Andrew Yang on Social Security :
Fund Freedom Dividend payments with 10% VAT

Donald Trump on Corporations : Apr 17, 2018
Historic tax cuts and reforms for American businesses

PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP said, "Tuesday is a day hardworking Americans may dread more than any other. Tax Day. A day that individuals and families, small business owners and part-time workers struggle to conquer a burdensome, complex and extremely unfair tax code to determine how much money they owe the government. But we are changing Tax Day for Americans across the country. This is the last year Americans will fill out outdated, complicated tax forms. In the years ahead, because I signed one of the largest tax cuts in history and the most sweeping tax reform in a generation, many Americans will complete their taxes on a simple, single sheet of paper."

Stacey Abrams on Technology : May 2, 2017
We must invest in public infrastructure

Stacey Abrams on Tax Reform : Mar 30, 2017
Keep graduated income tax instead of 5.4% flat tax

MY VOTE: NO. While this plan will close important loopholes that penalize low-income married couples, in its current form, the legislation increases taxes on single low-income taxpayers.

Donald Trump on Free Trade : Sep 27, 2016
FactCheck: No, VATs are not tariffs against US exports

When a company in Germany makes goods to sell at home, it has to pay the VAT. But if it makes them to sell in the US, it doesn't--the tax gets waived at the border. If a US company sells in Germany, it does have to pay the VAT. [The UC Irvine] interpretation is that] border adjustability turns the VAT into an "implicit export subsidy" for foreign companies and an "implicit tariff" on US exporters. This is just dead wrong. Everybody has to pay Germany's VAT when they're selling goods in Germany. Nobody has to pay Germany's VAT when they're selling goods outside of Germany.

You can't really blame Trump for this one: a guy with a PhD in economics fed this stuff to him.

Donald Trump on Free Trade : Sep 26, 2016
Renegotiate NAFTA; they charge us 16%; we charge nothing

We have to renegotiate our trade deals. They're taking our jobs, they're giving incentives, they're doing things that, frankly, we don't do. Let me give you the example of Mexico. They have a VAT tax. We're on a different system. When we sell into Mexico, there's a tax. When they sell in--automatic, 16 percent, approximately. When they sell into us, there's no tax. It's a defective agreement. It's been defective for a long time, many years, but the politicians haven't done anything about it. But in all fairness to Secretary Clinton, when she started talking about this, it was really very recently. She's been doing this for 30 years. And why hasn't she made the agreements better? The NAFTA agreement is defective. We owe $20 trillion. We cannot do it any longer.

Bill Weld on Tax Reform : Jun 22, 2016
Cut taxes without abolishing the IRS

JOHNSON: Imagine life in this country without the IRS. Greatly simplified. The more money you make, the more things you consume.

WELD: You know, I don't think you have to go so far as to abolishing the IRS. I think if you give the people the sense that taxes are only going to go down--they may not go down a lot, but they're not going to go up. And that's something both Gary and I did. He cut taxes 14 times, never raised them. I cut taxes 21 times, never raised them. The result was, in my case that when I took office, it was a recession, 1991. We had the highest unemployment rate of all 11 industrialized states. At the end of my first term, we had the lowest because businesses have the confidence to build that plant next door. So, you know, in terms of industrial policy, in my case, biotech, telecom, software: We grew those industries in Massachusetts by paying attention to them. And the same could happen at the federal level.

John Kasich on Tax Reform : Oct 28, 2015
My plan is no fantasy; I moved Ohio from $8B to $2B surplus

CARSON: You also have to get rid of all the deductions and all the loopholes. You also have to do some strategic cutting in several places. Remember, we have 645 federal agencies and subagencies. Anybody who tells me that we need every penny in every one of those is in a fantasy world.

Gov. KASICH: We're going to have a 10% tithe, and just fix everything with waste, fraud, and abuse? Folks, we've got to wake up! These plans would put us trillions of dollars in debt. I actually have a plan. Why don't we just give a chicken in every pot while we're coming up with these fantasy tax gains? You have to deal with entitlements. You have to control discretionary spending. I went into Ohio where we had an $8 billion hole, and now we have a $2 billion surplus. We are up 347,000 jobs. In Washington, I fought to get the budget balanced. I was the architect. We cut taxes, and we have a $5 trillion projected surplus when I left.

