Tax the Olympians

The underlying issue is that taxes aren?t supposed to be a cosmic judgment on the underlying worthiness of people?s activities. The earnings of a great artist and a reality TV show producer are taxed the same. That can seem a bit perverse at times, but having Congress try to assess which professions are important and which are bad would be much worse. The goal of the tax code should be to try to raise an adequate amount of money in a way that?s economically efficient and meets social equality goals. That tends to mean as broad a tax base as possible?few deductions or exemptions, in other words?to make it possible to raise revenue with relatively low tax rates. Exceptions should generally be justified in terms of broad benefits to society. We have tax breaks for corporate research and development based on the idea that innovation helps the whole economy and not just the most innovative companies. Indeed, even in this age of massive polarization, the desirability, in principle, of a tax code with fewer deductions is a rare point of bipartisan consensus. Over the years, enterprising wonks have even created a whole vocabulary of ?tax expenditures? and ?spending through the tax code? to try to reframe these giveaways in the eyes of conservatives as a form of maligned subsidies.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=76c5537683f1fbc94136d69a41d2c1cd

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