Posted on 03/10/2010 5:32:35 PM PST by Man50D
For many Americans the distance between what they believe is best for the nation and what government actually does has become an infuriating chasm that was never meant to exist in a representative government designed to reflect the will of the majority.
No other single public policy so reinforces a perception of self-dealing, unfairness and incompetence as the corrupted federal tax code. Bloated beyond decipherability at 67,500 pages of regulations, the income tax system is driven by personal power, lobby profits and, through tax inducements and penalties, a changing menu of citizen and business manipulation.
Married people pay higher rates than singles living together, income is commonly double and tripled taxed, pastors are told what they can and can’t say from the pulpit and foreign competitors enjoy significant cost advantages over American producers because of our tax system.
Meanwhile, in “Gucci Gulch” outside the House Ways and Means Committee, business is very, very good. With more than a billion dollars a year spent lobbying the tax system; the recession has been a wonderful windfall for many tax lobbyists. While the nation suffers, new aristocracies in Washington, far from the little people who pay the bills, celebrate their good fortune.
So what if both the Secretary of the Treasury and the Chairman of the Congressional Committee writing tax laws got their own tax returns wrong? So what if just obeying federal tax laws costs taxpayers more than $300 billion a year in compliance costs? So what if Congress’ error in failing to index the Alternative Minimum Tax for inflation now threatens to define as “wealthy” those with as little as $80,000 annual income? So what if Warren Buffet’s salary-earning secretary pays a higher tax rate than her billionaire boss?
But “so what?” and perennial--but always unfilled promises--that “something must be done” are not enough anymore. Remembering what they once learned in civics classes, Americans from across the political spectrum are taking time from their pursuits of happiness to register angry and indignant warnings to the political class that “something will be done”—or else.
This is why more than a thousand people an hour have been joining a digital tax rebellion marching on Washington at www.onlinetaxrevolt.com FairTaxers, Flat Taxers, Reagan tax reformers and many others are being pulled together to bring another Boston Tea Party to Washington, D.C. on April 15th. While people may disagree on the best solution, there is widespread understanding that the American people cannot win back control of their government until the federal tax system is either repaired or ripped out by the roots and replaced.
Revolutionary? Yes, in the same spirit as Boston Harbor and why not? We are a people who rallied against “taxation without representation” and yet future generations of unborn Americans are being taxed to secure mind-numbing levels of federal debt today. The barely concealed contempt for average Americans who object to more and more of the fruits of their labors being transferred to those who pay no income taxes at all while former Members of Congress profit lucratively working the corruption of the tax writing committees is nearing a boiling point.
Two years ago, the under funded Mike Huckabee caught tax reform lightning in an Iowa bottle and was catapulted to a first place finish there. Mitt Romney and John McCain were burned by the same lightning when they repeated the same old tired and now unbelievable income tax reform promises. No, the entire election did not turn on tax reform but Mike Huckabee electrified voters when he made the FairTax, a national consumption tax to replace the broken income tax system, a center plank of his campaign. That decision marked Huckabee as one of the first current politicians to turn his back on what is increasingly seen as self-dealing in Washington that damages the future of the nation and the best interests of individual citizens.
The idea that, “we the people” are being routinely ignored, are despised and are seen as primarily useful in our ability to fund personal political ambitions continues to resonate at every Tea Party and in the growing tax rebellion now gathering steam. Those in the political class who ignore this healthy insistence that public policy actually benefit the public will find themselves at risk of future lightning strikes.
Ken Hoagland, is author of “The FairTax Solution” and chairman of the Online Tax Revolt and the FairTax national victory campaign.
No business in their right minds would absorb the taxes levied on their income and the associated compliance costs. Those are all costs they incorporate into the price of everything we buy.
Of course you're dumb as a rock, so you probably don't understand this.
Your first point is obviously correct. Your second point, quite frankly, sucks. Businesses always figure tax consequences into pricing. So everyone in the market place will act accordingly.
Know that I still love ya. I look forward to your response.
5.56mm
Businesses always figure tax consequences into pricing.
Wrong-O....
They have no way of knowing what they're tax obligation will be because they do not know if their sales volume will place them above their "break even point." If they make a profit, then they have income tax obligations. But not if they operate at a loss.
And since they have no idea what their income tax obligation will be, there is no-way to pro-rate it into their cost structure prior to the sale. If they try it that way, a competitor will undercut their price with a bid that steals away the sales volume.
Sure they do, at the very least the capital gain tax rates, what ever that may be at the time.
If you don't figure that, you have no idea what your ROI will be.
5.56mm
If you don't figure that, you have no idea what your ROI will be.
In a competitive market, you are NEVER guaranteed ANY ROI at all.
That is why it is foolish to pad your price with "costs" that you may not incur. The competition will undercut you and push your sales volume below the break even point.
Then you'll be a LOSER with no income tax obligation because you LOST money.
Agreed, the only way to change behaviors is to associate a consequence with it. In some cases, the more severe the consequence, the less the suffering for all involved.
“Those in DC are absolutely CLUELESS as to how close this Nation is to revolution.”
Revolution on taxes and aimed at IRS, revolution on personal health choices re supplements & alternative and aimed at FDA, revolution on immigration, revolution on freedom and aimed at Congress, Executive, Judicial. It is time to take back America.
I think we should repeal the 16th Amendment and then have the feds collect their tax revenue from the individual states, rather than from the individual citizen. Two bonuses to this...a state could then have any tax system they want...fair, flat, sales...whatever. The best system would rise to the top and other states would emulate it. Also, the costs of the benefits reaped by a state would not be spread out over the entire nation. If North Carolina wants to get 100 billion from the Feds for bat guano research, the citizens of NC can get taxed more heavily by their own legislature and the state would then pay that money back.
Naturally, there would by some federal expenses that would be spread out over all 50 states (eg. military spending)
FLAT tax, no.
Right on.
bump for later
Why? Almost half the nation isn’t paying taxes. Ya think they’re going to revolt against a system allows the Feds to rob others on their behalf or allow a system (like the Fair Tax) to be instituted that might actually force them to pay something approaching their fair share of taxes?
Its just wishful thinking.
Right. Just like the idiots who think their tax refunds are “money from the government.” They’re not going to complain; they’ll even defend the current system.
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