Where Bob Dole Stands on Tax Reform

The IRS Has Grown Too Large and Bureaucratic
Our tax system is so complicated that Americans now spend 5.4 billion hours each year just to comply with it. By comparison, it took the same amount of time to build all of the cars, trucks and airplanes produced in America last year. It's no wonder when the instructions for the easiest tax form our government can produce -- the EZ form -- runs 36 pages long.

Ending the IRS As We Know It
The Dole-Kemp 15 percent, across-the-board tax cut for America's families is a good first step toward reforming our tax code. But the long-term goal of serious tax reform must be the overhaul of the federal tax code. In achieving that goal, a Dole-Kemp Administration will bear in mind these six basic principles:

1. Fairness Restore fairness to our tax laws by ending, once and for all, special interest loopholes, and taxing income at lower tax rates.
Tax laws should apply equally to all. No loopholes designed for a privileged few. No special favors for those with the money to buy the influence of tax lobbyists. The Dole-Kemp plan aims to restore one basic principle: Tax laws should treat all Americans equally. Tax relief should be given to all taxpayers.

2. Simplicity Let taxpayers file with a postcard-sized form or not file a return at all.
In all its complexity, our tax code is today unfair in almost every way imaginable: Our tax laws are beyond the comprehension of most mortals. That's why some 55 million Americans need the help of an accountant to file our tax returns. And often even the accountants cannot make sense of the tax code. It is also a tremendous drag on productivity. But that's the price Americans are paying today to meet the demands of a burdensome and irrational tax code.

3. Pro-Growth End the bias against savings and investment in our tax laws.
Under the current system, income that is used for consumption is taxed once, while income that is saved is taxed again and again. The Dole-Kemp tax reforms begin the process of reducing the high taxes on certain types of income, such as capital gains. In doing so, it seeks to stop punishing investment and savings.

4. Helps Workers Relieve the tax burden on working Americans by allowing for the deductibility of the payroll tax.
Working Americans pay taxes every time they receive a paycheck from their employers. Many employees actually pay more in payroll taxes than they do in federal income taxes. Bob Dole and Jack Kemp want to move toward a system that permits them to deduct the payroll tax from their overall tax bill, more money will be directed back to the working taxpayer.

5. Protects Social Security Help the elderly and those living on fixed incomes.
How did the Clinton tax hike affect them? It raised the tax on their benefits even higher, so that 85 percent of the Social Security payments government makes are now subject to taxes. This was just plain wrong, and our plan will reverse it. The Kemp-Dole plan will repeal that tax on elderly Americans.

6. Safeguards Against Tax Hikes Require a 60 percent majority vote to raise incoeme tax rates.
Our tax laws have seen 31 major changes in just 40 years. Such constant changes in tax rates, apart from their unfairness to working Americans, are extremely destabilizing to our whole economy. Earnings should be put further from government. Raising tax rates should not be done according to political whim or the shifting balance of power in Washington. It's a serious matter, one of the most serious responsibilities government has. It's serious enough to require the consent of 60 percent of the Congress and not a mere majority.

A Better America
With Bob Dole as President, Americans won't spend their weekends during tax season trying to fill out complicated and confusing forms.