Subject: Tax Replacement Comment: The present income tax code is an abomination for many reasons, not the least of which are: un-American signing away of 5th amendment rights; immoral disparity in the equity of fair collection (favoring one group or another); un-American intrusion by the Congress into personal and business economic affairs in an attempt to skew results; abominable costs of compliance; ease of avoidance; unacceptable costs to the economy in terms of advantaging importers and disadvantaging U.S. exporters; among others. The outrageous costs of complying with the federal tax code ($225 Billion/year according to Dr. Dale Jorgenson of Harvard, among others), combined with the uncollected taxes due to cheating ($300 Billion/Yr according to the IRS); $300 Billion/yr according to Barron's Magazine in an artilce about the $1 Trillion "underground economy"; and the untold subsideies to improrted goods with no taxes applied, all lead to a cost of at least a Trillion dollars per year in uncollected taxes and costs of compliance. That's very nearly the total sum of taxes now collected. In addition, it's perfectly legal to avoid paying taxes under the Federal Code now in existence; ask Professor Edward J. McCaffery of the University of Southern California who teaches his freshman students how it's done: buy an asset which increases in value every year, borrow against the asset, then live on the borrowed money. Finally, give the asset to your heirs upon your demise - thus pay no income or payroll taxes - legally. The income tax, as we know it must go. The only proposal before the Tax Reform Panel which accepts and responds to "reality" is the "Fair Tax" (HR25 in the U.S House of Representatives and S25 in the Senate. That "reality" is that businesses do not "Pay" taxes, their customers do. "Only people pay taxes.!" said Dr. Alan Greenspan, before the Joint Economic Commiittee of Congress, May 21,'03. "Only people pay taxes!", said Dr. Milton Friedman before the Tax Reform Panel hearings in San Francisco this year. "Only people pay taxes!", said former U.S. Representative Dick Armey this year in Washington before the Tax Reform Panel, making himself look silly because it puts the lie to his "flat(income)tax, which "taxes" corporations. In that same panel, Dr. Robert Hall alleged that the competitor to the flat)income)tax, the national retail sales tax (in the form of the Fair Tax), "self destructs" (or words to that effect) when it gets above a 10% tax rate, thus the Fair Tax won't work, according to him. But there is NO evidence to that effect. None! The Tax Reform Panel mus come to grips with the fact that only people pay taxes. Any other plan is a chimera. The Fair Tax is the solution, please go forward with the Fair Tax as the best proposal. Thank you for your hard work; make America better by your recommendation. William D. Spillane |