Service Supply in Indianapolis used to bill itself as "The House of a Million Screws." Drove past the place recently and noticed a new name of the building and no slogan, but damned if I could tell you what it was....
Of course the days of the Rigid Tool calendars are past, too.
Yet there lurks the 12-year-old in many of us. And he's still snickering!
I'm not a constitutional lawyer, but I think the biggest strike against sales taxes is that they are regressive. If the majority of your income is spent on the necessities of life (and we'll include quality square-drive screws here, so that we remain on topic), the sales tax you pay has a terrific impact on your finances as a percentage of your expenditures.
If you're spending a miniscule portion of your earnings on the same neccessities, while banking your the vast bulk of your income in some sheltered Bahamian account, you could give a twit about the sales tax.
Without resorting to the S-word, let's throw out a bible passage: "Of those to whom much is given, much shall be required." Let's dump the sales taxes (there are five states that don't have 'em...), and move our taxation model to income taxes, with far fewer exemptions. If you're a fat cat, you don't need to be subsidized.
If the personal income tax and user fees for services were the only taxes, that might not be too bad. Dump the sales tax, dump the property tax, etc.
But once a tax code is established, it needs to be made very difficult to change it, because that's the big problem, they monkey with the tax code every year in ways that don't really change anything but make it impossible to plan ahead because you have no idea what your taxes are going to be.
I have a plan for a simple tax form that is on one page and takes one minute to fill out.. Once I get the lawyers and accountants behind me, Congress is sure to pass it.
Are you trying to put all those nice people out of work? That is un-patriotic. Who would run the presidency, congress, and supreme court if there were no lawyers?
I'd like to see a Constitutional Amendment to the effect that a person may be required to file with the government one form each year, consisting of a single page, and may be required to file no other form, and that if government tells him he must file more than one form he gets to decide which form to file.
Also that the sum total of all taxes and other mandatory transfers of funds to the government or to government sponsored programs, direct and indirect paid by any person in any given year may not exceed ten percent of his income and if the government provides him with bills for more than that amount he gets to decide which to pay up to the 10 percent limit.
And that no person may be arrested, detained, annoyed, spoken to harshly, glared at, or otherwise in any manner be pestered by the government for lack of any government-mandated form, certificate, license, unpaid tax or anything else having to do with government requirements as long as he has (a) filed his one form and (b) paid his
10 percent tax.
And that "deceased violated the above paragraph" be an affirmative defense in cases involving homicide of a government official.
Nah, buy yourself a six-pack and send in the rest.
One a serious note, the tax form can be that simple. I don't know if 10% or
20% or whatever is needed, but it can be that easy. No deductions, no loopholes, no accountants and lawyers (like that would ever happen).
I think it is sad that people have to pay high prices to preparers for anything but the EZ form to be filled out. I do taxes for a half dozen people every year for free. They are good, hard working people that do not understand the forms and laws as they stand.
The common forms are pretty simple. I think it's more that the government has people so scared that they're afraid of doing something wrong. There is good reason for that feeling, though. VT has sent a collections company after me for $20K that I don't owe (didn't live in, or work in, the state - paid elsewhere).
I'd think that mostly either just don't try or are undereducated. There's really nothing terribly complicated about the basic 1040 and Schedules most folks need. If have more complex issues, maybe, but I figure the fella' does mine is earning his keep w/ the business end.
The no-deduction idea is a non-starter so there's not even any reason to go there on why it doesn't work...
Tens of thousands of high school grads don't have the proper brain cells to fill out a tax form. They may be remarkably talented in other areas, just not doing what you and I think of a simple form. Most schools don't teach tax forms either.
We use some unskilled labor at work. I see these people every day and 99% of them could not understand the simplest forms. They end up paying $75+ to some tax preparer, for the federal, almost that much for the state form that is more complex. Since they don't have the money to pay for it, they have the fees taken from the refund and pay even more for the privilege.
Add to that, the people speaking little or no English.
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