Could Tax Reform Make the Financial System Safer?
July 21st, 2011In the deafening cacophony of voices in Washington on the debt ceiling, it is easy to miss a potentially more significant development. There is growing bipartisan interest in tax reform, including changing the corporate tax system to make it more sensible and a bulwark against financial sector instability.
The House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee held a joint hearing last week — the first time these two committees had met in this fashion to discuss taxation in more than 70 years, their chairmen said. The theme of the hearing, “Tax Reform and the Tax Treatment of Debt and Equity,” might sound dry, but in fact it was well designed to carve out some space for agreement across the political spectrum.
The basic question at the hearing was: Did the tax code contribute to the severity of the financial crisis in 2008-9? At on Read more…
Tags: Reform, Tax Reform