Since taking office two years ago, abolishing the IRS has remained at the top of Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz's to-do list. Now that he's running for president, that plan is beginning to come into full fruition.
Though it's still being crafted by his team of economic advisers, Cruz, 44, sat down with the Washington Examiner to give a sneak peek into his tax reform proposal that he says would kick-start economic growth and make the IRS obsolete.
"When it comes to jobs and growth and opportunity, the two most effective levers that the federal government has to facilitate small businesses creating new jobs, are tax reform and regulatory reform," Cruz told the Examiner while in Las Vegas. "I am campaigning on a flat tax that would allow every American to fill out his or her taxes on a post card that allow us to abolish the IRS."
Instead, Cruz would like to see "some much smaller division" of the Treasury Department tracking and collecting taxes.
A simple flat tax, in which all income is taxed at the same rate regardless of earnings or wealth, would replace today's complex and superfluous tax code, making the IRS "irrelevant" and obsolete, according to Cruz. Though he said he may decide to allow some deductions for charitable write-offs and certain mortgage interests.
"We will roll it out with precise details in the coming weeks or months," he said. "There are trade-offs to be had and we're right now internally having those debates, in terms of whether you have a couple of deductions or exemptions or not, at what rate the flat rate is set, what level of standard deductions and so those trade-offs we're currently debating."
A similar plan has also been put forth by another GOP presidential hopeful, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, as explained on his 2016 campaign website.
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen caught word of the desire to abolish the IRS and told reporters in March that "politics are politics," reported Bloomberg.
"It is interesting to me. When you say you're going to abolish the IRS and everybody will fill out a small card, somebody has to collect the money," he said after a speech at the National Press Club in Washington.
"You could call them something other than the IRS if that made you feel better," he added.
Cruz's tax reform plan would likely require congressional approval, which could cause complications and delays, but when it comes to regulatory reform, Cruz says he has no qualms over using his executive authority as president to roll back regulatory oversteps unilaterally carried out by President Obama.
"One major area of unilateral steps concerns regulatory reform, the second half of job growth," Cruz told the Examiner.
"There are a great many things that can be implemented unilaterally in the executive," he said. "The president, under Article II of Constitution, is charged with executing the laws. Many of the most burdensome rules coming from Washington come from the executive branch from unaccountable, unelected bureaucrats and if I'm elected president, one of the very top priorities is going to be to rein back those regulations, those executive orders, those rules from Washington that are burdening small businesses and killing jobs."
