Mitt Romney has proposed a significant overhaul of America’s income tax code, revolving around three principles: reducing tax rates for everyone, achieving deficit neutrality, and ensuring that taxes on the middle class go down. Two months ago, a center-left think tank called the Tax Policy Center claimed that such a tax reform was “impossible,” and that Romney’s plan would raise taxes on middle- and lower-income households by $86 billion a year. This led the Obama campaign to claim that Romney was raising taxes on the middle class to pay for “tax cuts for the rich.” But several critics have found flaws in the think tank’s assumptions. Adjusting for these assumptions validates Romney’s claim that his plan would cut taxes for middle- and lower-income households at the expense of the rich.
|