Senate candidate calls for flat tax

U.S. Senate candidate Tom Del Beccaro is proposing a flat income tax on both the state and federal levels.

Del Beccaro discussed his proposal on Monday during a stop in downtown Riverside, the start of a three-day tour of the state designed to build support for a major overhaul of both tax codes, according to a campaign statement.

“It’s time to restore incentives [to] the economy,” Del Beccaro, former chairman of the California Republican Party, said in the statement. “Today, I propose a flat tax for the country and California.”

Del Beccaro’s federal income tax proposal would:

• Eliminate the current corporate tax system and replace it with a 15.5 percent net business income tax. Business purchases, along with wage and salary deductions, would be accounted for immediately.

• Replace the current personal income tax with a 15.5 percent tax rate on wages and salaries, capital gains, dividends, interest and inheritance.

• Eliminate all deductions except for standard deductions, which would be doubled.

• Do away with the cap on the payroll tax.

• Eliminate the estate tax, Affordable Care Act tax and all tariffs. Also, the net business income tax would be applied to all imports when they cross the border.

• Once they became law, any changes to the new system would require a three-fifths vote of both houses of Congress.

In California, Del Beccaro wants a six percent flat tax on all incomes, and the elimination of “thousands of pages” of the state’s tax code.

The goal would be to make the state tax code simple enough so that state residents could fill out their tax returns on something the size of a post card, according to Del Beccaro.

“More than 22 percent of California’s children are living in poverty, the highest [poverty rate] in the nation,” said Del Beccaro, a real estate and business lawyer, in the statement. “That is a result of a lack of jobs. The first step in addressing this issue is [to create] an employment friendly environment, which is what my flat-tax proposal will do.”

Del Beccaro was accompanied during his Riverside stop by economist Stephen Moore, founder and former president of the conservative Club for Growth and an advisor to Del Beccaro’s campaign.