Posted on 03/25/2009 12:02:16 PM PDT by mnehring
WASHINGTON (AFP) — The White House Wednesday announced a new task force headed by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker to reform the Byzantine US tax code in the hope of recouping billions in lost revenue.
White House budget chief Peter Orszag said Volcker and four other top economists will report their recommendations back to President Barack Obama by December 4, and their review will cover three main areas.
"One is tax simplification, the second is closing tax loopholes and reducing tax evasion, and the third is reducing corporate welfare," the director of the Office of Management and Budget told reporters.
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
I guess they haven't heard of the AMT?
Simplification #1:
1) Dems are exempt.
Oh. To recoup lost revenue. Not because it's a burdensome, scatter-shot, impossible to comprehend, oppressive code.
Sure glad they have their priorities straight.
there is a good plan already written and ready for implementation, perhaps in need of minor tweaking, and it is called THR FAIR TAX.
Go for it!!
“One is tax simplification, the second is closing tax loopholes and reducing tax evasion, and the third is reducing corporate welfare,”...”
The third is their target.
The real issue here are the 100 senators who sit there and insert line after line of tax code that they don’t understand but it helps their buddy who owns 2,000 acres of swamp in South Carolina or the guy who imports peanuts from Brazil.
My suggestion is rather simple...one flat tax and a limit on tax code of 288 lines (call it the “288-code). You can write as much as you want as a Senator to tax code....but after 288 lines....you merely overwrite what some other idiot wrote and theirs is no longer valid anymore. This is our problem.
When companies like AIG paid little or no taxes....it was the senate that made this possible. When Ford paid little to no taxes...it was the senate that made that possible. We need to take their code away....and make this so simple....that 3,000 IRS folks could run everything across the entire nation...and they’d only need a 8th grade education to read the tax code.
there is a good plan already written and ready for implementation, perhaps in need of minor tweaking, and it is called THR FAIR TAX.
But, I wonder if the fair tax could start at say 10% and the corrupt and greedy government will vote to up it until it’s 50% - Who can trust the government anymore?
I can see offshore banking growing exponentially.
Their vision is also a flat tax, two part form.
How much did you earn?
What was your unearned income?
Add lines 1&2
Send it in.
I get hit by the AMT every year - and I have no loopholes. I do the 1040 really EZ - how much did you make? Send it in.
I get hit by the AMT every year - and I have no loopholes. I do the 1040 really EZ - how much did you make? Send it in.
"elimination of as many deductions, exemptions, credits, offsets, and depreciation allowances as we can get away with".
Hold your wallets! The rats want to find many more ways to increase your taxes in relative obscure ways. The effective tax rate will be much higher than the 39.6% BHO talks about.
I continue to be amazed that they call taking our money away at the point of a gun or threat of jail, is called "recouping lost" money. The government does not make money. The government is not a business. It does not pay taxes. It TAKES people's money for people's work for someone else. The government takes from one and gives to low lifes and lazies. Too hell with the government. They can all rot in hell for all I care. STATES RIGHTS!!!
Their simplification is to institute a 100% tax rate with no deductions for anything.
It was not your money in the first place. Translation: "hope of raising taxes by billions".
The beauty of the Fair Tax is that you pay it every time you spend money and it eliminates the dozens of hidden taxes that you pay through inflated prices.
Q: How much did your earn last year?
A: Send it in.
Quit worrying about the loopholes and go after the flagrant tax avoiders.
I would like to turn in a woman who hasn’t filed a tax return since about 1986. It would HAVE to be without a trace back to me.
Quit worrying about the loopholes and go after the flagrant tax avoiders.
I would like to turn in a woman who hasn’t filed a tax return since about 1986. It would HAVE to be without a trace back to me.
You make a good point, and that is precisely why it is a lost cause.
Given that every politician in DC gets paid millions to dink with the tax code, why in heaven would they give that power up?
Note that the original US income tax WAS a flat tax.
Look where we are now.
New Obama USSA Tax simplification:
1. All your money goes directly to us.
2. We will give you some back. Just don’t piss us off.
3. If you piss us off, you probably won’t get any back.
4. Remember paying higher taxes means you’re more patriotic. Thank you comrade!
Your facts are correct, your ideal is absurd.
Ah yes, the old “Corporate Welfare” demagogue. Especially during a feeding frenzy over AIG employee bonuses.
But those executives and employee’s buy nice houses, lots and lots of new cars, $1,000 business suits, they eat at fancy restaurants, stay at expensive hotels, which all get heavily taxed locally up front, they pay maids, gardeners, clothes cleaners, and they employ lots of people that tend to their rich tastes. And if you can’t destroy them, you will surely envy them.
So by persecuting them and chasing them away because some Socialist elitist government and media went on their predictable campaign of hate for the upper class or the “Evil, Greedy, Rich” and if you bought into it, imagine an America without them.
That will soon happen, because they are being offered countless positions and new starts in other countries that see the value in what they do. And many have already made the choice to move. As have the companies they work for.
It’s the talk of all Wall Street executives these days; just what new country they would love to move to.
The FAIRTAX is a far better solution.
It would have kept poor little Timmy here out of trouble and...
What? Say again?? Oh, you say that because he was well connected, HE didn't GET into trouble?
NEVER MIND!!
See #24
You can guarantee that any reformulation will be heavily tilted toward the non-producers and against high earners. This is all part of Obama’s scheme to implement a plan which is the fantasy of every liberal political science professor (redundancy noted).
Sure. Go with that.
You forgot the 3rd line:
Balance Due:
CA....
“We need to take their code away....and make this so simple....that 3,000 IRS folks could run everything across the entire nation...and they’d only need a 8th grade education to read the tax code.”
What do you do with the 1 million accountants and tax lawyers?
Just askin....
And I don’t think he’s thinking of a Flat Tax!
There’s an old joke in Chicago.
“What do you call 500 lawyers at the bottom of Lake Michigan?”
- “A good start.”
Now we'll get Affirmative Taxation.
Question #1 on new 1040 form:
Black & Disenfranchised? Yes____ NO ____
40 Acres & a Mule? Yes ____ No _____
If you answered yes then no, pls expect a tax credit equal to the amount your white neighbor has to pay.
This is how the Commies will raise tax revenue without “raising taxes”.
Anyone ready to fight them yet?
Exactly. Lefties and foreigners with lots of donation money will be exempt.
notice the underlying assumption that it’s theirs to begin with and anything we keep is “lost revenue”?
They’ll avoid bringing race into the issue,
but there are lots of criteria that leave race out but end up with exactly the same people on the “giving” and “receiving” ends of taxation.
It would be nice, I have a monster tax bill this year.. however, I know that I can’t be effective, either for my family or the country, sitting in a jail cell.
Not exactly a good idea to telegraph your intentions.
There are lots of LEGAL ways to avoid instead of evade.
Most people don’t use them.
If they did, Congress/IRS would act to make them unavailable to us.
My prediction is that the percentage of simplification will be inversely proportional to the percentage of lawyers on the “task force”.
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