Posted on 01/12/2015 6:21:42 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said Monday that Republicans should take advantage of their control of Congress to abolish the Internal Revenue Service.
“We need to pass fundamental tax reform making our tax code simpler, flatter, fairer,” he said Monday at Heritage Action’s 2015 conservative policy summit. ”And I’ll tell you, the single most important tax reform, we should abolish the IRS.”
“The last two years have fundamentally changed the dynamics of this debate [on the tax code],” he said. “As we have seen the weaponization of the IRS, as we have seen the Obama administration using the IRS in a partisan manner to punish it’s political enemies.”
“In my view there is a powerful populist instinct to take the 110,000 employees at the IRS, to padlock the building, and to put all 110,000 of them down on our southern border.”
Cruz quickly clarified that that remark was somewhat tongue in cheek, but joked that anyone who had traveled thousands of miles to cross the border and saw thousands of IRS agents in their way would definitely turn around and go home.
He acknowledged it’s not really possible to abolish the IRS or adopt a flat tax while Obama is in office, but said Republicans should take steps in that direction by doing whatever they can to simplify the tax code and make its burden lighter and reduce the power of Washington.
Republicans will get “walloped” in 2016 if they return to business as usual while controlling Congress, he said, and urged leadership to take on a bold agenda.
The election was not an embrace of a particular party but a rejection of the path the country is on, he said. “It was the voters saying, ‘the Obama economy, it ain’t working. We want something different. We want real leadership.’”
“If we simply settle into business as usual in this town and keep growing and growing and growing the leviathan and keep shrinking and shrinking and shrinking that sphere of individual liberty, we will demoralize the men and women who came out in November,” he added.
He outlined an agenda that includes repealing and replacing Obamacare, securing the border, passing the Keystone XL pipeline, auditing the Federal Reserve and taking a hard line against ISIS and Iran.
“Let’s lead with a big, bold, positive agenda that says to the American people you had a referendum and you rejected the Obama agenda — there is a better way,” he said. “That’s our opportunity.”
The 16th ammendment was not ratified:
http://www.givemeliberty.org/features/taxes/notratified.htm
it was fraud. And the liberal media had a worse monopoly then in the early 1900’s than they do now as there was no internet. so this income tax is a great unconstitutional fraud ,tyranny and freedom robbing injustice perpetrated on a free people. It must be repealed and or exposed. The income tax is communism and against freedom . to say that an individual’s property or income belongs to the IRS is an abomination. repeal the 16th. Give me liberty or give me death! funny how the USA actually grew faster economically than all other countries without the 16th until it was “ratified” in 1913 or around there.
He's not being honest here. As long as you have a tax code, you will have an IRS to audit and enforce it. It might get renamed, but will be the same entity.
Only by getting rid of any and all forms of income tax will you get the Feds out of your financial life. That includes all means-tested payments, from school loans and grants to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid.
Lots of folks, like divorce lawyers and bank loan officers would really prefer that we still have to regularly declare our income on forms with big penalties for lying, not to think of the legion of CPAs who'd be out of work if form 1040 went away.
As long as he's talking about a flat tax, he's talking about keeping the IRS, though the name may change.
The 16th ammendment was not ratified:
http://www.givemeliberty.org/features/taxes/notratified.htm
it was fraud. And the liberal media had a worse monopoly then in the early 1900’s than they do now as there was no internet. so this income tax is a great unconstitutional fraud ,tyranny and freedom robbing injustice perpetrated on a free people. It must be repealed and or exposed. The income tax is communism and against freedom . to say that an individual’s property or income belongs to the IRS is an abomination. repeal the 16th. Give me liberty or give me death! funny how the USA actually grew faster economically than all other countries without the 16th until it was “ratified” in 1913 or around there.
Really? There's 74,000 pages to describe a simple progressive tax rate?
There's about 10 pages describing the tax rates, and 73,990 pages describing what is and isn't income. Talk to any business owner about simply deciding what is and isn't a valid business expense. There's always something the IRS can niggle on.
As long as you have an income tax, the question of deciding what is and isn't income will get hairy - there's too much money involved for it not draw lots of lawsuits and pay lots of lobbyists for exemptions and special clauses.
