The IRS has proven, time and again, that not only cannot it be trusted in any fashion, that it spends with profligacy, that it is not accountable, that it — itself — does not have to provide any receipts for the wastrel-like and over-the-top parties it hosts for its own employees. The arrogance of the IRS is now legion, with no end in sight.
Just this week, most recently, the IRS frakked up by exposing THOUSANDS of social security numbers to the internet for roughly 24 hours.
Repeated: insanity with no consequences whatsoever. The IRS is proving, time and again and again that it needs to be shuttered and those oppressive employees cast to the four winds to find REAL work.
I say: abolish the IRS now. Eliminate the IRS code, its thousands and thousands of pages that few — including the IRS — cannot consistently interpret.
Bring in a flat tax. Set a percentile. Create a one page form. ___% of your gross wages = send it in. Period.
The most logical and the most fair. No exceptions, no exemptions. For no one or any thing.
Ted Cruz is about to become my favorite politician — if there can actually be such a thing — via this article from The Washington Post:
Ted Cruz: ‘Abolish the IRS’
Hours before the House Appropriations Committee held a hearing on political targeting at the Internal Revenue Service, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) had a simple solution to the agency’s problems — get rid of it altogether.
“I think we ought to abolish the IRS and instead move to a simple flat tax where the average American can fill out taxes on postcard,” he explained in a Fox News interview over the weekend. “Put down how much you earn, put down a deduction for charitable contributions, home mortgage and how much you owe. It ought to be a simple one-page postcard, and take the agents, the bureaucracy out of Washington and limit the power of government.”
And the “necessity” for another 14,000 blood-sucking IRS agents would be null and void.
Simple and elegant.
BZ
P.S.
More:
If only. The howls from the financial sector would be joyous to hear.
I’d think it would be howls from the Left.
BZ
Remember Steve Forbes? No… really?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Forbes
I think it was Saturday Night Live that lampooned him as Teve Torbes.
He was abandoned. Cry “birthers” and people run.
“Teabaggers” didn’t work only because the group is largely comprised of respectable people who were unaware of the term’s implications.
Well, it was sad we abandoned Forbes.
Ya know, sometimes I blame Bush.
Bush was far from a saint, and to say that he spent like a drunken sailor does drunken sailors a bad turn.
Forbes, if I’m not mistaken, advocated loudly for a flat tax.
BZ
P.S.
It’s funny, considering the recent events with the IRS; make a post calling for the abolition of the IRS and very few people want to comment. Audits, anyone?
I absolutely concur!! Time to kick the IRS to curb. They are useless and truly a bunch of bullies, we don’t need them.
Straight tax? Hmm… might work.
Leticia: thanks for being brave.
BZ
Sorry for my typo.
BZ, anytime. We all have to stick together. We are in dire times.
Typo? I don’t see it.
BZ
It would be easy to jump on the bandwagon and say get rid of the irs but someone/thing would have to collect taxes so if the irs goes it will be replaced. I think it would be more likely that it should be pared down. It is so big it has a life of its own. It is a law unto itself.
Making the tax code simpler would make it harder to cheat and need a smaller agency to administer it.
A flat tax might sound good but would it generate enough revenue? And if it didn’t, where would the shortfall be made up? Would there be a national sales tax similar to VAT? How would people like that?
Are there any Western countries currently using a flat tax?
Where I am there is a 16 percent flat rate and we all pay 27 percent sales tax on everything. The FT was supposed to encourage increased tax compliance but the black economy still flourishes.
“Making the tax code simpler would make it harder to cheat.”
BINGO. And THAT is the reason that BOTH sides don’t want to simplify taxes.
It is the one thing that they both agree upon.
If it comes from DC, it is CORRUPT.
BZ
Sen Cruz also said that “it’s about empowering the people.”
He is doomed. The the last thing Washington wants is its citizens to be empowered. On the contrary we should be bound even tighter with more rules and restrictions until one day no matter what you do you are probably going to break some law.
Reagan said it best:
No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth!
That, and Imperial Federal Judges.
BZ