Henry Imler February 26th, 2006

“The Fair Tax: Stop the Tax Cheats” by Jan Larson

If the tax gap and compliance costs were in and of
themselves not sufficient reason to scrap the tax code, the tax code
also hurts the U. S. in other ways. The income and payroll taxes
ostensibly paid by businesses (but are in fact simply passed along to
consumers) make U. S. products less competitive on world markets. This
leads to job losses in the U. S. and, as we also saw last week, record
trade deficits. The complexity of the tax code also enables politicians
to reward and punish via the tax code. This is probably the single
worst aspect of the U. S. tax system.

The sheer lunacy of a tax system that fails to collect billions
owed, enables political manipulation, hurts the economy and in general
works against the taxpaying public is astounding.

There is a solution however. It is a solution that would eliminate
individual compliance requirements and make April 15 just another day.
This solution would greatly reduce business compliance costs and
similarly reduce the size and scope of the IRS. This solution would
lead to job growth and economic expansion. This solution would
eliminate most of the opportunities for tax cheats and political
manipulation. The solution? The Fair Tax.

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