I've heard several people advocating removing withholding so everyone will have to send in a check to the feds once a year to pay their 'fair share'. The powers-that-be certainly knew what they were doing when they instituted payroll deductions. Since people don't ever see the money, they don't miss it and, therefore, it cause them no pain to see that several hundred or several thousand dollar payment go out. I believe that if people had to send this in on their own, there would finally be a MASS uprising and refusal to pay but, alas, I don't believe it will ever happen. The power to tax is the power to destroy.
Exactly, as long as people don't actually write out checks for Income Tax and FICA they don't see it. This is why it's very difficult to get classified as a contractor as opposed to an employee. Anyone who's ever worked as a 1099 knows how painful it is to come up with that money on a quarterly basis.
The minute witholding is ended, and people start writing checks directly to the IRS, that's when real tax reform will happen.
It would be simpler to put a drop box at the line in front of the voting booth.