Amid controversy, Cain defends tax plan

With reports of past sexual harassment allegations swirling around his presidential campaign, Herman Cain also spent part of his Monday defending his plan to overhaul the U.S. tax code – and dismissing his rivals’ tax proposals.

Cain, speaking at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said that he had hoped his 9-9-9 plan would unite supporters of a flat income tax rate and those who want the U.S. to rely solely on a national sales tax.

{mosads}Under Cain’s proposal, businesses and individuals would be taxed at a flat 9 percent, and a new national sales tax would be implemented at that same rate.

The former Godfather’s Pizza chief executive also said Monday that he would eventually like the U.S. to transition to the so-called Fair Tax, a pure national sales tax. But Cain also tried to defend his plan from GOP opponents who have likened 9-9-9 to the sort of value-added taxes (VAT) common in Europe.

“The reason that some of my opponents are trying to call it a VAT is because they want to scare people, because what happened in Europe — they have both. They’ve got a VAT tax, but they’ve got multiple VAT taxes, value added,” Cain said at the AEI event.

“It doesn’t matter what you call it,” Cain later added. “It’s a single rate at the end of the cycle for a product. People who want to call it a VAT, be my guest. It’s a single rate, 9 percent. They’re really trying to scare people away from 9-9-9.”

Cain’s appearance, and a subsequent event at the National Press Club, came just one day after Politico reported that two women who worked under Cain at the National Restaurant Association had accused the candidate of harassment. Cain vigorously denied the accusations on Monday, saying he was the victim of a witch hunt.

As for his tax plan, Cain also once again dismissed estimates that said that the highest earners would benefit from 9-9-9 but that lower- and middle-class families would pay more. The nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, for instance, has said that Cain’s proposal would raise taxes on 84 percent of households.

After 9-9-9 was the focus of attention at a recent debate, Cain also didn’t shy away Monday from slamming the tax ideas coming from two of his top rivals, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

“When you have the best plan on the table, expect to be attacked,” Cain said. “How do you come back and counter 9-9-9, because it starts with throwing out the current tax code, and you put in this simple structure?”

Perry last week unveiled a flat tax that taxpayers could opt in or out of, while Romney has released an extensive economic plan.

“With the way Governor Perry’s flat tax lite proposal is structured, the battle amongst lobbyists is going to be fierce,” Cain said. “They’re going to want to add some more, add some more, and pretty soon you’re going to be right back to where we are. So it doesn’t get far enough away from the current tax code.”

As for Romney, Cain said his campaign would never release “a 59-point plan with 160 pages.”

“Yes, I took a shot at somebody, OK?” he added.