Ten Problems With the Current Tax System
Only ten, you say? Chris Edwards has a list of ten problems he sees with our current tax system. Most of this is fairly obvious, but it is rather disturbing to see it all at once.
I'd add to his list the problem of tax withholding. This is the big con, that allows the government to get away with confiscatory taxation. If you had to pay, as I have, all your taxes at once - you'd never think of it the same way again. When the IRS takes a little bit each paycheck, money that you never see, it's relatively painless. Like the frog/boiling water concept. You think, "wow! I'm getting money back!" if you have a refund. Of course, you're not. But if hundreds of millions of people had to write a check equal to a third to a half of their yearly income on this day, you'd have a tax revolt immediately after.
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Generally good, although he
Generally good, although he should stress that vertical inequality isn't all slanted upward. After all, sales and property taxes tend to fall harder on lower-income earners. Not to mention that people making less than $87,900 pay FICA on 100% of their income, while people making more than that don't pay it on the excess.
The #1 reason, to me, is that you owe penalties if you pay late, but the IRS doesn't owe you interest if you overpaid. They get an interest-free loan from you all year long.
I agree with Phil; #1's focus
I agree with Phil; #1's focus on income tax is just like Bush's use of averages instead of means. It's a red herring. Total tax burden is the only thing that's important. And remember, folks -- under AMT you're not going to be able to write off things like personal property tax, or your kid's education, and things like that. Very wealthy people don't get hit hard by AMT because those writeoffs represent such a small percentage of their income. Moderately wealthy folks, with joint incomes under 300k, are going to get killed by that stuff. At that income level, paying 25k a year in education and not being able to write it off is really going to hurt.
Somehow Cheney avoided AMT, and his federal tax burden is around 20% on $1.7million. Where can I get that deal?
I noticed that Kerry, despite
I noticed that Kerry, despite his wife's vast wealth, paid a third of what Bush did.