In Honor of the Day

Here.  I am going to overhaul the Federal tax system.  What is more, my solution is practical, workable, and fair - or I think so anyway.

The I Am Not Actually Part of Congress Act [Amendment?] to Reform and Simply Tax Laws of 2012

I.  The Act

All perpetual Federal revenue shall derive from a single-rate income tax levied on the basis of the wage-earnings of each household, this tax to be determined, applied, and and excepted as follows.

II.  Conditions

II.A.  The tax rate shall be determined by an act of Congress [may I suggest 15-20% in the first place, accounting for our current expenditures but hopefully to be reduced], and that rate shall be subject to change by other acts, but shall not change twice in any six years [the length of a Senate term, the longest term in the Federal government].

II.B.  No household shall be required to pay tax if the earners' incomes were in total below the Congressionally recognized [what figures should be recognized is, I realize, a tricky issue] subsistence income for the household's numbers and situation.  Households with income above that amount shall pay the full tax amount or that amount which would bring them to but not below said subsistence income in total, whichever amount is smaller.

II.B.1.  "Income", for the purposes of this act, means all monies received for work or services performed, from investment or other speculation; in summary, all monies from activities normally conducted for gain and profit.

II.B.2.  No exceptions shall be made to this tax on any basis other than insufficient income.

II.C.  This act shall not be taken to outlaw tariffs etc. leveled internationally for the protection of the national interest; nor to affect any such fines as may be applied as appropriate penalties for crimes and misdemeanors.  This act shall be understood to prohibit any additional fines, penalties, or taxes which might be levied on any otherwise legal trade in the interior of the country.

Done.  Tax law fixed.  Wonder how many lawyers I just put out of a job?

Potential issues:

- The whole income tax thing.  As far as I am concerned there is more or less no universally "fair" basis for taxation, and income taxes are frowned upon by various people.  At the same time, they do provided a reasonable basis, and with reasonable exceptions taken, seem the best workable principle except property taxes... which establish another whole conundrum of "renting from the government".

- A certain segment of the commentariat might suggest I am guilty of corporate cronyism.  Not at all.  Corporations are not persons (despite periodic legal sophistry) and funds held by or for the corporation as such are not doing anything immediate - and will be taxed when spent (and therefore earned).  If you really object, pass a law specifying that corporations must not hold more than x% of their material net worth at any given time, or otherwise limit the exact possibilities of action open to corporations.

- I am sure there would be all sorts of practical issues implementing this law, and that there are better ideas out there.  I'm just trying to demonstrate, mainly, the absurdity of our current tax code.  Even if we left other taxes and simplified the income tax on this basis or something similar, it would be an improvement over the doctoral thesis current law forces the IRS to hand out every year.