Income Tax “Loopholes” and Political Rhetoric

Abstract

During the 1972 presidential campaign, federal income tax reform came unexpectedly to the foreground as a political issue in the Democratic primaries and promised for a few weeks to play an important role in the election itself. It was soon elbowed aside by the prospect of peace in Viet Nam, charges of political espionage and corruption, and attacks on the personal attributes of the two candidates, but for a short time it actually succeeded in crowding school bussing off the front pages. To the cynic, this might in retrospect seem to be the principal accomplishment, if not the purpose, of the vivid charges that the Internal Revenue Code is riddled with loopholes and that millionaires sometimes pay less in taxes than bluecollar workers. I am inclined, rather, to believe that these grievances continued to smoulder below the surface, like the issue of school bussing, even after President Nixon and Senator McGovern turned their attention to other questions.