So, tell me why this wouldn't work
In an earlier post I suggested you not take your economic prognostications from an old gym teacher. But here I am making another one. Well, not a prognostication but asking a question. What would Thoreau Say...
Why wouldn't a flat tax work? Really, what if we said everyone...and I mean everyone-people, companies, nonprofits (yes, nonprofits-more below), churches...everyone paid 10% on everything they brought in. Everything.
If you are Bill Gates or Warren Buffett and you make $2 billion during the year, you pay 10%-no exemptions, no deductions, no monkey business...
If you are BP and you made $15 billion last year (which they did), you pay 10%-no exemptions, no deductions, no monkey business...
If you are the church Our Lady of the Paved Driveway and you take in 100k in contributions during a given year you pay 10k in taxes-no exemptions, no deductions, no monkey business...
Huh? Why wouldn't that work? I bet the treasury would have more money than it knew what to do with. We would cover our costs, pay our bills, eliminate the deficit quickly.
My math might be off. Maybe it needs to be 15% or maybe 5%. Whatever we need to pay the government bills at the federal, state and local level...that would be the tax rate. And again, NO DEDUCTIONS, NO EXEMPTIONS, NO MONKEY BUSINESS.
And, how about if we said 7% goes to the federal government, 2% to the state and 1% local? My guess is that would cover their costs too!
The federal government could have a small office in the basement somewhere with six guys in green eye shades and computers. We would all file our taxes on a postcard that said "here's what I made last year; here's what I owe you, check attached." We could eliminate the IRS and probably eliminate the state and local tax departments. The six guys with green eye shades would instruct the computer to send 2% of Kurt's money to Virginia and 1% to Leesburg (or whatever the real percentage needs to be-remember, gym teacher).
Now you say, yea but charity would suffer. Wrong! People would have so much more money they would gladly support the things they cared about. Really, if I made 100k last year and paid say 20k for taxes but in the Aschermann System now pay 10k, wouldn't I find some room in that extra 10k for charity? And do you think I found much room in the 80k left over in the old system? Nope.
Think how fair this would be! Nobody would get away with hiring a bunch of lawyers to work the system (clearly in their right under the old system as several of you pointed out in my anti-BP rant before) because they would have nothing to deduct or exempt or "monkey business."
There has to be big reasons for this system to be hard to implement because wouldn't Rand Paul (or is it Paul Rand, or Ayn Rand) have come up with this already? I mean, for goodness sake Newt Gingrich will say anything right now (like how he found Jesus all of a sudden, probably hanging around a Tea Party rally)...wouldn't he advocate this?
Wait, wait...maybe that's why it hasn't been suggested by these guys. It makes sense! It might work! Of course they won't advocate it...it's logical! it's do-able! it might actually help somebody who isn't a billionnaire.
Sorry, should have known better...
But still, come on, tell me. Why wouldn't this work?
Why wouldn't a flat tax work? Really, what if we said everyone...and I mean everyone-people, companies, nonprofits (yes, nonprofits-more below), churches...everyone paid 10% on everything they brought in. Everything.
If you are Bill Gates or Warren Buffett and you make $2 billion during the year, you pay 10%-no exemptions, no deductions, no monkey business...
If you are BP and you made $15 billion last year (which they did), you pay 10%-no exemptions, no deductions, no monkey business...
If you are the church Our Lady of the Paved Driveway and you take in 100k in contributions during a given year you pay 10k in taxes-no exemptions, no deductions, no monkey business...
Huh? Why wouldn't that work? I bet the treasury would have more money than it knew what to do with. We would cover our costs, pay our bills, eliminate the deficit quickly.
My math might be off. Maybe it needs to be 15% or maybe 5%. Whatever we need to pay the government bills at the federal, state and local level...that would be the tax rate. And again, NO DEDUCTIONS, NO EXEMPTIONS, NO MONKEY BUSINESS.
And, how about if we said 7% goes to the federal government, 2% to the state and 1% local? My guess is that would cover their costs too!
The federal government could have a small office in the basement somewhere with six guys in green eye shades and computers. We would all file our taxes on a postcard that said "here's what I made last year; here's what I owe you, check attached." We could eliminate the IRS and probably eliminate the state and local tax departments. The six guys with green eye shades would instruct the computer to send 2% of Kurt's money to Virginia and 1% to Leesburg (or whatever the real percentage needs to be-remember, gym teacher).
Now you say, yea but charity would suffer. Wrong! People would have so much more money they would gladly support the things they cared about. Really, if I made 100k last year and paid say 20k for taxes but in the Aschermann System now pay 10k, wouldn't I find some room in that extra 10k for charity? And do you think I found much room in the 80k left over in the old system? Nope.
Think how fair this would be! Nobody would get away with hiring a bunch of lawyers to work the system (clearly in their right under the old system as several of you pointed out in my anti-BP rant before) because they would have nothing to deduct or exempt or "monkey business."
There has to be big reasons for this system to be hard to implement because wouldn't Rand Paul (or is it Paul Rand, or Ayn Rand) have come up with this already? I mean, for goodness sake Newt Gingrich will say anything right now (like how he found Jesus all of a sudden, probably hanging around a Tea Party rally)...wouldn't he advocate this?
Wait, wait...maybe that's why it hasn't been suggested by these guys. It makes sense! It might work! Of course they won't advocate it...it's logical! it's do-able! it might actually help somebody who isn't a billionnaire.
Sorry, should have known better...
But still, come on, tell me. Why wouldn't this work?
Neal Boortz came up with a similar idea, I think he figured out 20% would do it. Not sure about the non-profit business.
ReplyDeleteHere's his book:
http://www.amazon.com/Fair-Tax-Book-Goodbye-ebook/dp/B000FCKC60/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1305137868&sr=8-5
from wikipedia: "The FairTax is a proposed change to the federal government tax laws of the United States intended to replace all federal taxes on personal and corporate income[1] with a single broad national consumption tax on retail sales"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairTax
Official FairTax website:
http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer
Good idea! Try to tell the IRS that they need half the staff though!
you are headed in the right direction, keep blogging
ReplyDeletehttp://www.pafairtax.org/resrcs/FlatTaxFairTaxComparison.pdf
what i do know is we can do better