The key debate question is, “What is wrong with the federal tax code and how to fix it?”
The root of the tax issues is the 16th Amendment (enables direct taxation and without limits) passed in February 1913. Six months late came the first legal income tax, then the IRS, payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare and tax withholding. The 16th Amendment gave the federal government huge new taxing power and we lost Freedom, Liberty and Civil Rights. The 16th Amendment in our Constitution, the document that protects the people from its government, enables a graduated income tax, the second requirement for communist state per the Communist Manifesto by Karl Mark.
Please consider the following problems and note that taxes are a discouragement, a burden, a punishment. An IRS investigation does not involve a judge and jury, thus a loss of civil rights. The IRS is used for political purposes and needs to be eliminated. The federal tax code has grown to over 74,000 pages. Nobody understands it, too large to administer, full of loop holes and encourages bad practices. Direct taxation discourages production, income, savings and investment.
We want more jobs, but have a regressive tax on jobs of 15.3%, shared 50/50 by the employee and the employer. Production as in labor and creation is what creates more jobs, a vibrant economy, improves the standard of living and builds a larger tax base, but we tax production. The 47% think they are not paying federal taxes, but in fact they are paying over $0.28 per dollar in embedded business taxes as a hidden regressive sales tax. You see all taxes, fees, etc. to businesses are costs that raise prices and are passed onto the next buyer until paid by the final consumer.
The USA has the highest business taxes in the world thus raises the prices for USA goods, but imported goods do not carry that same high tax burden. Would you like Made in USA and imported goods taxed the same in our country? Federal taxes are based on jobs, companies and capital; thus driving them out of our economy and also discouraging them from entering. Federal tax withholding reduces spendable income and take home pay.
“United we stand, divided we fall” and our tax code divides us into classes. We spend some $431 billion per year to just comply with the tax code. That is an expensive stay our of jail card. The “underground economy including illegal aliens” is estimated to be over $2 trillion and goes untaxed. There are many who cheat or don’t even file a tax return. The tax code hurts most the lower incomes while the deductions and exemptions are of most help to the wealthy. And wouldn’t it be nice to put the care and feeding of the family before paying federal taxes? The Washington beltway commodity is the federal tax code as it is bought and sold by the lobbyist, special interests and politician. Hence the name and growth of “Crony capitalism.” Today we are infected with “tax cancer”, a deadly spreading evil.
Would you like a solution to these problems? Flat taxes and rate changes are not the answer as they still tax labor and creation, need the IRS with annual tax filing, use tax withholding and most plans still tax jobs. A flat tax may make it easy to file your income tax, but we have been there before and politicians know the tax system will quickly revert back to its old ways. The value added tax (VAT) is another new tax without eliminating any old taxes. It is called a consumption tax but still taxes businesses and opens up a whole new tax play ground for the politicians, lobbyists and special interests. Both the flat tax and the VAT still need the 16th Amendment and are not solutions to the real problems.
There is a solution called the FAIRtax ®, a bill of 132 pages (double spaced) in Congress HR 25 / S 155 that does address all of the problems mentioned above. There are now 80 in Congress supporting the FAIRtax (73 House and 7 Senate).
The FAIRtax is real “replace and repeal tax reform”. It abolishes all federal business and personal, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security, Medicare and self-employment taxes and replaces them with one simple, visible, federal retail sales tax – collected by existing state sales tax authorities. The FAIRtax is easy to understand, has no tax loopholes and one tax rate. It collects the same tax revenue with a progressive sales/consumption tax on new goods and services of $0.23 per dollar.
The FAIRtax has only one tax break, called a Prebate that is a monthly tax rebate based on family size. The Prebate helps most the impoverished and lower income and decreases in value as income and wealth increase. The Prebate makes the FAIRtax a progressive tax plan. The FAIRtax promises real long term growth for jobs and the economy. The 16th Amendment would be repealed with companion legislation.