Donald Trump on Tax Reform : Sep 16, 2015
Raise graduated taxes on hedge fund managers

CARSON: The people who [oppose flat taxes]--that's called socialism.

Q: What about the FairTax?

TRUMP: What I don't like about the FairTax is that if you make $200 million a year, you pay 10%, you're paying very little relatively to somebody that's making $50,000 a year, and has to hire H&R Block because the middle class. The hedge fund guys won't like me as much as they like me right now. I know them all, but they'll pay more. I know people that are making a tremendous amount of money and paying virtually no tax, and I think it's unfair.

Amy Klobuchar on Tax Reform : Oct 20, 2012
Extend Bush tax cuts except for those earning over $250K

For Bills, what to do about taxes is simple: a flat tax. He favors a solution that would tax every person and business 17.1 percent of their income, with just one or two deductions. That would allow tax returns to shrink to postcard size, and he said it may force some wealthy Americans to pay more.

Congress has three choices to reduce the debt, Bills said: grow the economy, reduce government or raise taxes. He said that cutting government would help the economy grow and could end up bringing in more taxes, even without a tax rate increase.

Mike Gravel on Energy & Oil : Apr 22, 2008
Institute a tax on oil

Gravel supports the following principles regarding energy:
• Support international mandatory emission targets to limit global warming.
• Encourage further development and use of alternative fuels.
• When elected president, I would work with Congress to enact a tax on oil to get Americans off carbon-based fuels.
• I would eliminate the income tax and replace it with a progressive fair tax, which would be set at 23%.
• Support the permanent repeal of the federal estate tax.

Mike Gravel on Tax Reform : Aug 1, 2007
I advocate a FairTax: pay as you spend

Mike Gravel on Environment : Jul 23, 2007
To get Americans to conserve, change the tax structure

A: Very simple, change our tax structure. Have a fair tax where people are taxed on what they spend rather than what they earn. And our tax system is totally corrupt right now. And so if we now have a retail sales tax, you’ll take this nation of ours from a consuming nation to a savings nation. And that’s the most significant thing we can do to alter climate change.

Mike Gravel on Tax Reform : Feb 21, 2007
National sales tax; no exceptions; prebates for essentials

Mike Gravel on Tax Reform : Dec 25, 2006
Repeal the income tax and close down the IRS

The Gravel Agenda: When elected President by the American people, I will:
• Repeal the income tax and closing down the IRS replacing it with a Fair Tax (a national sales tax with a pre-bate for necessities) that will reverse the flight of jobs and capital abroad while balancing the budget;
• Fund education as the top priority it must be in a democracy.

Mike Gravel on Tax Reform : Apr 17, 2006
Tax system unfairness only superceded by incomprehensibility

Jesse Ventura on Tax Reform : Dec 10, 2000
Modernize, simplify, & clarify tax system

• A better tax system will be more understandable and predictable for taxpayers, so they know how much tax they’re paying & why, and what government is doing with those dollars.
• A better tax system will be more fair, balancing citizens’ ability to pay and the cost and benefits of the government services they consume, and building confidence that the tax laws are being applied evenhandedly to all.
• A fair tax system will eliminate unfunded mandates by assigning tax responsibility to the same level of government that defines what levels of service will be provided.
• A better tax system will be modern, reflecting the economy, technology, and society of the 21st century so we can raise sufficient revenue to meet future needs, be competitive with other states and countries and incorporate new technology and ways of doing business.
• And finally, a better tax system will just make sense, with tax laws that don’t undermine citizens and communities from doing the right things.

Donald Trump on Tax Reform : Jul 2, 2000
Opposes flat tax; benefits wealthy too much

I object to the flat tax:
• It is unfair to the poor; eliminating the Earned Income Tax Credit [hurts] taxpayers at the lowest rungs of the ladder.
• It is unfair to workers by taxing them for health insurance and other benefits.
• Only the wealthy would reap a windfall, because a flat tax would allow them to cash in interest payments and capital gains without paying personal income taxes.
• I don’t believe that a flat tax could raise enough revenue to keep the government operating.