Posted on 01/13/2010 3:32:52 AM PST by Man50D
The commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, Douglas Shulman, told C-SPAN on Sunday that he uses a tax preparer to do his federal income tax return because he finds the tax code too complex to handle the job himself.
“I use a preparer,” Shulman told C-SPAN anchor Steve Scully on the network’s Newsmakers program. "I've used one for years. I find it convenient. I find the tax code complex, so I use a preparer.”
Scully followed up by asking Shulman, “How would you make it easier? How would you make it less complex?”
Shulman said: "I don't write the tax laws. Congress writes the tax laws so that's a whole different discussion."
The U.S. tax code currently is over 67,000 pages.
Later in the program, Scully returned to the issue of the IRS commissioner using a tax preparer to do his taxes. “I want to go back to the earlier point about you use a preparer to file your taxes,” said Scully. “What does that tell you about the complexities of the tax code and as you indicated Congress writes the law, not you, what would you tell Congress to try to make it simpler so more people can file their own returns?”
Shulman responded that he is a “big fan” of simplifying the tax code.
“Yeah, first of all, I wouldn’t read much into what I do personally with my taxes,” said Shulman. “I’ve had a preparer that I like, I trust, and has filed my taxes accurately for 10 years and so I just use that preparer. So, I wouldn’t say that has any broad implications.”
“Regarding simplification of the taxes laws, I for a long time have been a big fan of simplification,” said Shulman. “The easier it is for people to understand the tax code, the more compliant they’ll be and so I think anything that can be done to simplify the tax laws is certainly good for the IRS.
“I think it’s good for the country,” added Shulman. “The president’s been vocal about this as has the [Treasury] secretary. So I think it’s apple pie and motherhood to simply for the tax laws. You know, I think it’s difficult to do so, but we’ll see where things go in the next couple years.”
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geitner failed to pay $34,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes earlier this decade and apologized to Congress for that failure during his confirmation process.
Geithner told the Senate Finance Committee on Jan. 21 that he prepared some of his tax returns on his own with a tax-preparation computer program. He had later made up for the taxes he initially failed to pay.
"These were careless mistakes," he said, as reported by the Associated Press. "They were avoidable mistakes.”
"But they were unintentional," he said. "I should have been more careful."
Actually, the simplest would be the Flat Tax.
Fair Tax would require a constitutional amendment and substantial clarification of who pays, how much and on what.
And that is the problem, we had a "flat tax" back in the '80's and look where we are back to now. Fair Tax locks the Politicians out, and that is the direction we should go...
Constitutional Amendment... Get rid of the "progressive" tax code, disband the IRS and most importantly, pull the tax code and its power from the Politicians hands.
If we are going to get back to our Constitutional roots... then lets really get back to them!
and by the way, the under the Fair Tax EVERYONE (citizens, illegals, criminals, etc.) pays their share.
IRS Commissar: ‘I Find the Tax Code Complex, So I Use Enforcers!(Simplify the Taxation, All your Taxes is ours!)
In essence, the complicated tax code is a white collar form of Keynesian economics. Preventing tax code simplification is the reason a powerful Accounting lobby exists.
Acutally, there is no possible way to “lock out” the politicians. It is a very simple matter to implement wealth redistribution with the Fair Tax. Here are some possible ways
1) Only certain people above the poverty line (pre-bate) have to pay taxes. Then start mucking with the definition of poverty.
2) Implement a “progressive tiering” of the pre-bate
3) Exclude certain politically correct people from the collection. This can be done with either special stores where only the PC population is allowed to shop at.
The truth of the matter is that the problem is not with TAX COLLECTION. The problem is with TAX EQUALITY. You could fix much of the current tax code if you simply said that a single rate has to be applied to all citizens and that any tax deductions, rebates, subsidies or any other transfer of tax dollars must apply equally to all people regardless of race, color, religion, creed, sex, age, residence or INCOME.
But even that does not address the real problem which is SPENDING. But that is a topic for another thread.
1) Compliance costs somewhere between US$350 and US$500 BILLION per year.
2) American citizens and businesses sending US$15 TRILLION in liquid assets out of the US financial system either by participating in the underground economy or using tax loopholes to put the assets in offshore financial centers (care to explain all those "banks" in the Caribbean?) to keep them out of the reach of the IRS.
3) No incentive to save and invest since both personal savings and capital investments are subject to income tax.
4) American companies moving jobs beyond US borders for income tax reduction reasons.
This, in my opinion, is flat-out economic stupidity. With FairTax in place and the 16th Amendment repealed, we'll end all the problems noted above and get over US$20 TRILLION in repatriated liquid assets and new investment from foreigners eager to take advantage to the USA being the world's largest legal tax haven, kicking off an economic boom that would make the boom of the 1980's and the 2002-2006 boom seem like a minor event.
The commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, Douglas Shulman, told C-SPAN on Sunday that he uses a tax preparer to do his federal income tax return because he finds the tax code too complex to handle the job himself.... The U.S. tax code currently is over 67,000 pages.Its too complex for me too. That's why I don't bother with those 67,000 pages.
I just decide what amount of refund I want and work backwards from there. I never get greedy, honest.
Actually, you wouldn’t. In particular, repeal of the 16th Amendment wouldn’t accomplish anything other than, quite possibly, simply exempting property-owners from income tax on their capital gains when realized.
