Now - max rate is ~40%. Tax code is 13,000+ dense pages.
Not to mention the red tape at the state level.
Reducing the complexity of business formation would by itself, encourage entrepreneurship.
I don't mean that as a criticism of Obama specifically. There is a long history of people promising tax simplification. Very little has ever happened, quickly erased by further complexification.
(Broadly speaking, they're doing it wrong. The solution to a too-complicated tax code is to fix the incentives Congress has to make a complicated tax code, then let the problem address itself incrementally over several years. Simply burning straight for simplication without addressing the underlying problems is doomed to failure. Of course, trying to address the underlying problems is also mostly doomed to failure, so shrug.)
Controlling people's purse strings is a main source of congressional power. I don't see them giving much of that up any time soon...
1. How much time did you spend incorporating your business?
2. How much time do you spend per year filing your income taxes, or do you hire an accountant?
3. If the latter, how many billable hours do they put into it? Was this a major expense for your business?
There may be a huge step function if they somehow simplify the tax code such that small and medium business owners can do it themselves in a day rather than having to hire an accountant, but anything short of a major overhaul will leave people in roughly the same position I think.
The tax code is complicated because it's layer upon layer of incentives and disincentives and hacks and amendments and loopholes and counter-loopholes built up over decades. It evolved into its current state, it wasn't built this way.
Why Can’t the I.R.S. Help Fill in the Blanks? http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/business/24digi.html?_r=1
Intuit's end-run http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/21/opinion/la-oe-ventry...