It's probably worth reading, although it's going to be a real chore. The executive summary sounds good, but it's a hardsell, and given that in most such papers the guts flat-out contradict the executive summary, it's necessary to read the whole damn thing. I'm still in the exec summary.

The panel's alleged to be bipartisan, but there's no mistaking which President this Presidential Commission works for. While overall simplifying the tax code is a great idea, their recommendations are tinged with a distinct bias toward the wealthy. By "wealthy" I mean not only high-income people, but particularly people whose income derives from investment rather than employment. One of the proposed plans exempts all dividend income from taxation, meaning that some rich kid living on a trust fund stock portfolio will never pay taxes. It means that Bill Gates will pay income taxes on his Microsoft salary of about a quarter million, but never have to pay taxes on dividends from his Microsoft stock worth about $50 billion bucks.

This must be the report that generated the outrage a couple of weeks ago about changes to the deductibility of home mortgage interest. Both proposed plans cap the deduction at the 15% tax rate, and limit the mortgage amount to "average regional price of housing (limits ranging from about $227,000 to $412,000)", down from the current cap of $1.1 million. That's going to be devastating for high-cost housing markets like California; here in the Bay Area the average home price is around $700,000.

Whether the mortgage deduction is right or wrong, you can be sure that reducing it's going to wreak havoc on the middle class. The real estate industry's nervous already about a housing bubble that looks to burst soon, and reducing the deduction's going to ensure that the housing market crashes and burns, I think possibly to a degree we haven't seen since the Great Depression.

Yet, I have to admit that a readjustment is necessary to keep housing affordable (or return it to affordability, in too many areas). The interest deduction and recent low interest rates have made possible the hyperinflation in housing that's pricing many people out of the market (disclosure: Including me). Housing prices have almost nothing to do with real costs such as land and construction, and are based almost entirely on speculation. Something's gotta give...but it's gonna hurt.

So far I can only report a mixed reaction to the report. Hundreds of pages to go....no rest for the wonky.