Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, struggling in the polls with just days left before a critical primary, announced a plan to drastically slash tax rates for all filers and end the use of many loopholes and deductions employed by the wealthy.
Romney’s campaign team rolled out what they called a “flatter, fairer and simpler tax system,” in a Wednesday conference call with reporters after the former Massachusetts governor announced the news in person to more than a thousand people who gathered to see him at a rally near Phoenix.
“I’m going to lower rates across the board for all Americans by 20 percent,” Romney told the crowd in the suburb of Chandler.
Romney revealed his tax plan with less than a week to go before both Arizona and Michigan voters choose a GOP presidential candidate. The latest polls in Arizona show Romney with a lead of approximately 8 points over former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. But in Michigan, Santorum is tied with Romney, who was born and raised near Detroit. Many see a Michigan win as critical for Romney, whose father George Romney once served as governor.
Santorum has surged in part by attracting social conservatives who have failed to warm to Romney, who has in the past embraced views on issues like gun control and abortion they see as too moderate.
On Wednesday, Romney tried to shift the focus away from social issues and back on the economy, and how he plans to improve it.
Romney said his tax proposal would spur job creation by lowering the corporate tax rate to 25 percent and the top individual tax rate from 35 percent to 28 percent, a move that he said will help small-business owners, who do much of the nation’s hiring but who do not file as corporations.
Those in the lowest tax bracket would see a reduction from 10 percent to 8 percent, under the Romney plan.
Romney’s proposal would eliminate the estate tax and the alternative minimum tax that snags some middle-class filers.
The tax cuts would not add to the deficit because the plan would also close many loopholes and eliminate deductions for upper income earners, said Romney aides.
“We want middle income Americans to be the place where we focus our help, because it is the middle income Americans who have been hurt by Obama’s economy,” Romney said in Chandler.
Romney’s announcement came on the same day President Obama announced his own plan to cut some corporate taxes to 28 percent while raising others, including taxes on oil companies.
Alex Brill, a tax scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, said Romney’s plan would create a fairer tax code.
“There is an understanding in Romney’s plan that the purpose of the tax code is to raise the revenue that is necessary and not pick winners and losers,” Brill told The Washington Examiner. “The problem we have with the system today is it is riddled with winners and losers through narrow provisions and broad policies that favor one industry over another.”
