My favorite proponents of the flat tax are Hall and Rabushka, two Stanford professors. Their flat tax has been endorsed by many (including Forbes magazine, Fortune magazine, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times). http://www.hoover.org/publications/books/3602666.html
Consumption tax is dangerous in periods like we're in now. People stop spending money and not only do the businesses suffer but the government takes a major hit too. I like the idea but practically speaking it seems flawed to me. A flat tax seems unrealistic too but I will read JohnLSU's link as I've never really looked at it closely....macroeconomically speaking of course.
I would like to see some statistics on how many jobs would be lost if we went to something in line with a flat tax. How many CPA's, tax preparers, tax consultants, tax lawyers, and administrative personnel, would be rendered obsolete? How would these folks be re-trained and re-introduced into the working world? How much revenue would accounting firms with tax lines of service use? How much of our service based economy would we be wiping away? I don't think we will ever see it anyway. Legislators can manipulate the people by tweaking the tax code. By making it easy they loose this ability.
Yep. And one of the best ways to confuse people is to speak in your own language. Lawyers created their own language and it excludes the average citizen from defending themselves. Tax code is no different, imo. Ultimately the govt makes more $ by keeping us confused and content with the next episode of American Idol.
It's creative destruction. We would all benefit in the long run as these people would eventually find truly productive work, raising our national productivity. The current system lowers all of our standard of living.
I hear alot of economic class buzz words but no real answers. If we are going to enact legislation that will make millions of people unemployed instantly there has to be a real soloution tied in.
A flat tax probably is not workable because I can guarantee you that legislatures would be adding exemptions before the ink was dry on the paper. A national sales tax is the way to go. We would probably have to exempt people living under the poverty level but I have no problem with that. Other than that no exemptions. We could them disband the IRS.
