Subject: President's Advisory Panel on Tax Reform Comment: Dear sirs; In considering your report to the Treasury expected November 1st 2005, please do not recommend removing the tax break on employee benefits. As Compensation Manager of a 2500 employee company, we have been struggling to keep our labor costs down while not passing on year after year of increases in health insurance costs to our workers. Repealing the tax break for form 5500 eligible benefits would add 16% individual coverage (36% for family) to the taxable income for these employees. Many employees may be forced to drop their coverage and employers could be forced to drop entire plans. This would be bad for business, bad for American workers and bad for our society. A positive step would be to help Americans contain the skyrocketing costs of health coverage, not compound it with a tax burden. Thank you for your consideration. Kind regards, Scott Biggerstaff |