Subject: Tax reform Comment: I am an individual taxpayer who long ago became fed up with the pervasive unfairness and abuse (daily mugging as President Reagan called it) of the Internal Revenue Code. A dozen of us locally set out to do something about it, and eventually became a chapter of Citizens for an Alternative Tax System. I have been working for fundamental reform of the US tax system ever since. I greeted President Bush’s formation of your panel with great hope and optimism. I have followed your releases and public hearing and attended in person your hearing in San Francisco. You have heard intelligent testimony from some great Americans such as Dr. Friedman. I am also appalled at some of the “facts” that have been prevaricated upon the panel. In your final deliberations I urge you to remember this. An entire, gigantic, industry has evolved around the Internal Revenue Code. A multitude of people have built their careers within it, and gotten rich, some very rich, from it. These people will not give up their careers and life’s works without a great and terrible struggle. They are capable of doing or saying anything to help preserve their status quo. You have heard so very many people explain – more eloquently than can I – why the Internal Revenue Code, and the general concept of levying a tax on income, is bad for America. You must know how prescient these people are. It must be vividly apparent how badly the income tax hurts America and Americans; how desperately America needs to turn its back on the seductive siren of the income tax. Those people (and you have heard from a disproportionately great number of them) who would tell you all is well with America’s tax system (“we just need a few improvements here and there”) must be heard for what they are. Just “follow the money” and you will find them to have some perceived vested interest in the present system. It is good because it is good for them regardless of the harm it may do America. Your Panel has a great calling. You are at the right place at the right time in history to start the crusade for the most powerful and far reaching revolution in the history of this nation. This can be a revolution of economic power and benefit for mankind that, taking root in America, could spread, like a savior’s blessing, throughout the civilized world. I urge you; ignore the nay-sayers and special interests, however powerful they may be. Ignore the false promise of the “European” and other such tax models, they are proven failures. Just do what is right for America and the blessings you can bring to this country will far transcend your own time and secure your place in the firmament of this nation’s history. |