How to Control the IRS

Americans despise and fear the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS has been discriminating against, and has even persecuted, conservative groups. The IRS will soon be policing ObamaCare compliance with thousands of new agents.The IRS is no longer just a collection agency. The IRS even has its own SWAT teams. Something needs to be done about the IRS.

The way to get control over the IRS is through tax reform. Several tax reform plans, such as the one from the Bowles-Simpson commission, have proposed the same thing: ridding the Tax Code of its exceptions. Exceptions are the exemptions, deductions, credits, write-offs, loopholes, and gimmicks that allow taxpayers to pay less than their tax rates would indicate.

These plans are headed in the right direction, but they don’t go far enough. What they should recommend is the complete elimination of all exceptions. That would allow for the lowest rates possible that would still bring in the same revenue. Eliminating all exceptions dictates setting the new tax rates to their current effective rates, what folks actually pay. So if one currently has an effective income tax rate of, say, 10 percent, under the new system that taxpayer would have a statutory income tax rate of 10 percent. The new low rates would be levied against every dollar of income.

I’ve written about this tax reform idea here, but I didn’t give readers an idea of what their new tax rates would be. People may be surprised at how low their new rates would be under this idea.

I've seen a tax plan put forward by someone else on here, maybe a year or so ago. Eliminates the individual from Federal taxes entirely, and I think it's a great idea. Don't remember who/where it was posted (forgot to copy that data), but here ya go:

How about we eliminate the Federal tax and replace it with representative apportionment.

1) Congress determines the amount of taxes to be collected
2) The amount is split into two equal pots - one for the Senators and one for the Representatives
3) The pot for the Senators is divided by 100 to determine the per Senator tax bill.
4) The pot for the Representatives is divided by 435 to determine the per Representative tax bill
5) The treasury then calculates the tax liability for each state by multiplying the per Senator amount by 2 and adds to that amount the per Representative amount, calculated as the number of representatives times the per representative amount
6) That total tax liability is then divided into quarterly amounts and communicated to each state.
7) States are then free to determine for themselves what is the best tax collection method for their citizens
8) States which are more than one quarter behind are prohibited from paying their State legislature or Governor their state salaries
9) States that are more than two quarters behind are no longer allowed a vote in committee
10) States that are more than three quarters behind are no longer allowed a vote on the floor
11) States that are more than four quarters behind will have a garnishment of all tax revenues to the State

The only issues I really see are:
- Senators get half the pot. This really unfairly burdens small states with few Reps, as their 2 Sens would inflate their bill greatly. Better to just split the total pot by 535.
- Would really require repeal of the 17th.
- Dems (when in charge) would need to submit a budget. You could argue, however, that as long as no budget has been passed for the year, that the States need pay no taxes until a budget is fully approved.

Why would you have to prove you’ve paid sales tax on anything? The Sales Tax is collected at the point of sale of all new finished goods. You buy new goods, you pay the tax. You buy used goods, it’s already been paid (when it was sold new), so no record needed.
The collection mechanism is already in place via the State Tax Collection authority. The accounting is the same. Businesses remit in the same process as today, and the State makes the split and remits to fedgov.
IRS not needed.
April 15th is just another day.

And, the taxpayers can (within reason) vote with their pocketbooks, again.

The infernal revenue service will start making you prove you paid sales tax on everything in your home because of the massive underground economy that will spring up do to the 30% sales tax that hack who wrote that book wants to impose onto us. The next thing that will happen is all cash transactions over a certain amount will become a felony. Cash would eventually be banned because it would be deemed the tool of tax cheats.

The fools pushing for that scam are playing with matches in pool of gasoline.

Orangedog, do you seriously think an underground economy does not currently exist? One that has as it’s goal the avoidance of income taxes? Really?

What about the whole illegal drug market? The billions of dollars in income go untaxed. At least under the FairTax, those dollars would be more likely to be counted and would contribute to the tax pool. Even drug pushers buy groceries, clothes, and appliances. Even drug kingpins buy cars, furniture, houses, and on and on and on.

That’s just one example.

I think you’re exaggerating the outcome. The IRS would NOT be needed in the FairTax model because the tax collection and distribution would happen at the state level, which is already established to handle and manage a consumption tax model.

Yeah, you're right. The fedgov and its support mechanism, the IRS will just say "Aw shucks...guess we're just gonna go find new jobs in the private sector. You sure showed us!"

Normally I would be happy to let the fairness taxers and con/conners have their plans blow up horribly in their faces, but those fools will be taking me and mine to hell with them in the process so I'll be calling them out for the idiots they are whenever I can.

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