Ted Cruz's Best Idea Yet: Reform Taxes And Abolish IRS

Investor's Business Daily ^ | January 15, 2015 | Editorial Staff

[2ndDivisionVet]

Tax Reform: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2016, might have hit on the most important fiscal issue facing the U.S.: the need for major tax reform. But he takes it a step further.

Speaking Monday, the senator from Texas threw another thunderbolt: Republicans should use their control of Congress to get rid of the Internal Revenue Service.

"We need to pass fundamental tax reform making our tax code simpler, flatter, fairer," he told a crowd at a Heritage Foundation event. "And I'll tell you, the single most important tax reform, we should abolish the IRS."

It's not as radical as it sounds.

In recent years, the IRS has become overtly political, or "weaponized," as Cruz puts it. The IRS scandal, in which it "slow-walked" applications by Tea Party and other conservative groups to deny them nontax status during the 2012 presidential race, is but one example.

Its 110,000-person workforce has become a silent army working on behalf of progressive causes.

That, in itself, is bad enough. But as the Americans for Tax Reform point out in a recent blog post on their website, unless his agency gets more money, "IRS Commissioner John Koskinen has threatened delayed refunds, long call-wait times, the specter of identity theft, and now, no-show days for IRS employees."(continued)

[dragnet2]

I think anyone capable of critical thought could come up with this...I should run for king.

Ya know what’s interesting, is many of these people come up with the most obvious, most needed policies, when they’re running or contemplating running for something.

[lnbjohnson]

These simplistic chants of “flat tax” and “abolish the IRS” are what makes conservatives look stupid. Tax laws certainly need to be changed, but we are going to need a department that collects taxes and enforces tax laws. Even if we eliminated income taxes and went to a national sales tax or property tax, we would need a agency to collect and manage taxes. As for flat tax... the tax rates take up less than one page of the tax law. Everything else is rules determining income and deductions. Reform and simplify? Certainly. But the reform idea need to be realistic.

[Regulator]

True, but referring to the basic idea...abolish IRS, reform taxes: not new.

Urgency of doing it has elevated due to “weaponization”....good line

[Nucluside]

Both NEA’s!

[Will88]

Such tax reform is a great idea, but don’t bet on anything fully eliminating the IRS. The IRS, or some such entity, would survive in much smaller form to audit, or make determinations that taxpayers were reporting all of their income.

Illegal tax evasion via unreported income would be just as possible as it is now and there would still be some enforcement agency.

[Shadow44]

The GOP can’t even get rid of the Department of Education, how is it supposed to take down the IRS?

[OneWingedShark]

As for flat tax... the tax rates take up less than one page of the tax law. Everything else is rules determining income and deductions. Reform and simplify? Certainly. But the reform idea need to be realistic.

Try the tax reform amendment here.

[Doug Loss]

This has already been answered. For a national sales tax, the agencies to collect it already exist, and have been collecting state sales taxes for a long time. They are the various state Departments of Revenue. There’s no need for a separate federal agency to duplicate their efforts.

[Nucluside]

Alan Keyes was a place holder who had just recently moved to Illinois. He was a volunteer sacrificial lamb who didn’t have a chance against Chicago, and was understandably upset by the way the RHINOS treated his campaign.

I met him at the Petroleum Club in Albuquerque in 1998. 5 other potential presidential candidates were there, including that idiot McCain. Keyes, at that time, matched my political leanings issue by issue 100 per cent. We are both Army brats, too. After I talked to McCain I felt like I needed a shower. After I talked to Keyes I felt like I had made a friend, and I’ll bet we talked for an hour.

I don’t know what happened to Keyes after that senatorial election, but I certainly know how it feels to run in an election for the team and then have part of the team stick a knife in my back.

[TheDon]

Cruz 2016!

[dragnet2]

Take it to the people...When they’ve eventually had enough, they’ll figure out how to do it. Not complex.

Trust me.

[VideoDoctor]

Hey Mr. Cruz... NO TALK necessary... “JUST DO IT.”

[Agamemnon]

Alan Keyes gave us Senator Barack Obama.

That is a particularly gross mis-representation of the man and of the facts.

You have clearly failed to recall that but for the fact Jack Ryan (R) who was in the race had what were his sealed divorce court case details leaked to the press by Obama's minions -- thus forcing him put of the race, Obama would have run completely unopposed for the Senate seat he won, had Keyes not volunteered to step in and pick up what was left of a fallen standard.

Why don't you instead blame Peter Fitzgerald (R) who after having replaced the hideous Carol Moseley Braun and all that investment to do so chose to serve only one term in a Senate seat that would have been easily his to hold on to in Bush's re-election year.

Careless misrepresentation of a guy, who has found himself too often to be a "voice crying in the wilderness" and is one of the more articulate patriots the GOPe has tried to muzzle for years is simply inexcusable.

FReegards!

[pepsionice]

If you line up a hundred people, and explain the flat tax in detail....the vast majority (probably over 70 percent) will approve of the idea. Say a flat 12-percent for all private citizens and a flat 19-percent for major businesses.

But then you let the hundred folks know....there’s no credits that they can take....nothing on the home loan, kids, college, etc. At that point, folks get a bit frustrated and let you know they aren’t that happy with the flat tax idea. Same business operations...they expect credits.

In the end....you can’t get past credits. It’s part of our American tax mentality.

[maine-iac7]

BINGO What YOU said: "For a national sales tax, the agencies to collect it already exist, and have been collecting state sales taxes for a long time. They are the various state Departments of Revenue. There’s no need for a separate federal agency to duplicate their efforts.

WAshington wouldn't even know how much you made- wouldn't know where you worked - wouldn't have any means of control over you. You would simply pay a National SALES tax, collected at the same time of purchase as your state sales taxes.

Super simple.

a 'flat tax' or any other kind that maintains the IRS will simply morph back into what we have now. After all, the income tax, originally, was minuscule and 'temporary.' It was the camel nose in the tent - as would be the flat tax.

The only thing that can stop it - is NO IRS.

[lewislynn]

WAshington wouldn't even know how much you made- wouldn't know where you worked - wouldn't have any means of control over you. You would simply pay a National SALES tax, collected at the same time of purchase as your state sales taxes.

LOL! Oh yea, the representatives will be falling all over themselves to get to the floor to vote for that plan.

Ignorance is bliss.

[2001convSVT]

And abolish the departments or energy and education, too!

[zeugma]

The only way to actually get rid of the IRS and their abuses is to implement a national sales tax. A national 10% sales tax (God only asks for 10% so that should be enough for the government as well) would usher in the greatest period of prosperity this nation has ever known. A “flat” tax would leave the vast majority of the apparatus of the IRS in place.

[zeugma]

These simplistic chants of “flat tax” and “abolish the IRS” are what makes conservatives look stupid. Tax laws certainly need to be changed, but we are going to need a department that collects taxes and enforces tax laws. Even if we eliminated income taxes and went to a national sales tax or property tax, we would need a agency to collect and manage taxes. As for flat tax... the tax rates take up less than one page of the tax law. Everything else is rules determining income and deductions. Reform and simplify? Certainly. But the reform idea need to be realistic.

That's why I support a national sales tax of 10%. We could strip away every bit of the code that defines "income", which is where the vast majority of evil in the code comes from. We already have all the infrastructure in place to handle the sales tax. Nothing new is needed.

[SoConPubbie]

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