Free Republic

<p>Manchester – Calls to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and repeal the Constitutional amendment that established the federal income tax drew loud applause yesterday for Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul.</p> <p>The Texas Congressman drew an eclectic mix of more than 500 supporters -- young and old, Libertarians and anti-war Democrats, independents and conservative Republicans -- who cheered his message of limited government, low taxes, free markets, bringing the troops home from Iraq, and returning to a monetary policy based on the gold standard.</p>

John Dingell proposes not only a huge gas tax but also ENDING THE HOME MORTGAGE DEDUCTION for “large” homes–all this to fight global warming change. (Pause. Laugh. Roll eyes.) Now, Dingell’s not serious about any of this–he said as much over the summer on the Sunday talk shows. He says he just wants to get the discussion going–and, if my memory is correct, he also said that he wants to show others that it’s impossible to pass this kind of stuff. But just now he’s acting serious about it. As a conservative/libertarian, this is wonderful news to me. There is...

A Tax Break for Driving to Work? The Fair Tax Will Fix This By Herman Cain August 20, 2007 There is a little-known deduction in the tax code that 400,000 people know about, and by which they avoid $150 million dollars in taxes each year. The issue is not that most of us do not know about this little sneak-a-tax, or even the amount that the rest of us are picking up through a higher federal deficit. The issue is that this is another example of how the tax code is used to encourage a desired behavior. The deduction encourages...

People often laugh when I say on the campaign trail that the tax code should be taken behind the barn and killed with a dull axe. In fact, one man in Iowa was so excited by this proposal that he presented me with an axe before I finished my remarks (fittingly, I was speaking in a barn). There's a reason people welcome my proposal to kill the tax code -- it's a monster of inscrutable complexity, and I say that as a former lawyer who took every tax law class I could. Today's tax code -- which is sixteen times...

NEW YORK, June 26 -- Warren E. Buffett was his usual folksy self Tuesday night at a fundraiser for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) as he slammed a system that allows the very rich to pay taxes at a lower rate than the middle class. Buffett cited himself, the third-richest person in the world, as an example. Last year, Buffett said, he was taxed at 17.7 percent on his taxable income of more than $46 million. His receptionist was taxed at about 30 percent.

A modest proposal: Let’s dump the entire tax code. Let’s gather all the tax documents we can find, put them in a big heap, and have a nationally televised Tax Code Burning Day. If the tax lobbies protest, toss them on the fire, too. Good riddance. Tax Code Burning Day is possibly a bit extreme, but the idea of chucking our income tax system has been around for quite a while. When I suggested 10 years ago that we were all suffering from TDB - Tax Debate Burnout - 5,000 readers agreed. They sent in letters and postcards in support...

While Americans struggle to comply with one of the world’s most complicated tax codes, it’s worth noting that about one-dozen nations have adopted simple and fair flat-tax systems. Hong Kong has had a flat tax for nearly 60 years, and has gone from being one of the poorest places on the planet to a first-class economic powerhouse. Even the rulers in Beijing who now control the former British colony are smart enough to realize that it would be foolish to change course and kill the proverbial goose. Too bad American politicians aren't as economically astute as Chinese communists. Congress occasionally...

Behold the simple virtues of a fair national sales tax : Tax code is a disgrace that needs an overhaul By LEO LINBECK WITH millions of Americans once again struggling to complete their federal income taxes, it is a good time to reflect on the profoundly dysfunctional and highly punitive federal tax code that only gets more complicated year after year. ADVERTISEMENT The patchwork quilt of tax loopholes, exclusions, adjustments and various forms and schedules that we all struggle to understand is a reflection of the wholesale auctioning off of the tax code over the last several decades into the...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Dissatisfaction remains high after numerous changes in tax law since the late 1980s. The Reagan administration led a tax overhaul two decades ago that significantly lowered tax rates and eliminated or reduced several deductions. The first President Bush abandoned his "read my lips, no new taxes pledge" in a 1990 budget deal that raised taxes. The Clinton administration won passage in 1993 of a deficit-reduction measure that blended tax increases, budget cuts and rebates for the working poor. And the second Bush administration pushed successfully for tax cuts that lowered the top income tax rate to 35...

On Tax Day, $125 billion in waste By Matt Schumsky April 14, 2006 Another dreaded April 15th – Tax Day – is nearly upon us. Our annual tax ritual requires over 26 hours from the average person filing a standard 1040, and over 60 percent of Americans seek professional help. The reason: The U.S. tax code now exceeds 60,000 pages, and those pages often give conflicting advice. No wonder that in 1976, presidental candidate Jimmy Carter declared, “Our income tax system is a disgrace to the human race.” In many ways, things are worse today than they were then. Our...

