2012 Presidential Hopeful Tax Plan: Romney

The Tax Policy Center has produced the following description of Mitt Romney's tax plan. The full text and additional analysis can be found here:

Governor Romney would permanently extend all the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts now scheduled to expire in 2013 and continue to "patch" the alternative minimum tax, but would allow some recently enacted provisions to expire and would repeal certain tax provisions in the 2010 health reform legislation. Tax provisions in the 2009 stimulus act and subsequently extended through 2012 would expire. These include the American Opportunity tax credit for higher education, the expanded refundability of the child credit, and the expansion of the earned income tax credit (EITC). The plan would also eliminate tax on long-term capital gains, dividends, and interest income for married couples filing jointly with income under $200,000 ($100,000 for single filers and $150,000 for heads of household) and repeal the federal estate tax, while continuing the gift tax with a maximum tax rate of 35 percent.²

At the corporate level, the Romney plan would make two major changes: 1) reduce the corporate income tax rate from 35 to 25 percent and 2) make the research and experimentation credit permanent and extend for one year the full expensing of capital expenditures. It would also allow a "tax holiday" for the repatriation of corporate profits held overseas but does not specify whether repatriated earnings would face any tax (and, if so, at what rate). In the longer run, Gov. Romney would reduce the corporate rate further in conjunction with base broadening and simplification and would move the corporate tax to a territorial system.

Gov. Romney would also permanently repeal the 0.9 percent tax on wages and the 3.8 percent tax on investment income of high-income individual taxpayers that were imposed by the 2010 health reform legislation and are scheduled to take effect in 2013.

The Tax Policy Center compiled this information from Believe in America: Mitt Romney's Plan for Jobs and Economic Growth and through correspondence with the Romney campaign.

Update on Friday, February 24, 2012 at 3:30PM by Jess Monnette

Mitt Romney has recently updated his tax plan. 

He proposes a 20% cut in personal marginal rates. 

According to the Tax Foundation, the new rates for a single filer would be as follows. 

Mitt Romney Marginal Rates for Single Filer
Current Rates	Romney Rates		Brackets
10.0%	8.0%	>	$0
15.0%	12.0%	>	$8,700
25.0%	20.0%	>	$38,350
28.0%	22.4%	>	$85,650
33.0%	26.4%	>	$178,650
35.0%	28.0%	>	$388,350

2012 Presidential Hopeful Tax Plan: Santorum

The highlights of Rick Santorum's plan for taxes: (info taken from his website here.)

1. Personal Income Taxes: Two tax rates à 10% and 28%
2. Eliminate the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT)
3. Eliminate the Death Tax
4. Lower Capital Gains and Dividend tax rates to 12%
5. Triple the personal deduction for each child
6. Retain deductions for charitable giving, home mortgage interest, healthcare, retirement savings, and children
7. Eliminate the cap on deductions for losses incurred in the sale of a principle residence
8. Cut the corporate income tax rate from 35% to 17.5%
9. Eliminate the corporate income tax for manufacturers (from 35% to 0%)
10. Increase the Research & Development Tax Credit from 14% to 20%
11. Eliminate the tax on repatriated taxable corporate income (from 35% from 0%) - when manufacturers invest in plant and equipment; and reduce the corporate tax rate from 35% to 5.25% on other repatriated income and allow for 100% expensing for new business equipment

Update on Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 1:36PM by Jess Monnette

The Tax Policy Center has some interesting analysis on the impact of Rick Santorum's tax plan. 

The Santorum Plan: Tax Cuts for (Nearly) All.  From the Article:

"According to new estimates by my colleagues at the Tax Policy Center, the former Pennsylvania senator would cut taxes for nearly all households making $40,000 or more. But the impact on the deficit would be enormous: He’d cut taxes by roughly $1 trillion in 2015 alone."

2012 Presidential Candidate Tax Plan Comparison Chart

The Tax Foundation has nifty website that lays out each Presidential Candidate's Tax plan in an easy to understand chart format.

The user chooses the Candidates to compare, and the chart breaks each candidate's plan down by category (e.g. Corp. Inc. Tax, Estate Tax etc.).

This is a very useful and informative tool, so check it out!

2012 Presidential Hopeful Tax Plan: Gingrich

Newt Gingrich, Republican hopeful, has recently outlined his tax proposals. The highlights are here.

Gingrich's plan appears to allow taxpayers to choose between either (1) the current tax code (with the Bush/Obama tax cuts made permanent) or (2) a flat income tax at a 15% rate.

Additionally, his plan

• Eliminates capital gains tax,
• Reduces Corporate Income tax to 12.5%,
• Allows for 100% expensing deduction for new equipment,
• Eliminates the "death tax."

The optional flat tax (15% on income) would:

• Preserve charitable deduction, mortgage interest deduction and provide for a personal deduction of $12,000 for every American.

For more information, the Tax Policy Center has an interesting blog post that analyzes the economic effect of Gingrich's plan on both American households and federal revenues.

Presidential Hopeful Tax Plans: Rick Perry

On October 25 Rick Perry announced his Tax and Spending Reform Plan in a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed. He calls it the "Cut Balance and Grow" tax plan. Here are the highlights from that Op-Ed.

Highlights

• Income Tax: Americans get to choose between
  • (1) New Flat Tax (20%) OR
  • (2) current income tax rate that they pay.
• Flat Tax: The new flat tax "preserves the mortgage interest, chartable and state and local tax exemptions for families earning less than $500,000.00 annually and increases the standard deduction to $12,500.00 for individuals and dependents."
• "Death Tax": Abolished
• Corporate Tax Rate: lowered to 20%
• International Tax:
  • Temporarily lower rate on repatriation to 5.25%
  • Transition to a "territorial tax system."
• Social Security:
  • eliminate tax on social security benefits,
  • prevent Congress from "raiding the program's trust fund" and use the federal Highway Trust Fund as a model for Social Security,
  • Option to "younger workers" to "own their Social Security contributions through personal retirement accounts…"
• Capital Gains & Dividends: "We will eliminate the tax on qualified dividends and long-term capital gains to free up the billions of dollars Americans are sitting on to avoid taxes on the gain."