At a time when our latest health care legislation just increased the power and control of the IRS, I saw this and couldn't help but spread the word...
In “Washington Whispers” by US News and World Report
Top Ten Things Wrong with the Income Tax System
by: Ken Hoagland
1. It’s too complicated. Even a degree in rocket science won't save you from 67,500 pages of all but indecipherable tax code regulations. It confuses the IRS, the Secretary of Treasury and even the former Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. It’s an annual nightmare that has spawned a tax industry based on complexity created by our own government.
2. It’s too expensive. The complexity of the code costs a lot of money—more than $310 billion last year on the paperwork alone. Small businesses often pay more in paperwork expenses than the taxes they pay. Can any law be just, much less efficient, that costs so much to obey?
3. It’s unfair. Income is commonly double and triple taxed, married people pay a higher rates than singles living together and Congress’ mistake in failing to index the Alternative Minimum Tax for inflation now threatens to define as “wealthy” those with as little as $80,000 a year income. How just can a tax be that rewards those who hide income either here or offshore or have tax lobbyists to broker special deals?
4. It damages the economy. Income taxes are levied on work, savings and investments. In essence, the government grows by taking money from what makes the economy grow. Such a system retards capital formation, job growth and a higher savings rate and, as such, stymies economic growth or recovery.
5. It’s been corrupted. More than a billion dollars a year is spent lobbying the tax code. Congress has sold off two to three tax breaks a day every day they've been in session for the last 20 years. It makes Congressmen powerful and lobbyists rich and creates a tax system with more loopholes than Swiss cheese. It’s very lucrative for those in Washington and very bad for those without a lobbyist.
6. It undermines American companies. Foreign governments often forgo domestic taxes on products for sale overseas. American companies don't get that break and carry the second highest corporate tax rate in the world, employee FICA taxes and significant tax compliance costs as the cost of doing business here. It puts the “Made in America” label at a significant producer price disadvantage and drives jobs overseas.
7. It hides the cost of government. Taxes are withheld from paychecks, hiding from plain sight the cost of federal spending and its relationship to our own earnings. For many Americans, federal spending mistakenly seems like “free money”. The resulting tenuous connection between personal wealth and government profligacy allows politicians to promise more and more from the Treasury to win elections and satisfy their own political ambitions. That's destructive.
8. It’s intrusive. Once upon a time it was no one’s business how much money we made or how we spent it. Today it is the right and duty of the federal government to track every penny we earn, save or spend. It has created a system where every business decision is weighed against tax consequences and where pastors are told what they can and can't say from the pulpit to keep their non-profit status.
9. It hurts consumers and workers. Business taxes don't come out of CEO’s personal accounts but are paid for by consumers when taxes are “embedded” in wholesale and retail prices. When competition with foreign producers won't allow a higher price point to cover taxes, employee’s wages and benefits take the hit.
10. It makes us into modern day serfs. We get what’s left over in our paychecks after the federal government has taken its share. That means the fruits of our labors belong first to our government. That’s backwards and not at all what the Founding Father’s had in mind.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Monday, February 1, 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010
16th Amendment the Most Amazing Racket in U.S. History
By Jamie Allman
Once Rep. Allyson Schwartz of Pennsylvania came up with the brilliantly greedy idea of taxing even unearned income, I had half a mind to conjure Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal.” The famous wit suggested eating young people as a means of easing economic stress, and I felt perhaps it was time to apply his deficit reduction technique to modern times by devouring Democrats like Schwartz.
But first I realized there’s no amount of Herbes de Provence to cover up what would surely be a gamey taste.
Second, I realized that our most crippling and liberty-depriving tax assault came at the hands of a Republican in the first place. The original RINO, William Howard Taft, first started fantasizing about a federal income tax in 1909. The actual passage of the 16th Amendment providing the Feds the right to directly tax citizens ironically came after a failed game played by conservatives. They greedy Republicans like Taft and his equally greedy Democrat cohorts were going to team up and try to get the issue passed in Congress. So the conservatives tried a bluff and introduced the Constitutional Amendment. They figured there’d be no way enough states would ratify it and such an idea would go away forever.