WASHINGTON - Almost as certain as death and taxes is the public's feeling that the U.S. income tax system is not fair. An Ipsos Poll released this week found almost six of 10 people, 58 percent, say the system is unjust, a number that is virtually unchanged from two decades ago. ADVERTISEMENT People think the middle class, the self-employed and small businesses pay too much in taxes, the poll found. And they think those with high incomes and big businesses don't pay enough. The survey was conducted in the days before the mid-April deadline for filing income tax returns. Dissatisfaction...

Americans should be concerned about the competitive edge that our tax system gives foreign manufacturers. We should no longer allow the income tax to make foreign-produced goods more competitive than our own. Replacing the income tax with the Fair Tax, a highly progressive federal consumption tax, will end this practice and make American products 20 percent to 30 percent more competitive, both at home and abroad. What a break for U.S. producers and consumers as well! Getting rid of the income tax will dramatically lower production costs in this country. And competition will ensure that these cost savings will flow...

Recently the Internal Revenue Service released a report showing that nearly three quarters of 82 tax-exempt groups investigated during the 2004 elections took part in prohibited political activity. But now, churches and nonprofit organizations have a new resource to help keep them out of trouble with the IRS. The IRS says several of the organizations and churches will probably lose their tax-exempt status, a fact that will very likely affect future contributions to these groups. In an effort to help churches, ministries, and other faith-based institutions avoid such errors, The Rutherford Institute, a Virginia-based civil liberties organization, has issued guidelines...

Tax-Overhaul Panel Gives Bush Two Choices Options to Consider Include A Simplified Current System Or a Consumption-Based Levy By ROBERT GUY MATTHEWS Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL October 19, 2005; Page A4 WASHINGTON -- President Bush's tax-overhaul panel agreed to offer two alternatives to the present tax code: one that streamlines the current income tax and another that would replace it with a progressive tax on consumption. SNIP Neither is likely to become law, but they offer the Treasury Department and the White House a framework for legislative proposals that could be considered by Congress next year. SNIP...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 11 - President Bush's tax advisory commission indicated today that it would not propose replacing the income tax with a national sales tax or a value-added tax but would recommend modifications in the popular tax deductions for mortgage interest and employer-provided health insurance. (Excerpt)

KPMG avoided the fate of Arthur Andersen yesterday... over the marketing and sale of "abusive" tax shelters. But the price of survival was high. The accounting firm will pay $456 million in fines and restitution and has agreed to let a federal monitor look over its shoulder. At the same time, no fewer than eight former KPMG executives and an outside lawyer were indicted on conspiracy charges for designing and selling the shelters.... KPMG will survive this "deferred prosecution" by admitting wrongdoing. But it's easy to forget amid the righteous indignation over tax shelters with names like FLIP, BLIP, OPIS...

President Bush says he wants to reform the tax system and has appointed a tax-reform commission that will issue a report in September. It was originally supposed to have reported by July 31, but the White House asked the commission to delay its report so that it would not interfere with the Social Security-reform effort, which needs a few more months before it can be declared legally dead. I've long thought that the White House had made a very serious error in attempting to do both Social Security reform and tax reform at the same time. The issues were too...

There’s an old tale which says that if you take a frog and throw him in a pot of hot, boiling water the frog will jump out. But if you take the frog and put him in a pot of cold water, and gradually turn up the heat, little by little over a long period of time, the frog’s body will adjust to the incremental increases of heat and eventually boil to death. The U.S. economy is like a frog in a pot of boiling water and he can’t jump out to save himself. One of his legs is the...

WASHINGTON -- As taxpayers recover from finishing their annual filing chores, a presidential commission studying the tax laws has reached the conclusion that there are just too many deductions and credits. To help taxpayers deal with college costs there are -- depending on which applies to a particular individual -- two different kinds of tax credits, a deduction for student loan interest and special tax-advantaged savings plans. Special urban and rural tax zones encourage investment and job creation. Dozens of other tax benefits help families raise children and save for retirement, encourage adoption, nudge drivers toward hybrid cars and push...

Champagne drinker: "Only the little people pay taxes" It won't seem that way to the millions of Americans who file their tax returns by the deadline on Friday, but there is a mountain of evidence that tax avoidance (the legal variety) and even tax evasion (the illegal variety) are growth industries. Accountants in the field have even come up with the term "tax avoision" to describe the grey areas in between. It was Leona Helmsley who said famously that "only the little people pay taxes". You might forgive her cynicism. The assertion was over-stated but not completely wide of the...