If there is a single more civil liberty stealing, group punishment, group reward, special interest target, entitlement mentality fostering, or privacy crushing mechanism than the internal revenue code I hope someone will point it out.
Patriot Act? Nah. Piss off an IRS auditor and let him or her get your name. Then you may see the American Gestapo in action. If a bank says that you owe a thousand dollars, you can tell them to pound sand. Can they come in and seize your assets? Nope. Do they get to be the arbiter in your dispute? Nope. Are you required to prove that you didn't get the bill? Nope (proving a negative). But, if the IRS alleges that they sent you a bill for a hundred bux, it's up to you to prove you didn't receive it! If you don't pay, they can literally freeze your life in its' tracks without a court battle.
Can that bank or other creditor haul you in to thier offices and demand that every detail of your life be opened to thier scrutiny? So much for privacy. The IRS needs to know your name, address, occupation, wages (verified by the employer), social security number (the one that wasn't supposed to be an ID), number of kids, how much you spent on your home, etc, etc, etc. And, this "private" information is available to members of congress. So, don't piss off your Congress critter.
Then of course there is the mandatory loan I have to make to the .gov every payday at no interest. But, go ahead and not pay up when the bill is finally figured. Interest and penalties accumulate and we are back to seizing assets.
Speaking of figuring it out, no two people are alike and neither is thier tax return. You and I can be virtual twins and make exactly the same cash. But depending on how good our advisers are, the tax bills can be drastically different. There is no person alive that can be called an expert on all possible permutations of the tax code.
I support the Fairtax, also known as HR25. It is a national sales tax in place of the tax code. No, it is not perfect. But at least I won't spend $$$ to make sure that I have the correct $$$ amount figured to send to the .gov.
When the Democrats won the elections, Charlie Rangel was to be appointed to a powerful committee. I sent this letter to him.
To the Members of the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee:
Greetings,
My name is MSgt [redacted], United States Marine Corps, Retired. I live in the [redacted] District of the State of Texas. I am writing to express my personal support for HR25 also known as the Fairtax.
I am sure that you will receive statements from professionals more qualified than I about economic issues in regard to taxation and revenue generation. My statement is intended to discuss HR 25 from the man-on-the-streets perspective.
Our income tax code has grown or changed substantially since the first year (1981) that I filed a tax return. Today’s tax code is so complicated that a layman cannot hope to comprehensively understand it. Instead, the average person is forced to hire professionally trained tax preparers to assist them. Ironically, if you ask three nationally known preparation agencies a tax question, and then the IRS, you are likely to get four answers. I did just that as an experiment in 1999.
So, the first and most important reason from my perspective to support HR 25 is the elimination of approximately 13,400 pages of Title 26 of the US Code of Federal Regulations and another 3,387 pages of Title 26 of the United States Code.
The simplification inherent in HR 25 will pay huge dividends simply by removing the need for professional help to do your part as a citizen.
No American agency should be feared by her citizens, ever. Yet the average person at tax time lives in dread of “the audit”. The second big reason to scrap the tax code is obvious. HR 25 will remove the potential IRS abuses of individuals.
Let’s face it. Politicians do not have the best of public reputations. The weekly scandals and the partisan infighting do nothing to detract from the image of politicians as little better than sharks. At least with sharks the dorsal fin is obvious. So the next great reason to support and expeditiously pass HR 25 is in public relations. The folks you need to impress are the indifferent middle. Passage of this bill will target those people where they live, in the wallet. They will know who voted for and against the reform. On election day they would very likely remember those who voted to directly make their daily lives easier.
Finally passage of HR 25 will ensure fairness and eliminate manipulation of the tax code by politicians in order to reward or punish. Further, everyone, whether they are rich or poor, saint or sinner, legal or illegal will pay. Even better is that each person chooses how much to pay as a direct result of their spending habits. The very poor may actually make money if the prebate exceeds the amount they spend on new goods or services.
So, if each Member is truly a representative of all of the people within their districts they will vote to pass HR 25 without delay or excessive modification. Your constituents will thank you for eliminating 17000 pages of existing legislation and regulation. They will note that the IRS can no longer be the American Gestapo. They will remember who ignored the lobbyists and stood up for the folks who put them into office, and they will remember who helped bring about fairness and relegated “Tax Day” to the other failed experiments of American History.
Of course I didn't get a reply. I didn't expect one. I don't expect the fairtax to be set up this year either. Instead I just hope that I don't get skinned (again).
taxes income+tax irs rangel charlie+rangel House+ways+and+means
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