Camp Proposes Cutting Top Tax Rates to 25%

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., has proposed reducing the top individual and corporate tax rate to 25 percent.

Both types of taxes are currently as high as 35 percent. Camp told The Wall Street Journal that an overhaul of the Tax Code is needed to spur the economy and job creation. Congress has been conducting a series of hearings on tax reform, and Camp’s proposal is seen as a possible Republican campaign theme for next year’s elections.

Camp did not specify how the federal government would make up the lost tax revenue, but his aides suggested that various unspecified tax deductions and credits could be reduced or eliminated.

“America needs a Tax Code that promotes, not prevents, job creation,” Camp told the Journal. “Today’s code is simply too complex, too costly, and too burdensome for families and employers of all sizes to comply with.”

Rep. Sander Levin, the ranking Democratic member of the committee and former chairman, described the proposal as unrealistic. “So far any discussions with Mr. Camp have focused on various ideas for corporate tax reform," he said in a statement. "It’s one thing to conceive a goal of a top tax rate of 25 percent for individuals and corporations—which would reduce revenues by $2 trillion over a decade. It’s another to see how it would work when Republicans are slashing vital programs, there’s a need to decrease—not increase—the deficit and the very wealthy are already major recipients of the Bush tax cuts.”