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Nattering Nabob of Negativity alert!

Thus far I have seen nothing but attempts to tear down a full scale effort to actually DO something about the problems created by the current U.S Tax code from you on these threads. If you have any POSITIVE suggestions as to how to solve the problem I would LOVE to hear them but throwing up our and yelling "we're screwed" is not an option for me and, I suspect, a good many others here!

WRT 768; the problem with the farttax is that it only adds to the problem of taxation. That is, we will only get more of it. The IRS will never go away. It may be renamed however. The income tax can not go away for all of the reasons I and others have written on these taxation threads. The farttax is fantasy and I will hold that position until it sees the light of debate in Congress. If it it acted upon by Congress I will be concerned about how it will be amended, as will all of you farttaxers. I will grant you that there will be a NRST, it will only resemble the farttax in that it will be a retail tax, but it will be designed to augment the tax take and it will be easy to raise at Congress' will. Your (the Farttaxers) efforts will be used a diversion to pass the sales tax plan. Do you feel good now?

Bigun wrote:
Nattering Nabob of Negativity alert!
Thus far I have seen nothing but attempts to tear down a full scale effort to actually DO something about the problems created by the current U.S Tax code from you on these threads. If you have any POSITIVE suggestions as to how to solve the problem I would LOVE to hear them but throwing up our and yelling "we're screwed" is not an option for me and, I suspect, a good many others here!

Well, there's a lot of people who are trying to do somthing even it it's wrong or won't actually accomplish the goals they are striving for. And a lot of them will be very disappointed with the end result.

As for things that can be done today to work toward a better solution, I can think of a few. Let's start with the really easy ones:

Outlaw tax withholding. Have the IRS or the SSA send a monthly bill to every taxpayer and make each taxpayer write a monthly check for the income tax, medicare and social security taxes due on their wages or salary.
This is absolutely revenue neutral. And it reduces the burden on employers. They only have to report the amount they pay their employees (that's the same reporting that will be required under the so calle "fair tax," BTW). They don't have to collect the money and remit it to the feds or keep track of exemptions or any of that any more. It should reduce some of the compliance cost of the current system. Maybe not as much as the so called "fair tax," but it's a step in the right direction.
It also makes the taxpayer very much aware of how much they are paying in taxes.
But it accomplishes these things without any huge economic convulsions from completely replacing the current system with something new and unknown.
Personalize Social Security. On a yearly or quarterly basis, refund all of the "surplus" social security taxes (anything not used to pay actual benefits to current retirees) to each taxpayer in the form of a long term bond. This bond will accrue interest into the individual's social security bond account until it matures on their 67th birthday or whenever. At that point, it pays interest in monthly checks that will partially offset the Ponzi scheme Social Security benefits (no cut in benefits, but no increase unless the bond interest exceeds the current benefits). And the taxpayer can transfer their bond principle to their heirs under some set of conditions.
This isn't the optimal or ultimate solution to the Social Security Crisis. But it does protect some of our Social Security "contributions" from the whims of future Congresses that might cut benefits or means test or whatever. It's a good first step. And the government does issue long term savings bonds, so this isn't illegal or unconstitutional.
Again, I don't propose this as a "final solution" for Social Security reform. It's merely a first step that can be taken toward incremental reform. And it should be difficult to defeat. But it opens the door to some kind of personal accounts.
If you want a simpler tax code, make that an issue. Campaign against politicians that use the tax code for social engineering and add needless complexity to it. IMO, some of the fair tax supporters are also some of the worst offenders here. I don't know if they think that screwing up the current system doesn't matter because they will replace it, or if they want to make the current system worse to increase the chances of a wholesale replacement. But they don't give me any confidence that they won't screw up the replacement just as badly.

You can fight for all of those things, and every one of those will make some incremental improvements. And I think that if the political will is there, those can be implemented much quicker than any of the more radical "ultimate solutions" currently proposed.