Buchanan Renews Calls to Simplify Tax Code

BRADENTON – “Complicated, unfair and punitive” - that’s how U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Longboat Key) described the current U.S tax code in a recent guest editorial. Buchanan said that rather than promoting economic growth, the tax code punishes everyone from working families to employers trying to be globally competitive. The Congressman is again calling on Washington to get serious about a major overhaul.

Buchanan says the guiding principle of reform should be “tax simplification,” noting that the over 4,000 changes to the tax code over the last decade average out to more than one each day.

Buchanan points to the backlog of taxpayer correspondence to the IRS (more than 1 million pieces of in 2012 alone according to one report) as further proof that the system has grown too convoluted.

The Congressman says that his time on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, which has held 30 public hearings and roundtables with those who administer the tax code and all groups that are affected by it, has given him the distinct impression that America wants and needs a “simpler, fairer, pro-growth tax code to help revitalize a sluggish economy.”

Buchanan is calling for lower corporate tax rates, closing loopholes that effectively tax small business on Main Street at a higher rate than big business on Wall Street, and reducing individual rates by ending subsidies to oil companies and other special interests.