KfaD – Federal Taxes

All of our elected federal officials seem obsessed with spending money. Spending our money. That is what they get paid to do. Some of the things they think worthy of tax dollars seem dubious, but “you get what you pay for” applies to us voters too. We elected them, we're stuck with them.

The part I take exception to is the pained and twisted logic used to collect money; taxes. Not the amount (which is astonishing) but the targeting of this group or that industry or some other interest, etc. I use the term “targeting” specifically because of all of the little changes added to the tax code “in the middle of the night” that seem never to see the light of day until the IRS is sending you a letter saying “pay up, deadbeat”.

My idea, if I was “King for a Day”, would be to implement a variation of the “Fair Tax”; a national consumption tax. In concept the Fair Tax is the way to go. Without changes, it would be the most beneficial change to how our government works since its founding. In a nutshell, “It abolishes all federal personal and corporate income taxes, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security, Medicare, and self-employment taxes and replaces them with one simple, visible, federal retail sales tax administered primarily by existing state sales tax authorities.”

However, I would like to put in my two cents worth. I would:

1. Add specific language forbidding our congress critters from creating special rates for or exempting any service, product, or group from taxation.
2. Add language forbidding the formation of multiple tiers of taxation (a.k.a. a Value Added Tax scenario).
3. Transfers of money overseas (e.g. outside the Fair Tax realm) to be subject to the same rate of taxation (including internet purchases, dividend payments to foreign destinations, etc).
4. Establish a tax rate “T” that applies to all then make sure that the politicians have to change that rate as a single issue not as part of another bill or omnibus of tripe.
5. Abolish excise and “sin” taxes like the fuel taxes and the taxes on tobacco and booze.
6. Require states to adopt the same tax plan within the next year.
7. Require all sales to clearly and separately identify the federal consumption tax (FCT) and the state consumption tax (SCT) for each purchase.

I'm not sure if a balanced budget requirement should be added to the constitutional amendment, but it is worth discussing. Of course, with the proviso that deficit spending would be allowed for one year after a true declaration of war (not some phony baloney “war on poverty”, “war on mosquitoes”, or other crappola).

I do not want to put limits on which they spend money, though it is tempting. But, I believe taking the tax code out of the hands of the politicians would make life much better for the rest of us.