Subject: Response to Request for Comments Comment: Dear Chairman Mack and Tax Reform Panel members, The AMT, the Alternative Minimum Tax, points up one of the major problems with our income tax system. The problem is that too few Americans participate fully in funding our government. Too many citizens pay too little or pay nothing at all. The AMT was implemented to make sure our most successful citizens paid at least something in taxes. Taxpayers that could afford a bevy of tax attorneys were finding their way through the myriad IRS regulations and coming out the other end owing little if anything. The AMT was put in place to make sure they paid at least something. Passage of the AMT made sure the rich paid taxes. It also provided tacit confirmation that the tax code is full of holes. Passage of the AMT was an open acknowledgement that the IRS tax code is not so much 'Holy' as 'holey'. Tax-crafters did nothing to correct the evasion of taxes by all the citizens that can't afford the bevy of tax attorneys. No attention was paid, either, to citizens that don't care to participate in paying taxes at all. Drug dealers, illegal immigrants, denizens of the underground economy and anybody else that doesn't care to file a form 1040 are, for most practical purposes, free to avoid paying taxes. Tax enforcement is spotty at best. The ones most subject to audit are the ones that are paying the freight to begin with: · The IRS agents won't pick a fight with that bevy of tax attorneys that know more about the tax code than they do. · They won't go after the low income cheaters. That would be very politically incorrect and not worth the effort. · They won't go after the underground economy or drug dealers. Too hard to make the case. · They won't go after illegal immigrants. Cases are too time-consuming, almost impossible to make and really not worth the effort. · The middle class taxpayer is their easiest target. IRS agents pick apart the best efforts of earnest (and not-too-earnest) taxpayers and take them to task. The upshot is that out of about 280,000,000 Americans, only about 80,000,000 pay taxes. Cheating among the 80 million leaves even fewer of us to actually pay for government. That's unfair. We all live here. We should all participate in funding our government. Please consider the Fair Tax Plan, HR 25 / S 25. The consumption tax it proposes eliminates all the unfairness. It allows for everybody to participate in the process. It's only fair. Thank you. |