Republican presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani announced his tax proposals, saying he would make the Bush administration tax cuts permanent, eliminate inheritance taxes and reduce marginal tax rates.
Giuliani said he would add a permanent child tax credit and would link the alternative minimum tax to the inflation rate to prevent it from snaring more taxpayers. He said the AMT would otherwise affect 30 million taxpayers by 2010.
The former New York City mayor criticized the so-called "death tax" on inheritances, saying he wanted to "give the death tax the death penalty." Giuliani has claimed he cut taxes 23 times while he was mayor. But critics charge that he also left office with a steep budget deficit and that some of the tax cuts he claims were really made by the state.
Giuliani spoke at a campaign appearance with flat-tax advocate Steve Forbes, a former presidential candidate, and former Massachusetts Governor Paul Cellucci. He claimed that under Democratic proposals, families of four making $50,000 per year would need to pay an extra $2,000 annually in taxes, and that there would be a $3 trillion tax hike over the next decade if the Bush tax cuts didn't become permanent.
