Posted on 05/13/2013 2:02:45 PM PDT by ConservativeInPA
There is a way to stop the abuses of the IRS. It is actually very simple. Simply abolish the IRS and eliminate every personal and business tax - scrap the entire tax code and replace it with a fixed rate sales tax paid only by individuals.
One proposal is the Fair Tax. I am not stuck on the Fair Tax or any particular plan. It would be interesting to read what other FReepers' thoughts.
Thank you.
The Federal Government’s trampling of States Rights and the rights of The People is appalling! The Several States exercising “power of the purse” over the Federal Government would go a long way to restoring Constitutional balance. That can only be accomplished by starting with coherent vice progressive thinking.
Regrettably, coherency of thought and action is not a trait of any level of government. Government is all about expediency. It is up to We The People to think coherently and pit the expedient interests of all levels of government against each other so that government serves the interest of The People...not the other way around.
And that’s the great thing about this forum. It allows us to present, consider, debate, and refine ideas instead of engaging in mindless argument. Governments, take heed!
Not only were most of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention wealthy, George Washington a Bill Gates of his time, but when the delegates signed their names to the Constitution, they committed themselves, their rich friends and other wealthy citizens to uniquely paying the taxes to operate the federal government. This is evidenced by the following excerpt from Thomas Jefferson's wrtings.
"The rich alone use imported articles, and on these alone the whole taxes of the General Government are levied (emphasis added). … Our revenues liberated by the discharge of the public debt, and its surplus applied to canals, roads, schools, etc., the farmer will see his government supported, his children educated, and the face of his country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich alone, without his being called on to spend a cent from his earnings." --Thomas Jefferson to Thaddeus Kosciusko, 1811.
However, there is a constitutional check on how much taxes the rich had to pay so that the federal government could operate. More specifically, in Jefferson's time, Justice John Marshall had also officially clarified that Congress is prohibited from laying taxes in the name of state power issues, essentially any issue which Congress cannot justify under its constitutional Section 8, Article I-limited powers.
"Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." --Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
Corrupt Congress's ignoring of Justice Marshall's clarification of Congress's limited power to lay taxes is probably the greatest factor contributing to our unconstitutionally big federal government imo.
So I say let the wealthy once again uniquely bear the burden of paying the taxes to run the federal government. But let's also force Congress to lay taxes only for federal programs whcih it can justify under it's Section 8-limited powers. And us ordinary citizens can pay the state taxes necessary to provide us with whatever government services that the voters in a given state are willing to pay for.
A terrible problem exists, however. The 16th Amendment.
“The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”
Even if a Republican congress passed a much better form of taxation, as long as the 16th Amendment exists, the Income Tax will be waiting to attack again, with the next Democrat congress.
Since the Democrats would fight to the death to preserve the income tax, the next best bet would be to pass a new constitutional amendment that would kill the income tax *indirectly*.
That is, it would set up a fight in the Supreme Court, that the income tax would be in an either/or situation with the new amendment, that they could only have one or the other.
they passed the 16th amendment when we didn't have the Internet. the liberal media had more of a monopoly. I don't think it would have passed now even though they changed the demographics of America so drastically with the 1965 immigration act ( again wouldn't pass today although it might have if this new Amnesty passes ).
So much mindless bitching and dart throwing goes on here, I rarely find a time to comment any more. Independent and cognitive discourse gives me hope. Hope some take your advice and petition for something that will severely restrict the federal grasp. Taking funding from their grubby hands is and has been the only answer.
Your ideas are an excellent foundation for a well reasoned discourse.
Because the quote is too long for the tagline I again insert it here. "There is a remarkable range of ways of seeming to argue without actually producing any coherent argument.", Thomas Sowell
Arguments on the confiscatory nature of the "Fair Tax" mostly fail to acknowledge there is a push to expand taxation to everything you own anyway, e.g. the "you've got much more than you need - share the wealth" premise. So your argument is already mooted, too bad you oppose ending the reign of the taxers on the theory your savings would be protected. There's not going to be special treatment for you.
It's not a principled argument on your part to argue against ending the boundless abuses inherent in income taxation. How can any sensible person think their current retirement savings are safe from confiscation simply because of a silly law. Heck, the gov't has proved they don't even have to confiscate your account to steal it's value (quantitative easing, for example)?
OTOH, with the "Fair Tax" you actually get some say-so over how much of your spending is taxable. Do you have some influence over how much of your income is taxable in a tax-advantaged savings plan? Not really, you just get to choose the tax regime - current or future. So they could gin up specially confiscatory taxation on future withdrawals from your retirement plan and then where would you be?
I didn't mention a, if you'll pardon the expression, "Fair Tax", I mentioned a VAT tax.
That is the tax that they will implement simply because id does more effectively rob the baby-boomers.
BTW, I've always advocated the repeal of the Sixteenth Amendment and a return to excise taxes as a method to control the size of government.
If someone else has first dibs on your wages you are at best a sharecropper.
They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, which is bullshit because it’s not like there’s any shortage of bad intentions. I’m sure most people who support this scam mean well but have no idea how horrible of a plan that “fair” tax is. It starts off with a lie about what the tax rate really is and continues with lots of, at best, wishful thinking.
true enough. The window of opportunity for reform is dwindling. At some point all of these abuses will add up to just cause for the abrogation of just consent to continued existence of the government. That's the fire the nanny-staters and taxers are playing with, and it's obvious now they feel emboldened enough to abuse anyone who effectively disagrees with unlawful arrogation of authority by those who seek to perpetuate power.
“National Retail Sales Tax” is a mouthful, and that’s what the “Fair” tax refers to.
It is a totally different taxation structure than a flat tax.
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