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100 Million Unnecessary Returns: A Simple, Fair, and Competitive Tax Plan for the United States Hardcover – January 21, 2008

3.8 out of 5 stars 5

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To most Americans, the United States tax code has become a vast and confounding puzzle. In 1940, the instructions to the form 1040 were about four pages long.  Today they have ballooned to more than a hundred pages, and the form itself contains more than ten schedules and twenty worksheets. The complete tax code totals about 2.8 million words—about four times the length of War and Peace. In this intriguing book, Michael Graetz maintains that our tax code has become a tangle of loopholes, paperwork, and inconsistencies—a massive social program that fails tests of simplicity and fairness. More important, our tax system has failed to keep pace with the changing economy, creating burdens and wastes of resources that weigh our nation down.

Graetz offers a solution. Imagine a world in which most Americans pay no income tax at all, and those who do enjoy a far simpler tax process—all this without decreasing government revenues or removing key incentives for employer-sponsored health care plans and pensions. As Graetz adeptly and clearly describes, this world is within our grasp.


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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Michael Graetz has done the near-impossible. He has come up with a sweeping tax reform plan that would simplify the system and retain the progressivity that is the linchpin of the American tax system. The book ought to appeal to liberals and conservatives and ought to be read by every presidential candidate out there.”―Norman Ornstein, Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute and co-author of The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track

-- Norman Ornstein

“This is must reading for presidential candidates, members of the tax writing committees of Congress and all Americans who are interested in a growing economy. It should inspire us to summon the political will to scrap our broken tax system and replace it with one that is simpler, fair and better able to serve the economic needs of America.”―Jack Danforth, former United States Senator

-- Jack Danforth

“There are few people on earth who understand the economics, the law, and the politics of the tax system as well as Michael Graetz. When the nation finally gets serious about reforming the tax code, this important book will be one of the reasons.”―Alan S. Blinder, Professor of Economics, Princeton University, former member of President Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers, and former Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve -- Alan S. Blinder

"The most interesting [tax] plan I've seen."―David Ignatius, The Washington Post

-- David Ignatius ― The Washington Post

“Michael Graetz, one of the world’s leading tax policy experts, has put forth a plan that joins sensible economics with political possibility. His proposal should be essential reading for the next president.”―Glenn Hubbard, Dean, Columbia University Graduate School of Business, former chair of the Council of Economic Advisors under President George W. Bush

-- Glenn Hubbard

About the Author

Michael J. Graetz is a Professor of Law at Columbia University Law School.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Yale University Press (January 21, 2008)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 280 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0300122748
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0300122749
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1 x 8.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.8 out of 5 stars 5

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Michael J. Graetz
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3.8 out of 5 stars
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Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on November 25, 2022
Maligns national sales tax proposals, while proposing something quite equivalent.

Sadly, I seemed lacked the patience to read all 261 pages, and mostly skimmed it.

Here's what I understood from the book:

(A) Essentially, the author's "competitive tax plan" laid out in the book is nothing but a Value Added Tax, with a few additional modifications thrown in. The author seems to want a VAT in /addition/ to income tax, rather than as an alternative to it. This will be accompanied by elimination of income tax for moderate-income households.

(B) The author seems to really hate the national sales tax, and repeatedly refers to it as "the so-called fair tax." Elsewhere, the author admits that national sales tax is economically equivalent to VAT (though practically, the latter does have better enforcement.)

The author proposes:
(1) A national VAT tax. (p. 83), of 10-14% (in addition to the current income tax!). The author often seems to refer to this as a consumption tax.
(2) Exempt income below 100k from income tax. (p. 107).
(3) Reduce corporate tax to 10-20% (p. 125).
(4) Tie payroll tax changes to (future) reforms in medicare/social security. (p. 148).
(5) Retain estate taxes but provide relief for farmers and small businesses. (p. 160). That sounds really strange to me. People change professions throughout their lives, after all.
(6) Use "smart cards" to relieve low/moderate income folks from the burdens of the consumption tax in (1). (p. 181). This, again, seems very similar to the "prebate" programs mentioned by the advocates of national sales tax.
(7) Encourage states to follow procedures similar to above, to reform their income tax.

To my mind, adding a VAT while NOT eliminating income tax just opens up yet another avenue for taxation. And, once unleashed, it's hard to put the genie back in the bottle. If you are in any doubt about that, just study the history of income tax itself.

I am no expert, nor did I read the book cover to cover, so please take the above summary with a grain of salt.

Mostly, I was turned off by all that maligning of the fair tax proposals, while proposing something quite similar. VAT is economically equivalent(!) as the author himself states. Plus, both programs have very similar exemptions with similar mechanisms for low-income households. In practice, VAT does lead to better enforcement than national sales tax. The author essentially seems to propose VAT, plus elimination of income tax for moderate income households, plus a sort of reimbursement of VAT for lower income households via "smart cards."

The author also seems to be very opposed to Milton Friedman's philosophy of "starving the beast" as the only solution to the ever-increasing size of the government. The reality is that the size of the government and the "needed government" always seems to grow to match the size of collected or projected taxes. The author seems to be a bit oblivious to that.

Given how many careers are wasted in optimizing for the crazy tax code we have, I would happily trade our complicated tax system for the simplicity of a national sales tax, or a national VAT. Sadly, it seems to me that the author's proposal is not it. The author would retain income tax (other than for moderate or low income earners). And, good luck retaining a simpler version of it! Given how Congress works, down the line, we will have TWO crazy systems, growing more complex year after year after year.

Finally, as crazy as the tax code is, using the tax code to effect behavior is still far more efficient than starting whole new government programs for that purpose. Imagine the waste in having, for every government program a government office in every single little town a la social security offices... Imagine having to navigate every government program and its bureaucracy...
Reviewed in the United States on January 18, 2008
Michael Graetz makes tax policy almost enjoyable. Graetz never forgets that the tax system's primary purpose is to raise the money needed to finance the government services that the nation wants in the least harmful way. Or, as the French economist Colbert put it, "The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing." Graetz provides a realistic assessment of our current tax structure and deftly identifies the failings of faddish proposals, such as the "fair tax" and the "flat tax." His proposal to reduce the number of people required to pay income tax and to add a value-added tax to our nation's fiscal arsenal deserves serious consideration by conservatives and liberals alike.

Paul N. Van de Water
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Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2010
Though the plan does present a comprehensive overview of his competetive tax plan, and it is written refreshingly different from the condescending "Fair Tax" book, this book is an academic tome to read. Slogging through the pages is akin to reading the IRS tax code.
4 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2008
This book is a pleasure to get through and does an excellent job assessing the current state of tax reform. His competitive tax plan makes quite a bit of sense too. Shifting a good portion of federal revenue to a VAT takes over 150 million individuals off the IRS rolls and simplifies the entire system. I worry that the implementation process would be too complicated to reap the benefits of the simpler system, and that this plan lacks the proper advocates in Congress, but that does not mean you shouldn't read this book and understand his plan. The VAT is a tried and true system throughout the EU, and could help the US in numerous ways.
8 people found this helpful
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