The Tax Reform Act of 1986 was a milestone reform of the tax code under Reagan, and written by Sen. Bob Packwood. The revision was two step system was widely heralded as fair, and passed with strong bi-partison support in both the house and senate.

However, the fly in the ointment was the minimum tax provision. This clause said that regardless of deductions, if you made X amount of money you would pay a minimum amount. This meant that wealthy people that had been accustomed to paying a very small percentage of their income in tax all of a sudden had very large tax bills. It was barely a year before lobbyists began gutting the TRA of 1986, and today we are back to where we were.

Even with the massive tax rollbacks for the wealthy, if a minimum tax were implemented today, most big earners would scream like a stuck pig, just as they did in 1986.

As an object lesson, the taxes rates on the wealthy that the Reagan administration considered fair have now been rolled back by around 50%, and yet we still hear all manner of whining and complaining about tax rates. The average percentage paid by corporations today is just half of what it was under Reagan, and averages 6% of earnings. If you work for wages, and unless you make more than $500,000, you can count on the fact that you are are getting hosed, and paying far in excess of your fair share.

Those of us at the higher income levels are able to write off a $99,000 Porsche Cayenne the same year we buy it (for business, wink, wink) we have available to us more leasing schemes that I have room to list, or we can simply generate and earn most of our income through offshore shell companies, leave the money there, and not have it taxed at all. The shell company in turn owns all of our assets for us, but we have use of the houses and use the cars, planes and beach front condos.

This entire issue is a sham, and those in the current administration know it. The 'conservative' strategy is to tax wage earners heavily so the rest of us don't have to pay squat. It works for me, but how well is it working for you? You are being played...

oc