Western Railroad Discussion > Continue tax credits for maintenance on short lines?

In this era of talk about changing the tax code, the Roll Call newspaper has a nice article about the tax credits Genesee & Wyoming and RailAmerica took in 2011 for maintaining their tracks.

http://www.rollcall.com/news/one_tax_credit_that_is_all_but_permanent-219419-1.html

Don Strack

Get rid of all tax credits and other indirect subsidies for this industry and that industry, along with all deductions. Then establish a flat tax at, say, 15% and see what happens. If nothing else, it would wipe out the lobbying industry, H&R Block and their like, etc. for a few years while the results of the new system became known.

masterphots Wrote:
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> Get rid of all tax credits and other indirect
> subsidies for this industry and that industry,
> along with all deductions. Then establish a flat
> tax at, say, 15% and see what happens. If nothing
> else, it would wipe out the lobbying industry, H&R
> Block and their like, etc. for a few years while
> the results of the new system became known.


Good idea.

One problem, of course, is that the tax code is used to implement social policy as well as to raise money for the government.

Owning your own house is considered a social good, so there's a deduction for mortgage interest and real estate taxes. Canada does fine without these. Same thing for deducting income taxes in high tax states like NJ, CT, NY, IL, etc. Why not eliminate the deduction and force these states to become more efficient with taxpayer dollars? Why should people in TX, FL etc subsidize the other states?

Then you get to big stuff, like tax free employer paid health insurance, and the fireworks go off...

(And, that's without getting into things like deferred revenue, transfer pricing, income earned and taxed abroad, etc)