Readers On Tax 1

Prof. John Perry of the University of Southern Mississippi writes:

Three ideas that should be considered:

(1) Indexing everything to inflation. Self-evident.

(2) Indexing everything to a local cost of living. I live in Mississippi, where my modest salary goes a fair way. Someone in New York City who earns my salary ought, in a just world, to receive a higher standard deduction.

(3) Parents who send their children to private schools should receive a non-refundable tax credit for sending their children to private school, since they relieve thereby the public schools of expenses. This could be means-tested: the President earns more than enough to send his kids to a private school, but for many parents it constitutes a real sacrifice.

Something that should be kept: the refundable Child Tax Credit. Children are expensive, and having children is also expensive (many private insurers don’t include maternity with high deductible health plans), but it is in the state’s interest for families to produce children.

Something that should be looked at carefully: itemization. I simply don’t make enough to itemize; even with the mortgage interest deduction I don’t reach the standard deduction for my family. I have to ask myself how much money people have to make in order to make itemization worthwhile.