TAX REFORM COMMISSION? YEAH ... RIGHT.

Neal's Nuze ^ | Oct. 12, 2005 | Neal Boortz

[pigdog]

TAX REFORM COMMISSION? YEAH ... RIGHT.

The president's so-called tax reform commission telegraphed its intentions several months ago when members stated that they were not going to recommend a full reform of our federal tax system, rather they were going to recommend some incremental reforms. The The FairTax Book hit the book stores and debuted at No. 1 on the New York Times Bestseller's list. Politicians and other Beltway denizens told co-author Congressman John Linder that the success of The FairTax Book was a certain indication that the people of this country were in the mood for wholesale reform. Who knew?

Now we're starting to get an indication of what the tax reform commission is going to recommend. It's very simple. Tax increases, not tax reform.

[EternalVigilance]

Flat tax is the only way to go as it is incremental enough to actually make it.

If you're not on the President's Tax Commission, you might as well be.

What you advocate amounts to exactly what they are advocating...rearranging deck chairs on the Titantic.

Income taxes in any form are anathema to American freedom.

The income tax is fundamentally flawed from its inception, and no American patriot should give those who support its continuance a scrap of aid or comfort.

[ancient_geezer]

Flat tax is the only way to go as it is incremental enough to actually make it.

We started with a flat tax, incremental is all it is about. Incremental dickering with the code right back to where we are.

"A hand from Washington will be stretched out and placed upon every man's business; the eye of the federal inspector will be in every man's counting house....The law will of necessity have inquisical features, it will provide penalties, it will create complicated machinery. Under it men will be hauled into courts distant from their homes. Heavy fines imposed by distant and unfamiliar tribunals will constantly menace the tax payer. An army of federal inspectors, spies, and detectives will descend upon the state."
-- Virginian House Speaker Richard E. Byrd, 1910, predicting the consequences of an income tax.

The problem with a Flat Tax, is it is still an income tax, IRS into everyone's business from stem to stern. You may want to take a look at:

Flat Tax as Seen by a Tax Preparer
by Vern Hoven

It isn't the rate structure or size of the form you fill out that makes an income tax system a nightmare, it Congress' continual dinkering and redefining income to suit the politcal whims all the time and the bureaucracy behind it that is there to make sure what you put on that form is accurate in the IRS's eyes.

 

Source: CCH Inc. Number of pages in the CCH Standard Federal Tax Reporter, as found on Cato website.

The NRST will allow every voter (for the first time) an opportunity to actually see what their government costs them on every receipt. It is only out of knowledge, that one can expect an electorate to exercise it's most important function, that "Eternal Vigilence" that is so necessary to preserving liberty.

[Pylot]

The commission proposed reducing the caps in order to make up for the loss in revenue from the proposed elimination of the AMT.

It is absolutely an increase in taxes to someone!

There is nothing incoherent about Neal's recommendations.

Eliminating one of several deductions (or all of them) and replacing the current code with a program that has everyone pay taxes is a great way to get all Americans engaged in the system.

Your statement would be closer to coherent if you read the commissions recommendations and/or the Fair Tax book.

95% of all taxes are paid by the top 50% of the income earners in America. Why let half the nation sit on the sidelines and benefit from the money everyone else is forced to pay?

[stevestras]

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.

[stevestras]

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

[EternalVigilance]

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'.

[ancient_geezer]

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.

[stevestras]

My point was that the "all or nothing" approach from sales tax advocates hurts tax reform efforts. If both sides got together, I believe they could work together and enact a postcard type system like Armey proposed. Primarily because the elimination of witholding could be postponed.

[groanup]

Go here and click on "comments" on the left. Let'm hear from you:

http://www.taxreformpanel.gov/

[pigdog]

Ah ... one of the Squirrels chimes in with his nonsense.

Since the Panel is supposed to come up with a revenue neutral, they must find some way to "pay" for these tax decreases they are going to suggest. That means RAISING tax rates somewhere or causing additional items to be brought into the tax base.

