Is tax fairness a drag on economic growth?

30 Issues in 30 Days is our election year series on the important issues facing the country this election year. Today: How individual and corporate taxes — and potential changes to their rates and distribution -- impact the economy. Visit the 30 Issue home page for all the conversations.

David Cay Johnston, tax columnist for Reuters, explains how offshore tax havens actually work, who has access to them, and the gray areas of the law.

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before.

President Obama has proposed overhauling the corporate tax structure, lowering the rate and eliminating loopholes. Peter Coy, economics editor for Bloomberg Businessweek, explains. 

In a recent NYT Op-Ed, economists Aaron Edlin of UC Berkeley and Yale's Ian Ayres propose to combat inequality with a tax that would automatically kick in when gap between the median income and the top 1% widens.  Aaron Edlin is a co-editor of the new book, Economists' Voice: Top Economists Take On Today's Problems (Columbia University Press, 2011) and Ian Ayres blogs for Freakonomics.

Washington correspondent for The Takeaway, Todd Zwillich, discusses the Republicans' agreement  to extend payroll tax cuts.

Robert Frank, wealth reporter for The Wall Street Journal and author of The High-Beta Rich: How the Manic Wealthy Will Take Us to the Next Boom, Bubble, and Bust, talks about the pros and cons of taxing the rich and says the risk is not from "rich flight."

Adam Davidson, co-host of Planet Money and new columnist for the New York Times Magazine, discusses the role that corporate taxes play in the deficit negotiations.

Tax revenue has become central to the deficit debate in Washington right now. Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist David Cay Johnston, Reuters columnist, and author of the forthcoming book The Fine Print: How Big Companies Use "Plain English" and Other Tricks to Rob You Blind, explains those tax deductions and so-called loopholes that are up for debate and takes your calls on which ones you think make sense and which ones don't.

In his 2012 budget proposal, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) lays out a plan to lower the top individual and corporate tax rates from 35 percent to 25 percent. This much cutting should mean big revenue losses for the federal government, which already gave up a chunk of its income when officials extended the Bush tax cuts for all income brackets last December. However, Ryan asserts that he can make his cuts revenue neutral by nixing tax expenditures—loopholes, breaks and preferences in the the tax code—simultaneously.

There's just one problem: Ryan has yet to say what those expenditures are.