Folks who focus on repeal of the 16th Amendment need to read the Income Tax Cases - Pollock v. Farmer’s Loan & Trust Co. - a little more carefully. Those Supreme Court cases, from 1895, did hold an earlier income tax to be unconstitutional - but only as it applied to the capital gains of property-owners when they sold their property.
In particular, the Supreme Court expressly considered the application of that earlier income tax to wages and other compensation for services, decided that such a tax would be nothing more than a valid excise tax, and therefore constitutional. In the Income Tax cases themselves, this part of the tax didn’t survive because the Supreme Court decided that severing only the unconstitutional parts - i.e., the tax as it applied to capital gains - would have left a law that perverted the intent of Congress when it enacted the law in the first place, so it simply voided the entire law.
The 16th Amendment was expressly drafted and designed to overrule the Supreme Court’s decision in the Income Tax Cases. Thus, repealing it would simply put us back to the situation that existed immediately after those cases were decided, namely: repeal of only the capital gains tax portion of the income tax - an income tax on payments for services rendered - wages - would still be perfectly constitutional and I, for one, would bet my bottom dollar that Congress would not have such a delicate concern for the citizens of this country that it would repeal the rest of the income tax because it was unfair. Instead, there would be more shrieking from the harpies on the left than we’ve ever heard - to the point that a lot of bankers and other people who “look rich” to the idiot left would probably be assaulted and murdered, and we would end up with some draconian federal tax on property, e.g., a transactions tax on every transfer of property, along with rules that impose a constructive transfer at the end of each year (which would effectively mimic the mark-to-market rules that apply to certain financial businesses right now).
No, as tempting as it may sound (and I do not disagree with the spirit of the idea - that the only way to truly rein in the federal government is to restrict its access to our money), repeal of the 16th Amendment will not do much, if anything, to staunch the flow of dollars into the Congressional feeding trough.
Incorrect, The way the Fair Tax is currently written, EVERYONE would pay, no if, and or but. We would just have to make sure they did not modify it before it becomes law.
That is why this MUST be a Constitutional Amendment, after it is passed they would have to get a super majority to change any thing in it.
I don't claim to be an expert on it... but I just have to pull out my copy of the book or go to FairTax.org to counter most arguments. Rep. John Linder, the author of the Fair Tax was my Congressman, so I am fairly familiar with it.
I urge all to actually take the time to read this legislation before attempting to make a case against it... as the status quo is unacceptable.
The Constitution also says that our President has to be a natural born citizen.
My point was, and remains, that politicians can and will implement changes to the Fair Tax that will alter it’s execution so that it does not reflect the original intent.
If it is a tax code, it only requires a simple majority of Congress to enact changes. If it passes as an amendment, it only requires judges to interpret the tax differently.
The Fair Tax is nothing more than a different method of tax collection. It is not the “end all, fix all, be all” solution that rabid supports of the Fair Tax propose it to be - despite their claims. It has problems just like any other tax collection method. And politicians will, as they always do, attempt to “fix” the system. Those that favor a progressive tax will attempt implement their wealth redistribution schemes and those that favor a regressive tax structure will attempt to implement their pro-capitalist schemes. In the end, the protections that are put in to prevent tampering will be removed so that one side or the other can “fix” a problem. It always happens, it all ways will.
Of course its not "the end all, fix all, be all”, but its a start, we have to starve the government of funds and a "Progressive" or "Flat Tax" is not the way to do it as shown by history. We have to get out of the box they have us in and try different solutions.
The Government needs taxes to operate, but the current system allows the politicians to wield massive amounts of power that they are using to enslave its citizens... YOUR way has not worked and will not work... as proven by history.
So, lets make some fresh "new" history!
1) the government can spend more than it takes in (as we do now)
2) Congress can continue to borrow on the full faith and credit of the United States
3) The fed can continue to print money at will
The Fair Tax will not stop any of the above three. If you want to “starve the government” .... then you need to limit SPENDING. Changing the tax collection method will not have any impact.
Again, supporters of the fair tax think that it will do something that it wont.
“My way” has not even been discussed. My way would be to take last years total federal spending, split it into two equal parts. Divide the first party by 100 and assign that amount as a per state senator tax assessment. Likewise, divide the second part by the number of representatives.
Then each state would receive a tax bill equal to the Senator assessment (2 x senator amount) plus the representative amount (# of representatives x representative amount).
States that can't or wont pay their bills lose the right to cast either Senate or Representative votes.
Geez, and you say the Fair Tax is a pipe dream! Lets get behind something that CAN actually pass...
Progressive Tax = FAIL
Flat Tax = FAIL
Fair Tax = TBD
The number of supporters grows every year... :-)
No, you are misrepresenting my point. I do not believe Fair Tax is a pipe dream. I believe it is just more of the same, another system that is going to be manipulated just like every other tax collection method. I am pointing out that the stated pillars of the reasons for adopting the fair tax are made of glass and easily broken.
MORE IMPORTANTLY, changing the tax collection method does not solve the problem we face today with 1) Congress spending more than it takes in and 2) Congress segmenting the People into different tax buckets and instituting class warfare via the tax code. To me, fixing those issues is far more important that changing how we collect taxes.
“The 16th Amendment was expressly drafted and designed to overrule the Supreme Court’s decision in the Income Tax Cases. Thus, repealing it would simply put us back to the situation that existed immediately after those cases were decided, namely: repeal of only the capital gains tax portion of the income tax - an income tax on payments for services rendered - wages - would still be perfectly constitutional....”
That is why an “aggressive repeal” is needed - not just one that turns the clock back to 1913, but one that renders ALL income taxes unconstitutional.
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