The income tax is what needs to go.
If Cruz would ever become POTUS, he would make the nation forget all about Reagan.
Go Ted, go!
I’m getting a tingle up my leg...
Well, I hate to burst your bubble, taxcontrol, but HR 25, as introduced in the 113th Congress, defunds the IRS: [The legislation will be re-introduced in the 114th Congress]
[FairTax] “Prohibits the funding of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) after FY2017.
Establishes in the Department of the Treasury:
(1) an Excise Tax Bureau to administer excise taxes not administered by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), and
(2) a Sales Tax Bureau to administer the national sales tax.
Terminates the sales tax imposed by this Act if the Sixteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (authorizing an income tax) is not repealed within seven years after the enactment of this Act.”
Source: https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/113/hr25
FYI, tax legislation cannot limit spending. Spending is a separate issue, and I agree with you: FEDGOV (ALLL! GOV) spending needs to be drastically cut!
Likewise, entitlement reform must be separate legislation.
Go read HR 25.
Check out the FairTax website: http://www.fairtax.org.
Give FairTax a chance.
FairTax is good for America and good for Americans!
I’m behind him 100%!
Go GITTERDONE, Senator!
“The income tax is what needs to go.”
YUP! That is why I support the FairTax.
It really is a FReedom issue, sargon.
The 16th Amendment to the US Constitution and the resulting Marxist-inspired progressive income tax fundamentally changed the relationship of the American people to their government.
Before the 16th, people were the masters, government was the slave.
After the 16th, government was the master and the people were the slaves!
WE WILL NEVER BE A FREE PEOPLE SO LONG AS WE HAVE AN INCOME TAX AND AN IRS!
Establishes in the Department of the Treasury:This is the bureau for all the lobbyists you thought would go away.
(1) an Excise Tax Bureau to administer excise taxes not administered by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), and
Any vehicle not electric? Excise tax
Sugar? Excise tax
Business competitor? Excise tax
Snack food? Excise tax
Fast food? Excise tax
The beautiful thing about an excise tax to a lobbyist is, like the Fairtax, NOTHING would be exempt.
BTW, because of the way the Fairtax is structured (% OF the gross payments), and an excise tax being a part of a gross payment, the excise tax would also be taxed 30%.
Be careful what you wish for.
No, not the Conservative CPA's I talk too..
They said they will reinvent themselves and focus on their small (and larger) business clients, and not help these clients in dealing with the taxes and the centricity of all THAT paperwork, but rather WHAT DO WE DO WITH YOUR INCOME and do things wise with it, if it is business expansion or investment.
And that my friend would be a sea change that would have Ronaldus Maximus smilin' from Heaven as we would be so flippin' pro-growth it ain't even funny...
Washington D.C. is "Pontification Central."
Lots of TALK.. NO follow through action.
You realize that argument has been laughed out of every court it's in introduced in, right?
Again, the FairTax is only one of several possible tax collection alternatives. And if we are honest, while it stops funding for the IRS, it recreates the same tax collection and enforcement via the Sales Tax Bureau. So that the IRS agent leaves on Friday and will return on Monday as a Sales Tax agent. Same Agent, Different Day.
I have read HR 25 ... with a rather skeptical eye. Again it is only changing how the money is collected.
That’s not just an asterisk in the “consumption” tax argument.
Your chances of getting the 16A repealed are about as good as seeing D.C. decide they’ve had enough, return all of your many back to you, and go home.
I didn’t know this.
If true, the 16th Amendment isn’t a valid amendment and is illegal.
I wonder what it would take to confirm these findings in a way that would allow the states to begin nullifying the feds power to collect income tax?
The session of Congress is now known as the 114th Session of Congress.
Answer a few simple questions:
1. If your flat tax idea passes, what is to prevent future sessions of Congress from amending it?
2. Over the last 10 years why has the HR 25 FairTax had more than ten times the number of sponsoring members in Congress than the Flat Tax?
3. With respect to flat tax/no deduction laws:
a. How many have been passed in US history?
b. What year was the first flat tax/no deduction passed?
c. Why did they not succeed?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.