Talking Tax Reform

We are about a month and a half away from the federal income tax deadline and a lot of folks are wondering if there will ever be any kind of tax reform. Some politicians say it could be 2017 before that issue is tackled but House Ways and Means Committee Chair Dave Camp has unveiled a new tax reform proposal. Washington Congressman Doc Hastings says this is a work in progress.

HASTINGS: This is what we call a draft document. It's not in bill form. A draft document is meant to be widely decimated, get a lot of comment on that - in contrast for example to Obamacare which was written behind closed doors. This is an attempt to say a couple of things. First of all, acknowledging that our tax code is very, very complicated and so what Chairman Camp is attempting to do is say ok we're going to reduce rates by obviously closing a number of loopholes. And in the end result the vast majority of American people, somewhere around 90% or more - if this were to become law and there's a long process before that can happen, their tax return could be filled out on a two-page form.

Camp's proposal calls for lowering income tax rates for most Americans and businesses - but also reduces the value of or eliminating entirely key tax breaks. Among other things - the proposal would reduce the number of individual income tax brackets from seven to three and raise the standard deduction to 11-thousand for individuals and 22-thousand for couples.

That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.