Our Income Tax System -- Corruption on Display
Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2010 5:32 am
Broken, complicated, corrupted, expensive, destructive and unfair are the words that best describe the federal income tax system after almost a hundred years of being treated like the personal piggy bank of tax lobbyists and members of Congress.
This is not simple pigsty but one that is so complex it cost taxpayers and American businesses more than $300 billion last year in paperwork costs, alone, before a penny of tax was paid. What people owe but don’t pay amounted to more than $350 billion last year—a shortfall that, to make up, increased the average taxpayer’s bill by more than a third.
In Washington, D.C., however, a new American aristocracy made up of political insiders profits richly by buying and selling pieces of the federal tax code. It is routinely used to buy votes and pit Americans against each other, explaining why almost half of the nation does not pay income taxes while the other half carries the entire load. Does such pandering represent the “Achilles Heel” of our Republic and spell inevitable economic ruin?
Our tax system makes members of Congress powerful and tax lobbyists among the richest and most influential in Washington’s elitist ranks. In a nation that threw off the power of pampered aristocrats, they’re back and dining out on our money while the nation staggers under unthinkable and suffocating levels of national debt. Between promises to spend more and more to buy votes and insider deals to sell off more and more of the tax code, We the People are left holding the bag.
Obviously corrupted, our nation’s tax system caters to powerful schemers with access to Congressional tax writing committees at the top and ignores the just plain dishonest down below. More than a trillion dollars a year in America's "underground economy" escapes taxation. Drug dealers, prostitutes and gamblers revel in a taxation dead zone along with at least 10 million illegal immigrants. Millions enjoy the fruits of honest Americans’ labors as their tax dollars go to pay for highways, our nation's defense, schools and every other federal program while they pay no federal income taxes.
more:
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/04/ ... d-tax-vat/
This is not simple pigsty but one that is so complex it cost taxpayers and American businesses more than $300 billion last year in paperwork costs, alone, before a penny of tax was paid. What people owe but don’t pay amounted to more than $350 billion last year—a shortfall that, to make up, increased the average taxpayer’s bill by more than a third.
In Washington, D.C., however, a new American aristocracy made up of political insiders profits richly by buying and selling pieces of the federal tax code. It is routinely used to buy votes and pit Americans against each other, explaining why almost half of the nation does not pay income taxes while the other half carries the entire load. Does such pandering represent the “Achilles Heel” of our Republic and spell inevitable economic ruin?
Our tax system makes members of Congress powerful and tax lobbyists among the richest and most influential in Washington’s elitist ranks. In a nation that threw off the power of pampered aristocrats, they’re back and dining out on our money while the nation staggers under unthinkable and suffocating levels of national debt. Between promises to spend more and more to buy votes and insider deals to sell off more and more of the tax code, We the People are left holding the bag.
Obviously corrupted, our nation’s tax system caters to powerful schemers with access to Congressional tax writing committees at the top and ignores the just plain dishonest down below. More than a trillion dollars a year in America's "underground economy" escapes taxation. Drug dealers, prostitutes and gamblers revel in a taxation dead zone along with at least 10 million illegal immigrants. Millions enjoy the fruits of honest Americans’ labors as their tax dollars go to pay for highways, our nation's defense, schools and every other federal program while they pay no federal income taxes.
more:
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/04/ ... d-tax-vat/
