SIMI VALLEY : Panel Discusses Possible Benefits of Flat-Tax Plans

Once ridiculed as the “flat-earth tax,” flat-tax proposals are now being taken seriously, said former California Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. during a forum on such proposals at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on Wednesday.

Brown was joined in the panel discussion--sponsored by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Foundation--by former Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, Bruce Herschensohn, and Alvin Rabushka, a Hoover Institute economist who was dubbed one of the “godfathers” of flat-tax proposals by U.S. News and World Report.

While Brown touted the idea in his bid for the Democratic nomination for President in 1992, Herschensohn made a similar proposal as a Republican candidate for the Senate the same year.

They both lost, but said they now feel vindicated by a new crop of politicians supporting flat-tax proposals.

“It was viewed as a weird idea,” Brown said. “But it’s getting less weird.”

A flat tax would impose the same tax rate on the rich and poor alike, ending the maze of rates, exemptions and deductions that now make up the tax code.

The proposals mentioned at the forum Wednesday included rates between 8% and 19%, with the first $25,000 of income free from tax.

Critics of the proposals said the changes in the tax code would benefit the rich and hurt the middle class.

But supporters at the forum said a flat tax would remove loopholes and exemptions that allow corporations and the very rich to reap huge deductions. That would simplify the tax codes, making them fairer.

Rabushka held up two laminated index cards he said would replace the more than 9,000 pages of tax codes now used by the federal government to figure out individual and corporate taxes.

The ideas of Rabushka, Brown and Herschensohn on the subject were warmly received by more than 350 members of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. at Wednesday’s forum.

The idea of a flat tax has also gained currency with the new crop of conservatives in Congress.

Last week, House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) formed a commission to look at overhauling the tax system and making way for a flat tax. The commission, headed by former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp, is expected to release its findings by October.