Nope, still there, as well as withholding FICA taxes.
Which system do you think would make it easier for the average American to make Congress accountable for it's spending?
Well, obviously I'm going to say the Fair Tax. We would see the tax everytime we bought something. And we would all be paying the same rate. They couldn't pass a tax hike without us knowing about it because the rate would be transparent and one rate means they couldn't pull the class warfare stuff. Everyone would get teed off everytime they bought something big, and hopefully would get more involved in pointing out government waste.
I don't think the flat tax would do anything to make Congress accountable. It is still virtually the same system we have now, just retooled, and past experience shows the result.
I dunno. We're still going to buy what we want to buy.
If we had to write a check at the end of the year, it might give us more pause.
But I agree with you in essence that our tax system is medieval.