Revisiting the Flat Tax

It will never happen. There's too many pigs at the trough of Other Peoples Money...

This has always been a good idea. However, it will take a seismic shift in American politics to get it through Congress. Secondly, the percentage is too high. As the late Walter Williams said of it, “even the Baptist Church only wants ten percent!”

Politicians and lobbyists fear it because it cut downs on graft

Although I prefer the FairTax, this would be a move in the right direction. Neither will happen though.

Flat tax. No rebates or anything like that. Everyone pays exactly the same percentage. Of course people who make money illegally won't pay that tax either. If they want to capture that money too, eliminate the income tax completely and go to a national sales tax. Everyone pays then. Legal and illegal incomes.

Great idea, never happen. The WEF needs to have all the armed IRS agents to grind us into poverty, that won't happen with a flat tax, so the WEF won't let a flat tax happen.

I am liking the flat tax idea more and more, especially with the unleashing of 87,000 IRS reprobates onto middle America. I am all for the abolishment of the IRS. I have had enough.

A flat tax would still require that you file with the IRS. The solution is a national sales tax. That way you don’t have to file and the government doesn’t know how much or how you earn your income. And it forces welfare queens, drug dealers, gang bangers and foreign tourists to pay taxes on what they spend, not their income.

The federal tax rate on wage and investment derived income should be determined by multiple competing AI algorithms sponsored and protected by the Federal Reserve. The actual rate would be a weighted average of the models. The objective of the models would be to make predictions of inflation for each quarter and to dynamically adjust the rate across all taxpayers to achieve a specific inflation target. If actual inflation is below the model target it would reduce the rate in the next quarter to level out the average over each year. Models that were outliers would be eliminated using natural selection principles to find the optimum combination of models similar to the approach used for weather forecasting. This tax system would only work if the country passed a Constitutional amendment requiring only public funding of Federal election campaigns and reinstating the "fairness doctrine" across all media to prevent them from banning candidates from spending on any media platform. The objective is to make it impossible for politicians to influence the tax program to benefit their largest donors. Congress would hold committee meetings to discuss the model recommended tax plan for the following year. The final plan would be voted on by the Congress. This process would need to be beta tested over 4 years or so to validate it before formally incorporating it into the overall fiscal spending plan. Independent validated AI models would also be developed to score media sources for accuracy and balance of viewpoint. These scores would be coupled with tax credits for media sources that had high rates and tax surcharges for sources that fell more than 1 standard deviation below the median score for all media. If we don't start breaking out of our tired and fake patterns of taxation and budgeting based on who pays off the most politicians, we will never get America back on the right track.

I like the idea of a flat tax. Simple, fair to all and easy to understand. It will never happen. There is another reason why If there is a flat tax of say 17% the government loosed a lot of power. Right now if you do what we want, we'll give you a tax break or tax credit. If you don't do what we want we'll give you a tax penalty. With a flat tax, all that social engineering goes away. Great idea that will never happen.

Have been revisiting this for 25 years now. Yawn

OT, but Bob Dole was another of those who were 'next in line,' i.e., it was his turn to run for the presidency. Spit.

What do H&R Block and the other tax preparers say? How about those accounting firms? There's big money made with a complex tax structure. A flat tax? No way. As far as wasteful and unnecessary spending...you're kidding.

The flat tax will never happen. The current and very convoluted progressive tax system we have today makes it possible to have tens of thousands of human drones working as irs thugs or as tax service leeches whose purpose is to bleed us of our wealth.

Any new tax laws can be overridden by another Congress but Term Limits, codified by Constitutional amendment, is a gift to the people that keeps on giving. The country would be better off if every politician in the federal government were banned from holding any national-level office going forward and completely new elections of real citizens replaces them all. For a clean break, that should include everyone who has ever held national office in Congress or the Executive Branch, especially the unelected (appointed) bureaucrats that are the core of the Deep State, which includes the uniformed services.

There is nothing wrong with this idea that I can see, but it’s far too sensible for Democrats to sign on to. That means we will have to wait for a Republican-led government to reintroduce a flat tax.

Dems just crowed and back patted themselves by passing a 15% Minimum Tax on the Wealthiest people!!, It's a good time to say..."15%? OK...15% for EVERYONE". Only on earned income, simple, crazy simple, math a 4th grader can do...tax forms will all be just a postcard. We can get rid of 80% of the IRS. Do away with nearly all Tax Lawyers arguing over a dozen interpretations of 100 different applicable tax codes. Tax preparers? Now longer needed, or at least verrrry few of them. In addition...I would suggest putting one ENTIRE YEAR of Federal Govt spending alllll into deficit spending, all tax receipts from that year banked/saved, THEN...The only funds spent the following year have to come out of that prior years proceeds,No budget could sped a single dime more than was collected/saved from the prior year...ever again.Even if doing that required a Constitutional Amendment...It WOULD get enough support to Pass. States/cities/localities can follow suit or do whatever they please with state/local revenues...but businesses and people will stream out of the higher tax/complicated states/localities in favor of the simple/low tax places.

HIghly presidential looking mediocre governor and lousy candidate Pierre somebodyorother sneered when Herman Cain was promoted 9-9-9. If only we had someone who has done well in the private sector and looked at the tax code solely as a means of raising revenues necessary to operate a government like a business and not weaponize the treasury department or view the tax code as a means of social engineering, promoting winners and losers, behaviors the left likes, discouraging behaviors the left doesn't like.

How would they triple-tax our earnings, then? Or would we still have sales tax, tax on savings interest, and inheritance taxes?

Furthermore, until government balances the budget, all other talk is pointless.

The people running the country use the IRS as a weapon. The flat tax would disarm them.