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Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Lessons Learned - Tax Reform Act of 1986

What lessons do you think were learned from TRA'86? How might such lessons be relevant to tax reform efforts today? Please share your ideas with others by posting a comment here. Thank you.

My question ties to a September 23, 2010 Senate Finance hearing - Tax Reform: Lessons from the Tax Reform Act of 1986.

For a summary of the hearing, see my article in the AICPA Tax Insider for 10/14/10 - here.

2 comments:

Peter Reilly said...

If there is going to be another comprehensive reform, I think it is critical that there be some sort of strong freeze on the Code at that point. There may not be a constituional way to accomplish that. I deally it would take a super majority to do anything other than change the rates or make technical corrections.

John said...

Sadly, and at the risk of sounding overly cynical, I think the most important and relevant lesson to come out of TRA '86 is that tax reform is truly a function of the political winds. We need look no further than our tax code today to see how politics over the nearly 25 past years has re-shaped it vis-a-vis TRA '86. The hard reality is that nothing short of a constitutional amendment can or will give us any substantial or lasting tax reform.