Tax Foundation:  Romney, Obama, & Simpson-Bowles: How Do the Tax Reform Plans Stack Up?:

Among the tax reform plans of the major presidential candidates, Mitt Romney’s proposal to lower rates and eliminate credits and deductions comes far closer than that of President Obama to the widely-praised and bipartisan framework of the Simpson-Bowles tax reform commission.

Mitt Romney’s plan aims for a Simpson-Bowles style reform, with lower rates and fewer tax expenditures, but without additional penalties on saving and investing. The top rate on personal income would be 28% and the bottom rate would be 8%, making the rate structure more progressive than under Simpson-Bowles. In terms of tax expenditures and simplification, Romney has said he would target credits and deductions for “people at the high end” while preserving some preferences targeted at the middle-class such as deductions for mortgage interest and charitable giving.

President Obama’s tax plan, however, is largely at odds with any commonly held notion of tax reform, including Simpson-Bowles. It would result in dramatically higher tax rates, on the order of 50% to 90% higher than the Simpson-Bowles rates on personal income and investment income. While the president has voiced support for eliminating tax expenditures, his specific proposals tend to add more than are taken away, although he has proposed limiting them for high-income earners. Not only does this fail to simplify the tax code, it fails to spur the economy, ultimately resulting in insufficient tax revenue and perpetual deficits.

Real tax reform would produce a tax code that is simple and treats all taxpayers equally. It would also treat all consumption equally, whether that consumption occurs now or, as a result of saving, later. This would best be accomplished by lowering tax rates on saving and investment to match the current zero tax rate on consumption.