Daily Deduction A Debate, A New Plan, A Vote, and Two Mulligans
Renu Zaretsky
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Who could forget: There’s another GOP debate tonight. This one is on the Fox Business channel. Moderators promise to stick to substantive economic issues. Speaking of substance, here’s your TPC cheat sheet on the candidates’ tax plans. The next Democratic debate will be Saturday night… live. Ben Carson starts to flesh out his tax plan. Carson started to lay out additional details of his tax plan in a TV interview today. His proposal: A flat rate on all income. “In order (to) have to, you know, remain revenue neutral, we would have to make that rate at about 15 percent, and eliminate all the deductions and all the loopholes," he told Fox Business. Carson also has endorsed a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. Today on the Hill… The House is not in town but today we can expect the Senate to vote on a revised version of the National Defense Authorization Act. President Obama vetoed the initial version. The redo includes $5 billion in cuts, matching overall spending levels lawmakers approved in the recent budget agreement. The Senate will also continue working on the fiscal year 2016 spending bill for veterans’ benefits and military construction. For the coming tax season, Intuit’s TurboTax will revert to its old self. The 2014 tax year edition of the software did not include Schedules C, D, and E in its deluxe desktop package. If a filer wanted those Schedules, she had to purchase an upgrade to her software. Outrage (and rebates) ensued. So for tax year 2015: “We heard our customers loud and clear. They want their TurboTax desktop product to do what it has always done – handle the same tax situations as it did in years past,” said Sasan Goodarzi, general manager of Intuit’s TurboTax business. In case you missed it, the federal government wants more Americans to save. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew published an op-ed on Yahoo Finance yesterday, touting the Obama Administration’s myRA program. “Our goal is to make sure that every American is not only encouraged to save, but has the tools they need to create a financially secure retirement. myRA alone will not solve the nation’s retirement savings gap, but it will be an important stepping stone for encouraging and creating a nation of savers.” Interested in subscribing to the Daily Deduction, the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center summary of the days tax news? Sign-up here to get the Daily Deduction delivered to your inbox every morning. If youd like to tell us about a new research paper or have any comments about our feature, write us at dailydeduction “at” taxpolicycenter “dot” org.