Do you think that the new tax act helped or further complicated the
tax code?
Taxes have always been complicated and more than likely without
common sense tax laws, they will remain that way. The 2017 Tax law
gave new opportunities to the wealthy to find ways to not pay taxes
or to reduce their tax rates while taking away tax laws that helped
low- and middle-income earners. In one of the articles I read, it said
reforming taxes should help with reducing the inequalities in the tax
system and make it less complicated but that the 2017 Tax Act had
increased the complexities.
Have we become more competitive with other countries?
Not really. The 2021 International Tax Competitiveness Index ranked
the United States 21 up from 22 place in 2019. This index measures a
country’s tax laws by looking at competitiveness and neutrality. Being
competitive means having low marginal tax rates which encourages
businesses to invest in that country. Neutrality in a tax code means it
is a simple tax code that is not complex and allows for maximum
revenue with little to no tax breaks.
Why is international tax so important to the U.S. tax code?
More and more businesses are operating globally and not just within
the borders of the U.S. This means that businesses are going to seek
out countries where the tax laws are not complex, and the tax rates
are going to be the most beneficial to the company. Therefore the
U.S. tax code has to be competitive or comparable to international tax
standards or risk losing business income tax.
References
2021 International Tax Competitiveness Index. (2021, October 18). Tax
Foundation. https://taxfoundation.org/2021-international-tax-
competitiveness-index/
Huang, C.-C. (2019, February 27). Fundamentally Flawed 2017 Tax
Law Largely Leaves Low- and Moderate-Income Americans Behind.
https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/fundamentally-flawed-
2017-tax-law-largely-leaves-low-and-moderate-income#_ftn2
