You Can’t — and Shouldn’t — Abolish the IRS [A critique of Ted Cruz's proposal]

National Review ^ | 04/23/2015 | by PATRICK BRENNAN

[liberalh8ter]

BS.....I had a discussion with two men a few months back. One had an “abolish the IRS” sticker on his back window and the other is a “tax preparer”. The tax preparer started out with the “unworkable, wrong, sounds nice but impossible” argument while the sticker owner and I proceeded to demolish his arguments. At the end of the conversation, he gave in and admitted if the IRS were to be abolished and a flat tax put in its place, his career would be over and he's too old to start over. Self-serving POS.

[RayChuang88]

Getting rid of the income tax and replacing it with FairTax would be the biggest return of power to the people since the American Revolution itself.

Imagine no more taxation on the process of earning money; the result would be companies clamoring to set up operations in the USA, because we would have the world's most business-friendly economy in terms of taxation. Almost overnight, we would go from a real unemployment rate of around 14% to under 5%, and we will see another major middle class boom, too.

[zzeeman]

FairTax Bump!

[semimojo]

I agree that a single-rate flat tax is marginally simpler for the taxpayer - they don’t have to look at a table to determine the tax percentage - but I don’t see how it simplifies the administration of the system.

Most of the complexity in the system is in determining what is income, not in figuring out what rate to pay on that income.

[semimojo]

I think he has a point regarding tax collection. Greece is a great example of what happens when you have poor or inconsistent tax collection. People see everyone else getting away with not paying and they feel like suckers if they do.

It’s one of the biggest drivers of their economic mess.

[Hostage]

> “He needs to drop whatever income tax “scheme” he currently fancies and go all in for the FairTax! The FairTax is about FReedom, and if Senator Cruz is about FReedom, he cannot support ANY other tax scheme!”

I think Ted Cruz is planning to go with the FairTax but is including Flat Tax issues for campaign purposes only. He has said he wants to abolish the IRS and he wants the FairTax.

I think I am going to support Ted Cruz in this but not because of the reason you may think.

I don’t like the Flat Tax, not because it still requires IRS-like enforcement, but because it leaves the 16th Amendment in place. Without the 16th, practically any income tax is unfeasible.

The FairTax forces the 16th to be repealed.

Without the 16th, the income tax will never come back.

With the 16th, the income tax always comes back and grows like a cancer. A FLAT TAX NEVER STAYS FLAT!

The United States has had 5 Flat Taxes in its history starting with the first income tax in 1861. In each case it grew and became graduated. Early versions of a flat income tax were shot down in court as unconstitutional as they were. This is the reason the 16th was passed.

The 16th was passed in 1913 along with the 17th and the 18th. Americans rebelled against the 18th giving rise to black markets and underworld elements until it was repealed in 1933 by the 21st Amendment,

Both the 16th and 17th came about while the public was asleep. How so?

The 16th was accompanied by a tax act legislation of code comprising only 14 pages with only 2 tax brackets of 7% on the ultra wealthy and 1% for everyone else that showed a net profit after expenses. In other words, more than 98% of Americans were subject to only 1% tax rate and most did not even need to pay that or even file if they claimed there was nothing remaining after expenses.

So the original 1913 income tax was a flat tax of only 1% for practically everyone. The 16th was passed so that the income flat tax of only 1% would survive court challenges and the public was sold that the income tax was a measly 1% while soaking it to the (less than 2%) rich at 7%.

Only 1% get it?

In the recent years past in Washington State which has no income tax, Bill Gate’s father tried by referendum passing a ‘1%’ income tax. He lost.

See how sneaky the income tax advocates can be? Just one percent and ‘trust me’ is their angle.

And then of course later the 1% metastasizes.

The Income Tax is an act of DECEPTION.

The Flat Tax is the embryo of the DECEPTION.

The Flat Tax is an Act of Political Con Artists.

What kind of person would support this deception? The type of person that thinks government is the solution to everything and who think they are uniquely suited to using the power of government over their fellows.

So to outfox these con artists, Ted Cruz is offering a Flat Tax. What? Stay with me.

Do you understand that people with names and faces sit in the CBO and on the JCT (Joint Committee on Taxation) and they salivate at a Flat Tax? These people know each other, their kids play with each other, I have met many of them.

