

New York Times

Rudolph W. Giuliani accepted the endorsement of Steve Forbes yesterday and embraced Mr. Forbes’s signature issue, saying he liked the idea of a flat tax — something Mr. Giuliani denounced when Mr. Forbes was running for president.
If there were no federal income tax, “maybe I’d suggest not doing it at all, but if we were going to do it, a flat tax would make a lot of sense,” Mr. Giuliani, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, said yesterday, standing beside Mr. Forbes at the Nasdaq MarketSite in Times Square in New York. But he said it was not clear whether dissolving the current system, so ingrained in the economy, would be feasible.

Giuliani was my guy anyway, for non-economic reasons, but this is exactly the sort of thing my cold little conservative heart likes to hear.

2 Comments »

Comment by honestpartisan

March 29, 2007 @ 8:20 am

What kind of flat tax do you favor? The one that Forbes spoke of would have left all investment income untaxed — which would essentially exempt rich people from taxation.

By the way, this is awfully amusing given that Giuliani fought hard to keep the “commuter tax” — a city income tax imposed on people who work in New York City and don’t live in New York City.

Comment by Dave Justus

March 29, 2007 @ 11:47 am

I think that there are several ways a flat tax can be done, but primarily my interest is in tax simplification, which is usually a big feature of most flat taxes. While theoretically radical tax code simplification does not require a flat tax, I haven’t seen much interest in that happening outside of discussions on a flat tax. I expect that rich people gain a whole lot more from a very complicated tax code then they would from a flat tax, even one that left investment income untaxed (presuming that the flat rate applied to corporate income as well.)

I don’t find it particularly inconsistent to want income tax on income earned in New York, particularly from the perspective of NYC, whether you live there or not and still prefer a flat tax to a graduated income tax.

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