A Simple, Easy Way to Protest Our Tax Code

3/31/2002 | DennisR

[DennisR]

Well, I am almost finished with the most flagrant waste of my time--doing my Federal taxes. Just look at Schedule D to enter the worst nightmare of your tax-paying lives. For years, I have thought a flat rate would be best. The only deduction would be for charitable deductions, nothing else. Even Russia now has a flat rate tax of 13%! I think that's about 3% too high, but, hey, it's a step in the right direction.

Anyway, last night I came up with a great idea that might help politicians realize that they have to do something to end the insanity of a 46,000-page tax code. The idea is this: after sending in your 2001 tax return to the IRS, take your 2001 tax booklet and write "I want a 10% flat tax implemented by 2004," then mail it to one of your federal representatives. If they received tens of thousands of these booklets each year in their mail, maybe they would get an idea that we want simpliciation instead of punishment and distress.

[coloradan]

Flat tax good, rate too low. I've heard different theories ranging from 17% to 23% on what the flat tax would need to be to cover current expenditures. Anything less, and people scream about services.

Current expenditures are far and away too high, and most are grossly unconstitutional.

The country managed to survive for a century with an income tax of zero, and was then introduced with a "guarateed" maximum cap of 4%. Although the direct taxes are now about 20-30%, the things people buy with after-tax money were produced by tax-paying companies, and for which sales tax is collected, and people even have to spend after-tax income to pay for income-tax compliance, such as tax software, tax return preparation services, and so forth... I think the real tax rate ends up being something like 70% when you calculate how much of your labor pays directly for goods that you wish to buy, the balance is taxes somewhere or other.

An effective tax rate of 70% is clearly too high.

[DennisR]

Thanks for the clarification. Even though Russia's is only on individual income, it is still a step in the right direction. We got here over decades of politicians putting in their own little laws and regulations--we'll have to get out the same way.

[ancient_geezer]

Good information. Based on the perceived waste that goes on in government, 23.5% is way too high. It would be my proposal that we work our way down to the 10% rate over a period of ten years or so.

Sounds good, here's one plan that can lead to that:

23%........... NRST rate

14.91% ..... rate if Social Security and Medicare were privatized
14% .......... rate if Nat'l Endowment for the Arts were eliminated
11.9%........ rate if Dept. of Education were eliminated
10% .......... rate if welfare were eliminated
etc.

Hmmmmmm.......

The key is making the full tax burden visible to the entire electorate, right now we are caught in a political trap with the income/payroll tax system we exist under:

 

Walter Williams, World Net Daily, 10-25-2000

According to the most recent U.S. Treasury Department figures, in 1997 the top 1 percent of income-earners (those with income of $250,000 and higher) paid 33 percent of all federal income taxes. The top 5 percent of income-earners ($108,000 and over) paid 52 percent, and the top 50 percent ($36,000 and over) paid 96 percent of income taxes. Guess what the bottom 50 percent of income earners paid?

If you're among those who pay little or no federal income taxes, what do you care about tax cuts? Moreover, if you think tax cuts pose a threat to government handout programs, you might be openly hostile and support Al Gore's silly "risky scheme" talk. So many Americans paying little or no federal taxes makes for a natural spending constituency. It's like me in the restaurant: What do I care about extravagance if you're footing the bill?

The ability to hide or disguise taxation from the view of large sectors of the electorate allows the Congress to get away with the creation of the evergrowing monster that it fosters.

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
-George Bernard Shaw

Liberty and freedom have a price, responsibility. If that price is avoided there are no brakes on the growth of government, the ultimate result is the end of freedom through creeping socialism.

[Pontiac]

The only fair tax….is to have a national sales tax.

I think it is immoral to make every retailer in the country a tax collector.

The idea is this: after sending in your 2001 tax return to the IRS, take your 2001 tax booklet and write "I want a 10% flat tax implemented by 2004,"

I don’t believe sending the tax booklet to the IRS is going to get us much. However if a Senator was to get a few hundred tax booklets it might draw some attention.

Now if we could all agree on which Senator to send them to.

[Pontiac]

The only fair tax….is to have a national sales tax.

I think it is immoral to make every retailer in the country a tax collector.

