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."