Guys, I'm all for your goals. You will never get there from here, though.
We should simplify first, without eliminating witholding before taking a jump off the cliff. Romantically, I love the idea of eliminating witholding. Realistically, I see no way of getting there from the current status.
Members of this group, from www.taxreformpanel.gov are as follows:
Panel Members
Connie Mack III (Chairman) Senior Advisor, King & Spalding LLP, and former U.S. Senator. Senator Mack served as Chairman of the Joint Economic Committee and was a member of the Finance and Banking committees.
John Breaux (Vice-Chairman), former U.S. Senator. Senator Breaux served on the Finance Committee and the sub-committee on Taxation and IRS Oversight.
William Eldridge Frenzel, former Member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Mr. Frenzel served on the Budget Committee and the Ways and Means Committee. Mr. Frenzel is a Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution.
Elizabeth Garrett, Sydney M. Irmas Professor of Public Interest Law, Legal Ethics and Political Science, University of Southern California. Ms. Garrett served as Legislative Director and Tax and Budget Counsel to former U.S. Senator David L. Boren.
Edward P. Lazear, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution and Professor of Human Resources, Management and Economics, Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. Mr. Lazear is the founding editor of the Journal of Labor Economics.
Timothy J. Muris, Foundation Professor, George Mason School of Law and Of Counsel, O'Melveny & Myers LLP. Mr. Muris served as Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission from 2001 to 2004.
James Michael Poterba, Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Mr. Poterba serves as Associate Department Head. He has taught at MIT since 1982.
Charles O. Rossotti, Senior Advisor, The Carlyle Group. Mr. Rossotti served from 1997 to 2002 as Commissioner of Internal Revenue. He formerly served as the President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of American Management Systems.
Liz Ann Sonders, Chief Investment Strategist, Charles Schwab. Ms. Sonders joined U.S. Trust, a division of Charles Schwab, in 1999 as a Managing Director and member of its Investment Policy Committees.
Panel Staff
Jeffrey F. Kupfer, Executive Director
Continued cynical tinkering with the income tax code interests me not in the least.
It gets us nowhere that matters.
Never has, never will.
It's a useless and cynical exercise in fooling the citizens of this country and continuing the wholesale looting of our liberty and our treasure.
It's a continually losing game for me, my children and my grandchildren.
So, I ain't playin'.
We should simplify first, without eliminating witholding before taking a jump off the cliff.
Been there done that with the Reagan reforms.
Didn't last long and nary a pause in the the climb of complexity of the actual tax code to be seen.
The base problem of any income tax system is that complexity, by it's very nature, is inherent to separating income from merely return of one's vested capital, and the regulatory environent that must exist to assure accuracy of returns.
Those that fail to learn from history are forever doomed to repeat it.
Realistically, I see no way of getting there from the current status.
You do it, by making sure that Congress Critter's are held accountable for the legislation they enact.
Bottomline, the responsibility lay with us, the electorate.
"The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men."
- Plato -
"The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."
-John Philpot Curran: Speech upon the Right of Election, 1790.
Then, REALISTICALLY, you need to become more informed on all aspects of the FairTax. It is the most studied, modelled, and analyzed tax plan ever to appear before congress.
Eliminating withholding would be as difficult as passing the NRST. Withholding is the key to the scheme called the income tax.
They did it in 1986, right? And the tax code has doubled since then. The federal budgets have quadrupled. Ain't gonna help.