Snow Supports Introduction Of Flat Tax To Simplify Tax Code

by Mike Godfrey, Tax-News.com, Washington

19 April 2004

United States Treasury Secretary John Snow last Thursday mooted the idea of introducing a flat tax as a way of simplifying the tax code for the US taxpayer.

Addressing a gathering of local business executives with Senator Arlen Specter in Philadelphia on tax deadline day, Snow suggested that under this system, taxpayers could complete their tax return on a form the same size of a postcard which would take a mere fifteen minutes to complete.

"This card, or something like it simplifying the tax code, is very much something we owe to the American public," observed Snow, continuing: "We shouldn't put the public through the burden of trying to understand the tax code."

The Treasury Secretary added that a new proposal aimed at simplifying the tax code may be on the government’s agenda should President George W. Bush win a second term in office. He also stated a desire to roll back the growing tentacles of the Alternative Minimum Tax.

A recent study by the National Taxpayers Union estimated that US taxpayers spend a total of 6.7 billion hours per year completing the necessary paperwork when filing tax returns, a figure that has increased by 1 billion hours over the last decade thanks to changes in the tax code.

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