2006-04-12

Our Indefensible Tax System

David Cay Johnston is one of the few people in the United States who's exposing the American tax code for what it is: backwards socialism. As a Pulitzer Prize-winning tax reporter for the New York Times, Johnston has, over the past nine years, uncovered the inner workings of a system that coddles, aids, and abets the rich in their various attempts to get out of paying taxes, forcing the upper-middle, middle, and working classes to pay for government on their own.

2 comments:

Paul Hue said...

Nadir: Do you now support Six and me in calling for a flat tax system, with zero tax deductions? Everybody pay 15% (or some other low figure), with perhaps the first $20,000 tax-free, and no deductions, even for mortgage interest. The complex system that contains any deductions invites and enables an infinite number of deductions, both to promote behaviors that you and Tom support, and those that promote various business investments. Let's close all the loopholes, and make the simplest tax system possible!

Paul Hue said...

The type of tax system that we have in addition to inviting pork, also invites curruption, both illegal and legal. With Repos in power the past few years, most of the curruption has manifested in them. When the demos held power, the curruption concentrated on them. A convoluted, graduated tax structure invites people with power -- via money votes -- to lobby (legally or illegally) for their own special tax breaks.