Tax ReformQ. Mr. President, my name is Robert Keeter, and I'll be attending East Carolina University next year. I would like to know what do you feel has been your greatest achievement as President?
The President. I'm delighted to answer that one. There are a number of things that I've thought we did rather well and was proud of. But right now, the fact that both the Senate and the House have passed tax reform legislation for the income tax -- meaning that when we can get those two together -- one of their programs they passed, I don't like at all. The other one's pretty good. But both of them can be improved. This, I think, would be the greatest achievement. We have had an income tax system that was passed in 1913 and has grown to be such a monster that virtually -- well, the main part of the people in our country have to hire professional help to find out how much they owe the Government. And the tax is such that if you make a mistake, the Government then comes back and penalizes you and charges you a fine for having made a mistake. At the same time, the Government has warned you not to seek advice from their own employees, because their own employees don't understand the law. And, therefore, you'd be penalized for their mistake.
Now, as I told you, 14 brackets in the income tax and -- all the way up to 50 percent. When I was in motion pictures -- and as you know, motion pictures do pay a little above the average scale if you make a go of it -- you'd come to a time the top bracket was 90 percent. Well, you'd come to a point in which you were in the 90-percent bracket. And somebody would offer you a fine picture, and you'd just love to do it. But you said, ``I'm not going to do that picture for 10 cents on the dollar.''
Well, today this tax that the Senate -- or bill that the Senate has passed has only two brackets: 15 percent and then 27 percent. Meaning that there would always be an incentive, even if you're in the 27-percent bracket, because you're going to get to keep 73 cents out of every dollar you earn no matter how many dollars those are. And it's been simplified to the place that you won't need a public accountant to tell you how much you owe. You can figure out your tax yourself. It's fair. There will be about 6 million people at the bottom of the scale who'll be dropped from having to pay any income tax at all. And about 80 percent of the people will be in that 15-percent bracket.
So, I think the fact that we have finally gotten the Congress of the United States to deal with this problem of tax reform is the greatest achievement. And I'm going to be riding herd all the way to see that we finally get it through.
Q. Thank you, sir.
The President. All right.
http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1986/51386d.htm More at link on: Teacher Shortages, Social Security, Farm Industry, Nuclear Disarmament, etc.
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