But a majority of states did ratify it. Game over. Liberty and pursuit of happiness: done.
Now it’s time to repeal the 16th Amendment altogether.
Our Founding Fathers revolted over less. Our income is taxed more by the federal government than we ever were under British rule. In fact, not even the Brits dared tax income.
Direct taxation of income is a clear violation of Article I of the Constitution. The Supreme Court ruled as much in 1895. But that didn’t stop the organized criminals of yore to go full-speed ahead with the 16th Amendment.
If you and I came up with an idea to take people’s hard-earned money and use it to buy votes and secure our own income we’d have to talk about it with the door locked and only after the room was swept for FBI bugs. But now the income tax has been institutionalized, and the country hasn’t been the same since.
You can’t blame the greedy political pigs back in 1913. How perfect a ploy: You force the citizenry to hand over a portion of their money so that you can use it to create programs and entitlements that would essentially be used to buy votes and, thus, keep you permanently employed. On top of that, you take the money in increments, out of every paycheck, over a period of time and then, when you return some of the money you siphoned, you call it a “refund.”
The introduction of the direct federal income tax is responsible for transforming our government from servant to master. It turns out about 40 percent of our workday is solely for the purpose of funding the federal budget. The windfall created by the direct income tax has served as a blank check for politicians to use our money with no requirement whatsoever that they be prudent. Our money is a constant flow.
Why not force the government to live like the citizens do? Most of us, when the kids need clothes, would never consider sending the kid to the mall with a credit card. No. We give them a set amount of cash and they can buy two shirts and a pair of pants, or two pairs of pants and a shirt, or three shirts. In other words, they can get what they want within their budgets. And when mom and dad need something for the house or need to take a vacation they don’t go to the neighbor’s house and demand the neighbors pay. The federal government, aided by the bottomless pit of income tax dollars, operates in the opposite fashion of its citizens.
Instead of being a slim machine providing only border control and national security (the way the Founding Fathers created it), the government has for decades continually come up with new ways to spend the money that floods in from our paychecks. Usually the politicians come up with programs most likely to addict citizens to government help, intervention and oversight.
We have reached a point in America where there is no living citizen who remembers the country when it existed in the fashion the Founding Fathers intended.
Repeal the 16th Amendment. Continue to allow states to collect income taxes and allow the feds to collect revenue. Impose a national sales tax to provide a revenue source for proper federal government functions. And always reserve the option of devouring a politician as a last resort.
Jamie Allman is host of “Allman In The Morning: Common Sense Radio” on 97.1 FM Talk in St. Louis. He is a 14-time local-television Emmy winner in investigative and political reporting and a multiple Edward R. Murrow Award winner.
Once Rep. Allyson Schwartz of Pennsylvania came up with the brilliantly greedy idea of taxing even unearned income, I had half a mind to conjure Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal.” The famous wit suggested eating young people as a means of easing economic stress, and I felt perhaps it was time to apply his deficit reduction technique to modern times by devouring Democrats like Schwartz.
But first I realized there’s no amount of Herbes de Provence to cover up what would surely be a gamey taste.
Second, I realized that our most crippling and liberty-depriving tax assault came at the hands of a Republican in the first place. The original RINO, William Howard Taft, first started fantasizing about a federal income tax in 1909. The actual passage of the 16th Amendment providing the Feds the right to directly tax citizens ironically came after a failed game played by conservatives. They greedy Republicans like Taft and his equally greedy Democrat cohorts were going to team up and try to get the issue passed in Congress. So the conservatives tried a bluff and introduced the Constitutional Amendment. They figured there’d be no way enough states would ratify it and such an idea would go away forever.
But a majority of states did ratify it. Game over. Liberty and pursuit of happiness: done.
Now it’s time to repeal the 16th Amendment altogether.
Our Founding Fathers revolted over less. Our income is taxed more by the federal government than we ever were under British rule. In fact, not even the Brits dared tax income.
Direct taxation of income is a clear violation of Article I of the Constitution. The Supreme Court ruled as much in 1895. But that didn’t stop the organized criminals of yore to go full-speed ahead with the 16th Amendment.
