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Posted on 04/21/2008 6:04:34 PM PDT by BGHater
Taxes were on the forefront of many Americans’ minds this week as they scrambled to meet the April 15th deadline to file their returns. Tax policy in this country hurts taxpayers twice – once when they pay taxes, and then when the government spends the money. Americans are sick and tired of the financial burden and the endless forms to fill out. To add insult to injury, after collecting this money the government does some very detrimental things to the economy.
The burden of complying with the income tax is tremendous. Since its inception in 1913, the tax code has gone from 400 pages to over 67,000. The Tax Foundation estimates that around $265 billion dollars and 6 billion hours are spent just on compliance. That expense amounts to about 22 cents of every dollar the IRS collects. Imagine the boon to the economy if we spent that time and money expanding our businesses and creating jobs!
Aside from the direct loss of money and productivity, the funds from the income tax enable the government to do some very destructive things, such as vastly over-regulating economic activity, making it difficult to earn money in the first place. The federal government funds over 50 agencies, departments and commissions that formulate rules and regulations. These bureaucracies operate with little to no oversight from the people or Congress and generate around 4,000 new rules every year and operate at a cost of about 40 billion dollars. There are some 75,000 pages of regulations in the Federal Register that Americans are expected to know and abide by. Complying with these governmental regulations costs American businesses more than one trillion dollars per year, according to a study by Mark Crain for the Small Business Administration. This complicated system drives production to other countries and shrinks our job market here at home.
Big government is destructive when it takes your money and when it spends it. There is no economic benefit to supporting a government sector as massive as ours. In fact, this country thrived for well over 100 years without an income tax. Today, if you took away the income tax, the government would still have revenue from other sources equal to total government spending in 1990, when government was still too big. $1.2 trillion should be more than enough to fund a government operating within its constitutional confines, and that is exactly what we need to get back to.
I have introduced legislation many times to abolish the IRS and the income tax. It is fundamentally un-American to require taxpayers to testify against themselves and be considered guilty until proven innocent. Abolishing the IRS altogether would trigger an avalanche of real growth in the economy.
With these financial hard times only just beginning, this would be the most efficient and logical way to get our economy growing again, and Americans would need not dread the 15th of April every year.
loony
nutjob
loser
idiot
liberal
naive
stupid
wingnut
moonbat
this is what we are supposed to think about Ron Paul here on FR isn’t it???
Libertarian ping! To be added or removed freepmail me or post a message here.
God bless Ron Paul, may his ideas long outlive him. :)
No, they're not. If they were, we wouldn't have this system.
I'm sick and tired of people complaining while supporting the people in office who perpetuate the things they're complaining about.
Couldn’t say it any better, Dahoser!
No kidding! People complain about the loss of power, they complain that Bush is wiretapping and listening in on their phone conversations yet they have no problem jumping through hoops, telling the IRS all kinds of personal information and wading through pages and pages of BS all in the hopes that they’ll get some of their own money backs. Messed up.
You forgot the part about them getting their own money back and moronically exclaiming how they "made out great this year!"
1. The income tax.
2. Regulations.
3. The threat of litigation.
4. And union wage scales.
And watch the growth of the American economy soar.
this is what we are supposed to think about Ron Paul here on FR isn’t it???
That’s right. Aren’t you sooooo glad we have John (I don’t really no much about economics) McCain instead.
While Ron Paul states the obvious, unfortunately too many Americans have never heard his message.
How about the government control your pay while they're at it...Sounds pretty stupid now doesn't it.
The Americans facing this burden directly are overwhelmingly outnumbered by those who aren't. The lowest 50% of tax returns have an average tax rate under 3%. They take their 1040 to H&R and get it done in an afternoon.
That isn't even touching the millions of Americans who don't file at all.
And these people all vote. Around election time, they're a lot more receptive to talking about new government handouts for themselves than about tax complexity faced by other people.
We have exactly the system you would expect unqualified democracy to produce.
Don't whine about problems that are of your making.
Ron Paul is a yokel.
Lyndon LaRouch (sp) must be proud.
I agree with you too. Thanks.
Yeah, like was suggested in the fairtax book, in the past couple weeks, I asked a few people how much they paid in taxes last year, and 8 out of 11 said they did not pay any taxes, they got a refund... They Had no clue how much they actually paid. One said he owed $452 and knew he already paid some, but not how much, One knew what his state & federal tax burden for the year was, from his tax forms... but did not consider how much he paid in Social Security and Medicare, and the last one said 34% of his gross income for the year, went to the government, not including sales tax and property tax. After, I told each one of them they should read the fairtax book, only the last one had even heard of it and he too was a supporter.
No, they're not. If they were, we wouldn't have this system.
Yes they are sick of it, but they have no fire in their belly and take a Prozac instead. Well, plus they caper like mad fools in triumph when they "win" by getting a nickel of their taxes back here and there from Uncle Sam Santa. Americans are becoming as sheepish as Canadians, the British, et al. Self-defeatists. People give up when they no longer realize what they've lost.
No kidding. I visited Switzerland a few years ago. They’re quasi-socialistic in many respects, but one thing that was noticeably absent was the threat of litigation at every turn. It’s amazing how steeped we are in that environment, and it’s hard to fathom until you’re free from it.
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