|
House OK's new tax system
|
 |
June 17, 1998: 5:58 p.m. ET
Representatives approve bill to abolish current tax laws after GOP joins protest
|
WASHINGTON (CNNfn) -- The House of Representatives on Wednesday approved legislation that directs Congress to replace the current U.S. tax system by the end of 2002.
The House voted 219-209 for the bill that sets deadlines for Congress to enact a new tax system by July 4, 2002 and eliminate the current U.S. tax code by Dec. 31, 2002. Similar legislation has been introduced in the Senate but no action has been taken on it.
President Clinton said he opposed the legislation because it would create too much uncertainty without an alternative in place. "You shouldn't get rid of what you have until you know what you're going to replace it with," he said.
Republicans do not yet have a consensus among themselves over what type of new tax system would be better than the current income tax system. Key proposals include a flat tax and a national sales tax.
In what may become an election-year tactic, Republicans painted those who opposed the legislation as defenders of the status quo.
"What the president should recognize is that the American people are tired of thousands of pages of regulations, of audits they don't understand by agents they can't talk with from a bureaucracy they can't control," House Speaker Newt Gingrich said.
Earlier in the day, standing in front of the Capitol on a truck loaded with petitions to abolish the tax code, Gingrich and other Republican members of Congress joined the leader of the National Federation of Independent Businesses calling for an end to the Internal Revenue Service tax code.
House Majority Leader Dick Armey ofTexas, a proponent of a plan for a flat tax rate, described the House legislation. "What this 'sunset the code' bill does is ... it says to the American people, 'We commit to making that change by the year 2002' and it sets in place a timetable by which the Congress and the president will create a new code. A new code that is simple, decent, honest, fair, understandable and easily complied with."
Armey added: "If we do this job right, and we have the ability to do so, we can allow the people of this country to fulfill one of the great American ideals: having a tax code that they realize is civil and decent (and) treats them with respect. They can then comply with that code out of a sense of civic duty and personal responsibility and voluntary compliance."
--from staff and wire reports 
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