The FairTax is already revenue neutral and offers huge numbers of benefits to both the individual taxpayer and to the economy as well. It will also generate more tax revenue from the illegal economy since every time they buy taxable things at retail with their illegal income they will be paying for a part of their own tax burden that you and I now bear (or perhaps you don't).

The comments by Boortz are right on the money.

[Dead Corpse]

Boortz just mention the Tax Committees Comments page. Click here...

Do it later though. "Service Unavailable" since he mentioned it. They must be getting slammed right now.

[pigdog]

Just keep it up in the same vein. Congress needs to feel the heat that a stupid set of suggestions by the Panel will generate onto them (our elected reps).

It won't take them long to realize people want real reform even if the Nine Nincompoops do not. Keep the pressure on. This issue will be a huge one for reelection for many of them - and they know it.

[EternalVigilance]

Again, tweak away. But no matter how much mascera you paint on the income tax monster, it will still be a monster.

And a political note: Such tweaks will leave the electorate cold. In fact, the cynical gamesmanship will end up ticking off more voters than it ever attracts.

[pigdog]

What the Panel is doing is merely stirring up tax resentment so that we may be able to get REAL reform via the FairTax.

It is what Congress (the House, presently) does that matters, not the report of the Panel to Treasury.

[pigdog]

A VAT with an income tax would be the worst possible combination.

The FairTax, OTOH, eliminates the income (etc.) taxes and cannot be made into a VAT.

[swarthyguy]

>A VAT with an income tax

Yup.

Every time I hear the word reform I cringe.

Bend Over, Here It Comes Again.

[pigdog]

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.

[pigdog]

Any income-gbased tax system - whether flat or round - is bogged down with the same sort of baggage as the present system and will quickly become almost identical to it.

Don't you realize the K-Street crowd are just chomping at the bit that a Flat Tax is adopted to give them even more leeway (meaning higher fees) in "introducing" changes into any income-based tax system. That's what they do.

With the FairTax that sort of political mischief is done away with.

[Big Red Clay]

Check out the fairtax website. You misconceptions about how it works will be cleared up pretty quickly. The Fairtax has no deductions because you no one pays income taxes. Check out the site, or better yet, read the book. It is pretty interesting and you will find both Boortz and Linder's take on taxes both coherent and eye opening.
I just got done reading the WSJ article about the tax reform committee. They said that neither a VAT or an NRST would work because they are "too complex". Are you freakin' kidding me? Compared to the convoluted cluster f*%# of a tax code we have now, the fairtax is like Dick and Jane. I am more and more convinced that our "representatives", both Repub and 'rat, will never allow a real reform of the tax code that would divest them of some of their precious power over the taxpaying serfs that feed the big bloated beast of government. While I support the NRST, I certainly would not mind the flat tax (as long as withholding was eliminated). Someone needs to do something. Clearly those in the Congress don't think the folks who pay the bills should have any say in it, though.

[ancient_geezer]

I believe they could work together and enact a postcard type system like Armey proposed. Primarily because the elimination of witholding could be postponed.

My bottomline, elimination of the income tax, the primary reason I'm interested in tax reform at all.

Flat Tax keeps an income tax and does nothing to eliminate the SS/Medicare wage tax which is just another income tax albeit with a cap.

Both are an anethama to any concept of personal privacy or liberty. They've got to go and a Flat Tax is just a route to hanging on to them for another century. No thanks.

Control of one's income and first option on what is done with it is fundamental to the exercise of property right and empowerment of the citizen.

Tax reform is not an issue of economics, it is an issue of personal Freedom, and empowerment.

 

I discussed the importance of abolishing the income tax because of its tendency to form a habit of servility in the souls of a people that accepts it.

Servility of soul is bad not only in itself, it is also an open door through which will soon walk the abuses of ambitious government power.

Leaders who find themselves with governmental power over a servile people will be quick to conclude that such a people exist to serve them.

Alan Keyes 1999