100 Million Unnecessary Returns: A Fresh Start for the U.S. Tax System

We are now in a quiet interlude awaiting the next serious political debate over the nation\u27s tax system. No fundamental tax policy concerns were at stake in the 2002 disputes over economic stimulus or the political huffing and puffing about postponing or accelerating the income tax rate cuts of the 2001 Act. Those arguments were concerned principally with positioning Democratic and Republican candidates for the 2002 congressional election, not tax policy. But the coming decade, with its paint-by-numbers phase-ins and phase-outs of 2001 Act tax changes, the tax cuts waiting to spring into effect, and the sunset of the entire Act in 2011, makes this a propitious time to take a hard look at the nation\u27s tax system. Describing the nation\u27s current federal tax system in anything other than tentative and uncertain terms is impossible. Even the most sophisticated tax lawyer cannot be sure what the current statute means for the future. Should we, for example, believe that more than thirty-five million taxpayers—nearly one-third of all individual filers—will be subject to the alternative minimum tax (AMT), as the current law implies? Or should we instead be confident that some future Congress will avert that train wreck? The 2001 Act repeals the estate tax only for the year 2010. That is why Paul Krugman described that year as an auspicious time to throw Momma from the train—at least if she is rich. But has the estate tax really been repealed