Monday, April 18, 2011

Why Aren’t They Talking About A Flat Tax?

Why Aren’t They Talking About A Flat Tax?
Thomas D. Segel
April 15, 2011
When I turned on my television set yesterday it was with the intention of listening to the President of the United States of America explain how he envisioned all of us as a nation reducing our staggering national deficit. Instead of a logically thought out plan, we were instead, treated to one of the first presidential campaign speeches of the 2012 race. The second thing Barack Obama did was obliquely tell more than half of America that his presidency represents only the political “progressives” of our country.

We heard all the one-liners from the Democrat Talking Points paper spewed out once again. There were “the Bush era tax cuts for the rich.” There was the hackneyed line that has almost become a Democrat mantra; “the “millionaires and billionaires” should be paying more. He told us about “the debt he inherited” and how the Republicans are planning to make sure grandma does get her medical care, junior doesn’t go to daycare, Johnny does not have money for college and Popeye will lose his spinach.

He is planning to reform the tax code by making sure all of the loopholes are plugged and raise the rates on those “millionaires and billionaires” he seems to hate. If Obama were serious about reforming our tax structure, he would make sure that the 70,000 pages of the current law were whittled down to a single page...perhaps with the establishment of the flat tax.

The true flat tax is what many believe is the only fair method of taxation. It is applied to all income, with no exemptions and no deductions. It ends corporate welfare. No business or individual receives special or favored treatment. Large families are not advantaged at the expense of small families. Individuals are not penalized because they have elected not to marry. The cost of filing tax returns and tax administration are reduced to almost nothing.

Under the flat tax system only businesses and the self-employed would be required to have any type of interaction with tax authorities. Another thing the flat tax would accomplish is to collect revenue from the 47c of the American public that now pay no income tax into the system. Those who have studied this flat tax system have stated it would actually increase the amount of revenue sent to the national treasury.

Those are most of the reasons why a flat tax should be implemented. They are also the reasons why the flat tax will never see the like of day under our present governmental system.

The flat tax would end a huge amount of power now enjoyed by those in federal government. It would severely reduce the power and scope of the IRS, which also means the Executive Branch would no longer have monetary Brown Shirts to send after those citizens it holds in low esteem. The flat tax would end sugar plumb deals for favored corporations such as General Electric, which made billions and was not even taxed pennies. There would be no more chanting about all those bad millionaires and billionaires and to reduce the deficit all Congress would need to do is add some percentage of increase to everybody’s annual tax bill. And those are also a whole bag full of reasons why we don’t see a flat tax in anyone’s plan to solve the budget and deficit woes of this nation.

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