Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal revealed his tax reform plan on Wednesday, which he touted as “Everybody Has Got to Have Some Skin in the Game.” Jindal’s plan includes a progressive income tax that includes three rates: two percent, 10 percent and 25 percent, and he said most Americans will fall under the 10 percent rate.
“We simply must require that every American has some skin in this game,” Jindal said in a statement announcing his plan. “If we have generations of Americans who never pay any taxes, it will be very easy for them to turn a blind eye to absurd government spending and to continue to allow our government to bankrupt our nation. There is great strength in shared sacrifice.”
Along with the idea of shared sacrifice, Jindal described three other key points of his tax reform plan as neutering the IRS, taxing “CEOs rather than companies” and lessening the amount of money the federal government will be able to spend.
Jindal’s plan eliminates the personal exemption and several deductions, but maintains the charitable contributions deduction, the Earned Income Tax Credit (which Jindal transfers to the payroll tax) and the Mortgage Interest Deduction. It also installs a standard deduction for health insurance costs and a “nonrefundable dependents credit that accounts for household size of dependents.”
His tax reform plan changes the corporate tax structure by eliminating the corporate income tax. Jindal would also move to a “territorial taxation system” in dealing with coprorations, which would include “a one-time 8 percent forever tax rate [that] would be imposed on income earned abroad.”
Jindal noted that his plan would also undo the estate and gift tax, and repeal the taxes imposed by Obamacare, which the governor proposes to repeal and replace.
