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Posted on 01/08/2012 6:14:45 AM PST by fightinJAG
This is America’s 100th year for individual income tax, a system as out of touch with our era as digital music is with the hand-cranked Victrola music players of 1912. It is also the 26th year of the Reagan-era reform for both personal and corporate tax, a grand design now buried under special-interest favors.
With U.S. elections in November, and the George W. Bush tax cuts due to expire at the end of 2012, it’s time for a debate that goes beyond ginning up anger over taxes and the superficial issue of tax rates.
It’s time to consider whether to get rid of income taxes, personal and corporate. What are the strengths and weaknesses of our current system? Should we tax individual and corporate income — or something else?
We need to think about it. Whatever systems we consider, we should weigh up what it takes to raise the necessary revenue along with such other attributes as minimal compliance cost, leakage and economic distortion.
Times change. Tax systems must change with them or else their lubricating effect turns to sand, wearing down the gears of commerce.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.reuters.com ...
The hard part and biggest hurdle to jump is to cut the spending that requires the taxes in the first place.
The hard part and biggest hurdle to jump is to cut the spending that requires the taxes in the first place.
Even Tony Blair has talked about how the social “safety net” programs were all “generational fixes,” and should have ended with the generation they were designed to address.
The dollar collapsing will do that.
Right. So long as spending is double income, no way will any income sources be cut on abstract principle.
Oh no. Let’s keep them around till we all need ration books again. It worked so well for Rousevelvet, and Stalin.
It’s no secret that I am an advocate of the Fair Tax model. However, tax reform is only half the issue. If we don’t reform the spending that requires the taxation, or that builds the national debt, we are just spittin’ in the wind.
Tax reform without spending reform is a fool’s game. And, now that half the American populace is on some form of government dole, spending reform will be next to impossible; and, it will certainly be painful for many.
First sensible op-ed I’ve read in al Reuters in a long time.
First, fix the problem ~ repeal this antiquated nostrum of the distant past.
HELL yes because the simple fact is that we will never again be a TRULY free people for so long as we continue to abide the income tax and the IRS!
“...The hard part and biggest hurdle to jump is to cut the spending that requires the taxes in the first place. ....”
I read somewhere that even IF they taxed us 100%, it would still not pay the interest on our debt. They don’t tax us to pay the debt or spending, they tax us to control us...period. We have in essence, become slaves to the govt. Yes, it is time to dump the income tax scharade. Much like the dreaded odongoCare bill, the 16th Amendment’s ratification was under very shady circumstances as well. Anyone who has to work for a living to survive would be far better off without it and “they” know it.
For a second there I thought this guy might have a brain.
Then this sentence comes up and I figure he is just another empty headed Leftist.
NO tax, no where, ever lubricates commerce. Taxes are a necessary evil to finance government’s legitimate functions (which are few) nothing more. Taxes are an added expense that provides no added value to either buyer or seller.
The best tax system I can imagine would not tax business or commerce, only individuals. The tax rate should no more that 20%, no deductions/exemptions/credits and no more than three brackets.
There should be no mystery at the end of the year as to how much anyone owes the government at the end of the year. It should be a simple calculation of adding up income and multiplying by the appropriate tax rate.
A tax system should be as broad as possible exempting only the poorest of the poor (homeless only perhaps). Everyone should have to pay something. If you are eligible to vote you should pay taxes.
EXACTLY! WOOOHOOO, EGPWS! (Everything else is a diversion from the root cause of our problems) Cut spending, cut BIG GOVERNMENT, cut politicians who espouse both. Cut, cut, cut.
DEFUND socialist collectives, foreign and domestic
DISMANTLE UNaccountable bureaucracies (more socialism), foreign and (especially) domestic.
DEPOPULATE socialists from the body politic.
“Above all, if you wish to be strong, begin by rooting out every particle of socialism that may have crept into your legislation. This will be no light task.” - Frederic Bastiat 1801-1850
live - free - republic
Control the socialists/totalitarians/plunderers/criminals
Way past time.
Fair Tax gets everybody. Drug dealers, Whores, Construction sub-contractors and everybody on a 1099.
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