Obituary – David Bradford
Posted by Mitch Townsend on March 4th, 2005 (All posts by Mitch Townsend)
David Bradford was an advocate of tax simplification and flattened rates, and the author of “Untangling the Income Tax” (Harvard University Press, 1986). His first preference was for a straight consumption tax (VAT or sales tax). Another interesting proposal was a tax only earned income, leaving returns on capital untaxed. The reasoning behind this was that
- earnings are roughly equivalent to consumption, given a low rate of savings;
- such a tax could be made politically palatable by allowing some different tax rates;
- it would eliminate the “tax arbitrage” of the mortgage interest exemption (high-bracket taxpayers pay deductible mortgage interest, some of which is in turn paid to low-bracket taxpayers as taxable income on passbook savings), and
- it would be easier to administer and harder to evade than a VAT.
Dr. Bradford served in the Ford and Bush 41 administrations. His analysis of the income tax law in effect in the 1970’s led to the extraordinary bracket-flattening of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 during the Reagan administration. Another obituary here.