Editor’s note: Family Wealth Report touched upon the Republican candidates last week (read Part 1 and Part 2). The series continues with an interview with the National Taxpayers Union, a campaign organization which tends towards fiscal conservative and libertarian solutions, but is politically independent.

The current Republican presidential hopefuls are exploring tax reform more comprehensively than any field of candidates since 1996, according to the National Taxpayers Union.

“I’m particularly interested to see if the flat tax Perry has proposed will revive what is widely seen as a sagging campaign,” says Pete Sepp, vice executive president of the NTU, a pressure group campaigning for lower taxes.

Herman Cain

“One of the problems that occurred in 1996 was that the candidates turned on each other,” Sepp says. “Some of the criticisms of Herman Cain’s plan have been quite harsh and not exactly constructive.”

“I know that Mr Cain’s initial plan, the one he calls 9-9-9, is supposed to be a transition plan to what he and others call the 'Fair Tax proposal,' which would be a consumption tax in place of the current system in its entirety. That leaves us wondering: why have the transition and go through all that political difficulty if your ultimate goal is the ‘Fair Tax’? It seems that one would be paying for this politically twice.”

Rick Perry

“You might encounter individuals with high net worth or high cash flows where you would have to pay somewhat more under a 20 per cent flat rate tax than under the current system, but that largely depends on the type of wealth and the income that they have.”

Newt Gingrich

“Gingrich’s proposal is among the most pure of the flat-tax plans (15 per cent flat income tax) and I don’t believe that there are the kinds of deductions for things such as charitable contribution which are present in Perry’s plan. That’s one reason why the rate of tax is lower under his plan, because there are more types of income subject to that tax.”

Ron Paul

“If it were possible to achieve the budgetary savings that Paul proposes, eliminating the income tax would in theory be possible. If he were to become president, one would assume that there were to be broad public support for a platform of basically rolling back federal expenditure to a much, much lower lever, (and) eliminating entire cabinet departments. There is a major question as to how hastily it would all be done.”

Michelle Bachmann

“I know that as a member of Congress, she has in general supported the concept of tax reform and considering a system which has fewer rates, (but) so far she has not offered the level of detail or boldness of reform that one would expect of a representative of the Tea Party movement. I’d say (she is) in the lower tier.”

Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman

“What they would like to do is work from the system as it is, and make incremental changes that would certainly be beneficial, although not likely to excite many of either those who consider themselves Tea Party supporters or those who consider themselves libertarians. They have some good proposals that could become law in the near time, but neither of their plans could be called a massive overhaul of the system. A lot of what you see in their plans is work that has already been done through the President’s commission on deficit reduction.”

“They are looking more toward the near time and what is feasible given the likely composition of Congress and the will of Congress.”

Rick Santorum

“Santorum has put forward some interesting proposals, almost in between Romney and Huntsman versus Cain and Perry. It would be difficult to put all the proposals he has made in one category, but I guess you could say that he is somewhat bolder than what Romney and Huntsman have come up with, but not as much as Perry, Paul and Gingrich.”

Gary Johnson:

Here, Sepp admits that he does not know much about Johnson, who has only taken part in two out of eight debates. “My guess is that he would support many of the similar proposals Paul has made, but maybe does not want to cut back as far on public expenditure, although I have not seen enough detail to say that for certain.”

“The art of the possible”

Sepp highlights that whatever the candidates campaign for, all kinds of change have to start in Congress: “The President can provide leadership on the issue, but ultimately it would be up to Congress to put up with a plan.”

“Anyone who wins the nominee would probably have to take tax reform in the direction of not necessarily near tinkering but perhaps substantial alterations as opposed to entirely replacing the system,” Sepp says. “That seems to be where the candidate who eventually wins this will sit.”

Sepp adds that he thinks that all candidates would work hard to prevent Obama’s tax hikes due to come into force in 2013. However, he highlights that the NTU is not politically affiliated to the GOP and work with organization on both the right and the left depending on the issue at hand.

“I know for example a Senate coalition between Oregon Senator Roy Widen, a Democrat, and Indiana Senator Dan Coates, a Republican,” he says. “They have introduced something called the 'bipartisan tax fairness and simplification act'; they would actually enact a tax system that is somewhat more ambitious than, say, Mitt Romney.”