Why would these people who oversee the monstrous tax complexity that presently exists be so excited about a Flat Tax?

Let me make it clear by analogy to everyone reading so far.

Say there is a nice town surrounded by beautiful nature and the Town Council has passed a moratorium on development to control the town’s sprawl so as to preserve the pristine nature that surrounds it.

Now consider the effect on the town’s general contractors. They suddenly are out of work. They may need to move or retrain. They’re not happy.

Suddenly a fire breaks out in the town and several buildings burn to the ground. Parts of the town are ‘flattened’.

How do construction contractors react to the fire?

Hallelujah!!!

Now there’s all kinds of new work and oh boy are we gonna charge top dollar!

Get the picture?

So Ted Cruz comes along and strings these bastards along with the bait of a Flat Tax and they are all salivating and grinning from ear to ear.

And then, and as I wish, he does the bait and switch.

Because to get rid of the 2 million folks that work in some tentacle of the IRS octopus, we are gonna need a reason to move them elsewhere, The Flat Tax serves one purpose only. It serves as a staging ground for the destruction of the IRS.

I acknowledge it’s a risk. But then most conservatives do not know the enemy’s troop strength, tech power, supply lines and armaments (political, press and police).

THE IRS IS THE US GOVERNMENT. The Beltway and their puppet masters in NYC, London and Zurich are joined at the hip to the IRS.

We can’t just stand out here in the boonies jumping up and down like screaming ninjas. We have to outfox them. We need a present day General George Washington.

/soapbox

[navyguy]

The IRS is an absolutely HORRIBLE, abusive agency. If there is any agency in the US that we should get rid of it’s this one. If we can’t get rid of this one then we can’t get rid of ANY agency.. we can only add more.

And these ‘experts’ are close minded... it IS possible to get rid of the IRS. It’s not axiomatically necessary for the continued operation of Reality. We invented it, we can get rid of it.

[navyguy]

I ended my subscription to NR years ago because of garbage like this article.

[teeman8r]

Fair tax is not the flat tax
What we have now started as a flat tax
Lobbyists and special interest will modify any flat tax

Fair tax will revolutionize america for the better

[facedown]

... and the IRS is well regarded internationally.

So is Fidel Castro.

[Taxman]

Great rant!

Ted Cruz became a sponsor of the FairTax Act, S.155 on 3/10/2015.

I just want him to promote it enthusiastically and unequivocally.

[Taxman]

You are absolutely correct, Ray!

FairTax has many benefits to We the People and the USA as a whole.

What FairTax also does is disempower the Inside the Evil Beltway crowd, and they are our enemy!

So, the way we get the FairTax into law is to elect Representatives and Senators and a President who run on the issue.

Senator Cruz is a co-sponsor of the FairTax in the US Senate. We need to support his candidacy and encourage him to speak forthrightly and enthusiastically about the FairTax!

[RayChuang88]

When you have nearly 75,000 pages of tax code so complex that even James Joyce's famously unreadable Finnegans Wake is only just a little harder to read, it's way past due we do something about it.

Phasing out the income tax in favor of FairTax would save over 90% of the estimated US$ 1 TRILLION per year in compliance and economic opportunity costs of the current tax code--imagine freeing up over $900 billion per year for more productive purposes could do to the US economy....

[Taxman]

Backatcha!

[Taxman]

I have been imagining just such a USA since I first got became a National Retail Sales Tax advocate and activist in April, 1991!

[Taxman]

By thugs and criminals in other governments who are jealous of the power and sweep of the IRS!

IOW, tyrants and dictators love the IRS!

[Taxman]

All we have to do is elect Representatives, Senators and a President who will support the FairTax, and we can abolish both the income tax and the IRS!

Let us do that in 2016!

[Yaelle]

Should I even keep reading? I came to the part where tax experts want to keep the IRS.

[Basket_of_Deplorables]

So we abolish 99% of it.

He's my guy!!!

[Taxman]

You are correct!

The so-called “Flat Tax” is still an income tax, and I can make the case that a flat income tax will cause the IRS to become even more intrusive and antagonistic towards the citizenry (that would be US!).