Reply #32: this one called out to be found -

[UpInArms]

Obama Tax Plan Stresses Inequality, Clinton Focuses on Behavior

March 13 (Bloomberg) -- Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both propose significant changes to the tax code that would add to its complexity. His plan emphasizes income inequality, while hers seeks to change Americans' behavior.

Obama's proposal would shift the tax burden toward the rich from low- and middle-income workers. Clinton proposes targeted tax breaks designed to change the way Americans use energy, save money and care for elders.

Obama, 46, ``seems to have focused on redistribution,'' said Michael Graetz, a professor at Yale Law School in New Haven, Connecticut, and a former Treasury official.

Clinton, 60, ``is proposing tax credits for everything short of flossing your teeth,'' said Lee Sheppard, a tax lawyer and columnist at Tax Analysts in Falls Church, Virginia.

The two candidates' plans -- especially Clinton's -- would further complicate a tax system that experts say is already Byzantine. Obama would tweak and augment current laws, while Clinton would introduce even more rules by adding at least nine new credits with complex qualification requirements, phase-outs and sliding scales.

`Complicate the Process'

``The inevitable consequence,'' said Joel Slemrod, an economist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, ``is to complicate the process.''

Both candidates would allow President George W. Bush's tax cuts to expire for workers in the top two tax brackets and set the estate-tax rate at 45 percent with a $7 million exemption. Obama wants tax rates on capital gains and dividends to rise from the current 15 percent rate to perhaps as high as 28 percent, the rate under former President Ronald Reagan.

...lots more worth reading...