EDITORIAL//The Tax on our Freedom
"The difference between death and taxes is death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets" – Will Rogers.
"The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax" –Albert Einstein
“People who relieve others of their money with guns are called robbers. It does not alter the immorality of the act when the income transfer is carried out by government.” -- Cal Thomas
“Most [tax revisions] didn't improve the system, they made it more like Washington itself: complicated, unfair, cluttered with gobbledygook and loopholes designed for those with the power and influence to hire high-priced legal and tax advisers.” -- Ronald Reagan
It is clear that taxes are a contentious subject, and have been for ages. The concept of handing over personal income to an institution is by no means new; the first recorded taxes go all the way back to Ancient Egypt. No matter what, the ONLY way that a government can provide services is with money gained from taxation…which unfortunately, brings us to the classic argument of what responsibilities the government should carry. Proponents for both “big” and “small” governments clash repeatedly on the topic of taxes, and the American people, in their hypocrisy, tend to make what should be a simple issue extremely complex.
If the government is to provide services, the people must pay taxes. The average American, however, is hypocritical enough to resist government taxation, citing an oppressive government that tramples the rights of its citizens, yet also demand of the government a variety of services and fixes to innumerable problems. “Small” government advocates protest welfare and other sources as utter wastes of tax dollars, while others argue that certain government services are extremely important, and that other industrial nations such as Germany (which could be called a welfare state) have a very efficient system that cares for its citizens very well. The ideological argument between large and small governments will not be addressed here, but rather a complaint must be launched against the American tax system itself. No matter what is done with this money, the process of collecting it as the current system stands is lengthy, unnecessarily complex, and most of all unfair.
The US tax code is over 60,000 pages long, providing 60,000 chances for a crack team of tax preparers hired by a filthy rich citizen to avoid taxes. This is clearly a problem. As citizens, we pay taxes through many convoluted ways, ranging from income taxes, to sales taxes, to additional taxes imposed on certain products on national, state, and local levels. A proposed solution comes in the form of the FairTax Ace…it proposes the removal of all of these forms of income and property tax, and replacing them with a standard sales/consumption tax that applies to all people and all goods purchased. It would be regressive on income but progressive on consumption. In this way, no number of loopholes could save the rich from paying taxes if they intend to spend money. Unfortunately, this increases the incentive to hide sales from the government. The 162 page FairTax Act would be a great replacement for the corrupted glut of laws that make up the US Tax Code, but its own shortcomings have caused great deal of debate in Congress. It is unlikely that any single solution will be found or implemented quickly, or will come without their own set of imperfections; however, the current system is simply horrendous, and its unjust ways and complicated set of restrictions (that require over 60,000 pages to fully flesh out) must be replaced and updated.