The idea is this: after sending in your 2001 tax return to the IRS, take your 2001 tax booklet and write "I want a 10% flat tax implemented by 2004,"

I don’t believe sending the tax booklet to the IRS is going to get us much. However if a Senator was to get a few hundred tax booklets it might draw some attention.

Now if we could all agree on which Senator to send them to.

[DennisR]

The original suggestion was: "...mail it to one of your federal representatives," just as you suggest. Sending it to the IRS will not do any good. We each have two Senators and a Representative, so if it comes down to choosing one of these three, it should probably be the senior Senator. The news would obviously get to the other two in short order. Based on this, I will send mine to that illustrious senior Senator from the State of Washington, Ms. Patty Murray.

[ancient_geezer]

I think the real tax rate ends up being something like 70% when you calculate how much of your labor pays directly for goods that you wish to buy, the balance is taxes somewhere or other.

Pretty close:

We must . . . End Tax Slavery Now; Nov '97
by Jarret B. Wollstein

HOW MUCH DO YOU REALLY PAY?

     According to the Tax Foundation, in 1994 the average American paid 22.4% of his or her income in federal taxes, plus 11.8% in state and local taxes - 34.2% total.

     But that's just the beginning! Dr. James Payne of the University of California found that in addition to direct taxes we also pay huge, hidden taxes including:

• Compliance costs - record keeping, monies spent on tax planning, computers and software purchased to fulfill IRS requirements, etc.
• Enforcement costs - IRS audits, field investigations, service center corrections, criminal investigations, litigation, and forced collections.
• Emotional, moral and cultural costs - families forced onto welfare, time and creative energy lost figuring out how to avoid taxes, etc.

     For every $1 we pay in direct taxes, we spend an additional $0.65 in compliance costs. And even that figure doesn't include the cost of import duties, license fees and other government regulations. For a typical U.S. family, the real cost of taxes and regulations is at least:

Federal taxes              22.4% of income
State & local taxes      11.8%
Compliance costs        22.2%
Regulatory costs         12.7%

70.1% of your income is now consumed by government

[DennisR]

I suppose another option would be to send all of them to Majority Leader Daschle or Minority Leader Lott. Or the Senator who would have the most influence over taxation. I do not know who that would be. Anyone else know?

[Buckeroo]

Yes, I file. As I am required to perform my civic duties. I always file after April 15. My filing is simple: The government owes my federal taxes back to me. Signed, Buckeroo

They never pay, by the way.

[Mike4Freedom]

The question is not a flat tax vs the complicated mess that we have now. The right protest is to eliminate all the unnecessary spending so that we need no money from the income tax.

If the Federal government obeyed the tenth amendment, then a long list of illegal "services" would be eliminated and roughly 2/3 of the budget would go away. What is left can be paid for with various existing excise taxes and, maybe in war time, a small head tax collected by the states for the Feds in accordance to the original plan of the constitution.

[GOP_Lady]

I'm with you on the Flat Tax! I was a Delegate for Steve Forbes. GOP_Lady

[lewislynn]

Under a sales tax, prices will go up but so would disposable income. We would no longer pay income taxes.

Sorry to inform you but your disposable income would go down.

The NST proposals are taxes "of the gross payment" (including itself) at the final transaction, not the sale (before tax) price...That means you would pay taxes on other taxes, fees etc. imposed before it (the ultimate VAT)...The phony 23% sales tax would increase the price not 23% but a minimum of 30%. If you want to see an example of what a NST would do, take your phone or any utility bill riddled with taxes, fees, charges etc. that wouldn't be eliminated with the sales tax, then add 30% to "the gross payment" ...now tell me what percentage of tax is paid on the "service".

Using their phony 23% rate, my phone bill would have a 42% tax on the actual service charge.

The claim of "lower prices for goods and services" is also bogus...What part of the service would be reduced? Wages?...There's also a sales? tax on "ANY government" payroll (service) increasing the cost of government by 30%...

You would be paying a sales gross payment tax on things you never dreamed of. Like credit card and other interest. Don't forget interest is the purchase price for borrowing buying money, it along with investment interest, banking fees, management fees, are subject to the sales tax as well...

