No solution to tax breaks, which total over $1 trillion a year

Romney’s Tax Plan Leaves Key Variables Blank

By ANNIE LOWREY and DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI, NYT

WASHINGTON — If any single question can be said to dominate the presidential campaign, it is whether the conservative policies advocated by Mitt Romney would help or hurt the middle class. And no issue hits the heart of that question more than taxes.

Mr. Romney says no middle-income Americans will have their tax bill go up if he is president. President Obama says the average middle-class family would pay as much as $2,000 a year more under the Romney plan.

It is a conflict that grew in prominence during the party conventions and that both sides intend to push from now until Election Day. And it has focused sharper attention on what many experts agree is one of the tax code’s biggest problems: an array of tax breaks totaling more than $1 trillion a year.

The breaks cover activities as varied as cutting timber, providing health insurance to employees, selling stock and buying a home, making them popular with powerful constituencies and voters. But many economists say the tax breaks are inefficient and even distort the economy.

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