AP Interview: Perdue, Kingston talk taxes | The Augusta Chronicle

AP: Do you believe the House and Senate should take a closer look at tax breaks, specifically corporate tax expenditures, and would you be willing to eliminate some of these tax breaks even though that would result in an effective tax increase on those businesses?

Kingston: Again, I don’t believe we have a revenue problem as much as we have a spending problem, so I would not want to have tax reform designed to increase the revenues. But we need tax simplification. We need a tax code that stimulates business growth. We need one that is simple to comply with, and one that is transparent so that you are not spending thousands of dollars to a CPA or an accountant to fill out your tax return. I support the fair tax, and I am endorsed by fair tax author John Linder and fair tax champion Congressman Rob Woodall. But I’m also supported by flat tax champion Steve Forbes. The last statistic I saw, and I’m always a little nervous quoting statistics, so I’m going to couch this by saying the last statistic I saw was that we spend 6 billion man-hours a year complying with the tax code. That’s time that could be better spent inventing a better mouse trap, curing some horrible disease or investing frankly in a plant expansion that would create more jobs. So we need, in order to compete in the international marketplace, a simpler tax system.

Perdue: No, I wouldn’t and the reason why is that, again, we already have a tremendous disadvantage. These are job creators, these are people that reinvest capital, they reinvest properties, they create jobs. And we have them already at a tremendous disadvantage against foreign competitors. Let me give you an example, our 35 percent corporate tax rate on manufacturing in the United States is competing with someone let’s say in Malaysia at a 16 or 17 percent corporate tax rate. … What we’ve had is 100 years of Congress and various administrations using taxes to direct activity, and how people operate. I believe that has put us at a tremendous disadvantage. It’s a very confusing and expensive burden on not only businesses but individuals. I have become a student of the fair tax, and I think it absolutely would level the playing field with foreign competitors and bring some manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. So I have become not only a supporter of that, but a proponent of that. So you say, how do you get the economy going again? It’s a very broad answer. But the number one thing to do to solve the debt crisis is to get the economy going again like we did in the 80s.

via AP Interview: Perdue, Kingston talk taxes | The Augusta Chronicle.