If you and I came up with an idea to take people’s hard-earned money and use it to buy votes and secure our own income we’d have to talk about it with the door locked and only after the room was swept for FBI bugs. But now the income tax has been institutionalized, and the country hasn’t been the same since.
You can’t blame the greedy political pigs back in 1913. How perfect a ploy: You force the citizenry to hand over a portion of their money so that you can use it to create programs and entitlements that would essentially be used to buy votes and, thus, keep you permanently employed. On top of that, you take the money in increments, out of every paycheck, over a period of time and then, when you return some of the money you siphoned, you call it a “refund.”
The introduction of the direct federal income tax is responsible for transforming our government from servant to master. It turns out about 40 percent of our workday is solely for the purpose of funding the federal budget. The windfall created by the direct income tax has served as a blank check for politicians to use our money with no requirement whatsoever that they be prudent. Our money is a constant flow.
Why not force the government to live like the citizens do? Most of us, when the kids need clothes, would never consider sending the kid to the mall with a credit card. No. We give them a set amount of cash and they can buy two shirts and a pair of pants, or two pairs of pants and a shirt, or three shirts. In other words, they can get what they want within their budgets. And when mom and dad need something for the house or need to take a vacation they don’t go to the neighbor’s house and demand the neighbors pay. The federal government, aided by the bottomless pit of income tax dollars, operates in the opposite fashion of its citizens.
Instead of being a slim machine providing only border control and national security (the way the Founding Fathers created it), the government has for decades continually come up with new ways to spend the money that floods in from our paychecks. Usually the politicians come up with programs most likely to addict citizens to government help, intervention and oversight.
We have reached a point in America where there is no living citizen who remembers the country when it existed in the fashion the Founding Fathers intended.
Repeal the 16th Amendment. Continue to allow states to collect income taxes and allow the feds to collect revenue. Impose a national sales tax to provide a revenue source for proper federal government functions. And always reserve the option of devouring a politician as a last resort.
Jamie Allman is host of “Allman In The Morning: Common Sense Radio” on 97.1 FM Talk in St. Louis. He is a 14-time local-television Emmy winner in investigative and political reporting and a multiple Edward R. Murrow Award winner.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Monday, January 4, 2010
Great RR Quotes
"Socialism only works in two places : Heaven where they don't need it and hell where they already have it." -Ronald Reagan
'Here's my strategy on the Cold War : We win, they lose.'
- Ronald Reagan
'The most terrifying words in the English language are : I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'-Ronald Reagan
'The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.'
-Ronald Reagan
'Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong.'- Ronald Reagan
'I have wondered at times about what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the U.S. Congress.' -Ronald Reagan
'The taxpayer : That's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination.'- Ronald Reagan
'Government is like a baby : An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.'- Ronald Reagan
'The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program.' - Ronald Reagan
'It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession.. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.'- Ronald Reagan
'Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases : If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it'
- Ronald Reagan
'Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed, there are many rewards; if you disgrace yourself, you can always write a book.'- Ronald Reagan
'No arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is as formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women.'- Ronald Reagan
'If we ever forget that we're one nation under GOD, then we will be a nation gone under.'-Ronald Reagan
'Here's my strategy on the Cold War : We win, they lose.'
- Ronald Reagan
'The most terrifying words in the English language are : I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'-Ronald Reagan
'The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.'
-Ronald Reagan
'Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong.'- Ronald Reagan
'I have wondered at times about what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the U.S. Congress.' -Ronald Reagan
'The taxpayer : That's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination.'- Ronald Reagan
'Government is like a baby : An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.'- Ronald Reagan
'The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program.' - Ronald Reagan
'It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession.. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.'- Ronald Reagan
'Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases : If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it'
- Ronald Reagan
'Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed, there are many rewards; if you disgrace yourself, you can always write a book.'- Ronald Reagan
'No arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is as formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women.'- Ronald Reagan
'If we ever forget that we're one nation under GOD, then we will be a nation gone under.'-Ronald Reagan
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