Would the GOP-e go for it?
Taxes are parasitic, and thus cannot be fair.
Tax rates can be flat, but never fair.
Fair is a communist invention, to wit, the “Fairness Doctrine.”
The Fair Tax (brand name FairTax) is indeed the solution but requires reading and discussion, learning.
Here’s the intro FAQ which is excellent and easy to read:
http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer?pagename=FAQs
Given that it was imposed by constitutional amendment, one cannot argue that the income tax is unconstitutional per se. But certainly, it is at odds with the spirit, if not the letter, of many of our most basic constitutional rights.
Consider that the income tax system has the following attributes:
Notwithstanding our 5th Amendment rights against self-incrimination, as well as our 9th Amendment right to privacy (see Roe v. Wade), the government requires us to provide a tax return signed under penalty of perjury, in which we are obligated to provide detailed testimony regarding every aspect of our financial activities and relationships, legal or otherwise.
Notwithstanding our 4th Amendment rights against search and seizure, any American citizen is subject at any time -- even in the complete absence of probable cause – to an intrusive federal audit in which the government has the unmitigated right to demand and search our private papers and financial records.
Notwithstanding our 5th Amendment rights against seizure of our property without due process, the government can seize and hold our financial assets indefinitely without a trial.
The complexity of the Tax Code generally requires that Americans hire professional advice, often at significant expense, to help ensure compliance.
The Tax Code is so complex that its meaning is not always clear even to experts or employees of the federal government, and its enforcement may be subject to arbitrary interpretation by federal employees who may, in fact, disagree with each other.
The income tax requires citizens to bear the burden of preparing, maintaining, storing and recovering voluminous sets of records over a period of years, where such records otherwise have no useful purpose except to assist the government in enforcing the tax code against the citizen.
The Tax Code provides our federal legislators with a means of bestowing specifically targeted benefits on favored special interests.
I believe it is time for Americans to free ourselves once and for all from tyranny of the income tax system.
My own belief is that the 16th Amendment should be repealed and replaced with a consumption tax. Although I am aware that there are a number of arguments against such a revenue raising approach – not the least of which is the question of making it progressive – I do believe that a consumption-based tax system can be designed that will be both fair and workable while enabling the government to raise the revenue it needs to perform its necessary functions.
For those worried about making it progressive, I like a flat sales tax, with a provision allowing those below a certain income level to apply for refunds by VOLUNTARILY filling out a return proving they qualify.
This approach would have many benefits:
First of all, it would make the tax burden very visible to every person who participates in the economy.
It would render the IRS harmless, with no power to terrorize or audit, except to the extent the people submit fraudulent VOLUNTARY applications to receive refunds.
It would make it impossible for any administration to use the IRS for political reasons.
It would require fewer IRS employees, thereby costing less money.
The idiotic income tax is 100 years old this year. Put into our Constitution in a frenzy of Progressive Utopianism that seemed fresh and "scientific" 100 years ago, but now only proves to be a means to creating a kleptocracy.
How to get liberals/Dems to go for it: tell them if they think it’s fun to watch the IRS go after the TEA Party, wait till they see what happens when the next Repub administration controls the IRS. When they ask what, just say, “You’ll see!”
Fair, I hate that word
Flat Tax yes, Fair Tax No
Fair is in the eye of the beholder, don’t forget that
It sure does! Go Fair Tax!
1) The Several States determine the rate.
2) The rate is no more than 10%.
3) The revenues generated go directly to each State.
4) Each State sends to or withholds from the Federal Government such revenues as they see fit, but is not allowed to use those revenues or income from them for any other purposes.
5) All Federal Income Taxes are abolished before such a sales tax is imposed.
6) The 17th Amendment is repealed, restoring State Legislatures’ election of their Senators.
7) The Several States sit in permanent Conference of States to; continuously publicly review Federal code and legislation for Constitutional correctness, consider Constitutional Amendments, and be instantly prepared to became a Constitutional Convention.
8) Establish, once and for all, that Treaty does not infringe on Constitution.
The purpose of above is to restore our Republic by regaining States Rights and starving the Federal beast back to its Constitutional functions.
One of the many problems with that is that all the rich folks would leave the country and live US-tax-free.
There is nothing “fair” about a tax that some people don’t pay, because they get a “rebate”, versus the rest of us that do pay.
Want a fair tax? Then tax the poor.
Well, it seems that if they want me to give them any information NEXT YEAR, I’ll jusst refer them back to all the information they might have already acquired about me, LAST YEAR!
The form of tax brackets isn’t the question here.
The IRS bureaucracy is the metastasis of completely 100% corrupted regulatory environment.
The very existence of the IRS bureaucracy as a line item in the Omnibus Spending Bill is the question here. Not only must the IRS be removed from the Omnibus Spending Bills, every employee, contractor and consultant attached to the IRS must be fired, must lose seniority, and senior emplyees must be banned from Federal government employment.,
Anything less is just reshuffling partizans internally by giving them new titles for equivalent senior positions.
The GOP needs to stop “investigating” and immediately shut down the Government until Reid produces a Senate Budget, and to do so they need to put it all on the line.
Anything less will provide enough wiggle room for the bureaucracy to embolden themselves to further entrench the partizan culture in the IRS, in the Justice Dept, in the Labor Dept.
Defund the Executive, even if it means shutting down SS , Medicare and Medicaid payments, prepare for civil protests on a massive scale.
If the GOP is only willing to use one tool, the pen, and tries to solve this problem with a letter writing campaign, they will have lost the war before they write down the first word.
If the GOP isn’t willing to go nuclear on this to the point of dissolution of the Republic, within ten years there will not be a wealthy individual in this country willing to back a GOP candidate considered ‘worthy’ in freepers’ minds.
No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States
In Brown v. Maryland, Justice Marshall specifically stated that states could not tax items imported from other states or overseas. Later Supreme Courts effectively excised this clause from the Constitution.
This clause was designed for two reasons:
1. Allowing the Federal Government to be funded from Interstate sales taxes.
2. Mandate free trade (no tariffs among the states)
An internet sales tax will be the final nail in this clauses coffin.
1. 30,000 tax lobbyists--HALF the lobbyists in Washington, DC--fighting for every scrap of a tax loophole. And you get political corruption on a huge scale over this.
2. The result is a tax code so complex that it makes James Joyce's Ulysses easy to read in comparison. Even the IRS can't figure out much of the tax code!
3. The sheer complexity means exorbitant yearly compliance costs, estimated by some economists to exceed US$430 BILLION per year (and climbing fast in each subsequent year).
4. It also encourages the outsourcing of millions of jobs, thousands of factories, and hundreds of corporate headquarters for tax avoidance reasons.
5. It results in (by some estimates) around US$15 TRILLION on American-owned liquid assets sitting in offshore financial centers and other foreign banks for tax avoidance reasons (care to explain all those "banks" in the Cayman Islands, Bahamas, British Virgin Islands, and so on?).
6. Government uses the tax code as a political instrument to favor or punish political constituencies as little as ONE taxpaying entity.
7. Because the IRS needs to know intimate details of personal and business financial records in tax return filings, there are potentially serious issues with invasion of privacy.
8. The IRS assumes you're guilty of tax evasion, and you end up having less rights than most common criminals!
As such, it does not surprise me that President Obama used the IRS to harass his political enemies.
There may never be a better argument for Fair or Flat Taxation than this event. It provides a glaring example of how the Tax Code can be used to punish enemies and provide favors to friends. The IRS is a malicious monster that is the tool of politicians and the bane of citizens.
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 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.