That is interesting, but I am going to say that I believe strongly in tax simplificaiton. 99.5% of us should be able to figure out our income taxes on one side of one sheet of paper. Cut all the deductions and credits, cut tax rates correspondingly, state how much you earned and pay the corresponding tax. Leave our money to us and let us figure out whether we want to spend our money on education or retirement savings or energy reducing vehicles or whatever.
That is interesting, but I am going to say that I believe strongly in tax simplificaiton. 99.5% of us should be able to figure out our income taxes on one side of one sheet of paper.
On a retail sales tax there no tax to be figured or filed by the individual. Retail sales taxes are collected by the business when a customer pays for goods or services.
The form filed by the individual citzen for a retail sale tax looks like this, both sides:
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Individual income reporting is not required paying retail sales taxes.
Cut all the deductions and credits, cut tax rates correspondingly, state how much you earned and pay the corresponding tax.
Why should you have to state anything at all about how much you earned to pay a tax on retail goods and services?
Leave our money to us and let us figure out whether we want to spend our money on education or retirement savings or energy reducing vehicles or whatever.
Under a retail sales tax only system, you get your full gross paycheck to do what you will with. Save or invest tax free, or purchase new goods or services paying the tax at the cash register.
No individual reporting of income nor person accounting for expenditures required at all. It is all done at the point of sale collected by the retail business for which you receive a receipt detailing price of products, and tax paid. Just as is done with state/local retail sales tax systems today.
In fact under HR25, the NRST would be administered by state tax authorities in parallel with their own sales taxes.
The problem with the flat tax, is that it is still an income tax, and whether or not you file, you are still liable to keep records and open to audit by the IRS. That is not the case with a retail sales tax.
Furthermore, it should be noted this nation's first income tax was a flat tax like you describe, it didn't survive a single session of Congress before it began morphing into the graduated tax system we deal with today, they added two brackets in the following year and started the games with deductions.
"That is interesting, but I am going to say that I believe strongly in tax simplificaiton. 99.5% of us should be able to figure out our income taxes on one side of one sheet of paper."
An admirable sentiment, but it begs one very basic and fundamental question. Why in the world would you acquiesce to having to disclose to the federal government how much money you make and where that money came from? What right do they have to demand that information - certainly not by any constitutional principle! The founding fathers ruled out this type of tax, the Supreme Court in the late 1800's ruled against it and the congress in 1913 turned its back on those precedents. Are you really siding with the congress of 1913 in their belief that the founding fathers and the Supreme Court had it wrong?