Eliminate tax payers,(corporations, estate, gift etc.)revenue neutral to the government and MORE disposable income for the tax payer?...No way.

As to the hookers, pimps etc...They would get a phony rebate every month the same as Bill Gates or anyone else would, and of course there wouldn't be any fraud in that total scam...GEE, where would that money come from anyway?

[DennisR]

Let me tell you how it will be: There's one for you, 19 for me. Cause I'm the tax man, Yeah, I'm the tax man.

[DennisR]

Thanks for your support. Are you going to send in your tax booklet?

I would have loved it if Steve Forbes had made it to the Presidency. A true conservative with original ideas.

[DennisR]

Thanks for clarifying this.

[ancient_geezer]

I think it is immoral to make every retailer in the country a tax collector.

It's immoral to put every individual in the country under legal jeopardy and coercion of the income tax.

Taxation is going to occur and in fully under the Constitutional authority to levy and collect such taxes. It is up to us to assure that a proper mode is selected:

Thomas Hobbes from Leviathan

• It is fairer to tax people on what they extract from the economy, as roughly measured by their consumption, than to tax them on what they produce for the economy, as roughly measured by their income.

[Montesquieu wrote in Spirit of the Laws, XIII,c.14:]

• "... [A] duty on merchandise is more natural to liberty, by reason it has not so direct a relation to the person."
  --Thomas Jefferson: copied into his Commonplace Book.

Patrick Henry, Virginia Ratifying Convention June 12, 1788:

• "the oppression arising from taxation, is not from the amount but, from the mode -- a thorough acquaintance with the condition of the people, is necessary to a just distribution of taxes. The whole wisdom of the science of Government, with respect to taxation, consists in selecting the mode of collection which will best accommodate to the convenience of the people."

Alan Keyes lays out a solid moral case for a retail sales tax replacing the current system:

Alan Keyes refers to the income tax as the slave tax that should be abolished as a moral imperative, and replaced with a National Sales Tax:

Keyes on Taxes & Government Spending:

• "The income tax in effect makes us vassals to the government – the politicians decide how much income we can keep. No mere “reform” of this slave tax, such as flattening the rate, can correct its fundamental denial of control over our own money. Only the abolition of the income tax itself will restore the basic American principle that our income is both our own money and our own private business - not the government's."

• "Replacing the income tax with a national sales tax would rejuvenate independence and responsibility in our citizens. True economic liberty and moral revival go hand in hand."

• "A national sales tax would also put the American citizen back in control of national fiscal policy. The best way to curtail government spending is to cut taxes, because they can’t spend what they don’t get. But with a sales tax, we could deny funds to a spendthrift government – and give ourselves a tax cut – whenever we make the private choice to alter our spending and saving habits."

Alan Keyes Interview with Des Moines Register:

• Conservative commentator Alan Keyes said Thursday one of the first things he would do as president would be to replace the federal income tax with a national sales tax.

• The Republican presidential candidate said he favors a national sales tax of about 23 percent that would also replace the payroll tax that pays for Social Security.

The intent of the structure of the individual income tax is for political and social control not revenue collection. The Individual Income tax is maintained to establish and hold every person in the country perpetual legal jeopardy. A properly designed NRST removes that jeopardy and provides increase liberty & financial privacy for all individuals.

[RightOnline]

"Flat tax good, rate too low. I've heard different theories ranging from 17% to 23% on what the flat tax would need to be to cover current expenditures. Anything less, and people scream about services."

Let 'em scream, then. It's about time that we focus on Government paying for what Government is supposed to pay for.

Ten percent is all God asks (aka "tithing"). How on Earth could our stupid, wasteful Government ask for more? Too damned many with their hands out........and too few contributing.

No, my friend........let 'em whine. Ten percent it is (still FAR more than the original income tax rate, BTW.......look it up), and any increase would require a two-thirds super-majority vote in BOTH houses.

[DennisR]

A 23% sales tax would kill our economy. Just the thought of paying that much would curtail my spending. It is better to have people pay 10%--a small amount compared to pay for the freedoms we have in this country--than to punish the economy with an NST.

[DennisR]

Right on, RightOnLine. The more screaming I hear, the more we will know this is working.

Send in those tax booklets, everyone!.

And thank you for your support.