Taxing Problems

The bad joke of the american tax system

Our income tax system is extremely unfair and possibly unconstitutional. Little by little, our government grew stronger by increasing its power to tax us until it was out of control. Most of us are wage slaves because a significant percentage of our income is taken by the government. We must work about a third of a year just to pay our taxes. Tax laws are a maze of regulations, exceptions and loopholes that no one person can comprehend, probably by design, creating confusion, mistakes, misinformation and abuse of power. Try to fight it and the government reacts like a hungry, cornered, wild animal protecting its source of food. The reason that tax laws are so complicated and convoluted is because special interests have had laws passed to give them advantages at the expense of the majority. You should already know this, but why don't you care? Shouldn't everyone be taxed fairly? Or do you believe that the special interests can't be defeated? If so, you have given up your freedom and rights.

Tax funds ultimately end up in the hands of the influential and powerful in the private sector. Yes, the government benefits, but by giving contracts to private businesses for goods and services, so little of the tax funds stay in government; only a minority amount is paid to officeholders and bureaucrats, the rest to military and security. Taxation is a monetary redistribution system from the poor and moderate income earners to the wealthy and so it is also a way to channel power from the majority of the people to a few.

Penalty taxation is another process of social control that is used unfairly to penalize some people for their behaviors. Taxes on cigarettes and liquors are good examples. Most of us approve of this type of taxation, thinking it fair because the products are not necessary ones, may be potentially harmful and are perhaps only used by a minority, but demonstrating an authoritarian and interventionist streak within ourselves. Moralists and politicians capitalize on our beliefs as an excuse to gain more tax money. Taxes should never be used as penalties because that makes them like fines for criminal behavior. This should not be the American way.

In a fair and equitable tax system why should there be any deductions except for dependents? Or else all necessary living expenses should be fully deductible; I mean rent/mortgage, medical, insurance, food, transportation and utility expenses.

Why should anyone who earns below the poverty line be taxed at all? And that poverty line is set painfully low. Everyone should be allowed to earn a living wage before any taxation is applied against it, including Social Security and Medicare. Yes, the economically fortunate should be required to subsidize the unfortunate because they should be required to pay society for their privileges. If you have a greater social influence you have a responsibility to society to assist it. The more money you make the more tax you should pay, but it doesn't always work that way. It seems that there is no equitable way to tax.

Most Americans seem content with our usurious taxation, but we seem not to comprehend what a fair and equitable tax might be and how we might benefit from it. The obvious being that we would have more of our earnings to spend as we please. We worry, unjustifiably, that the government wouldn't have enough to operate and provide services at the level to which we're accustomed. The government would like us to believe that. But we're addicted to government entitlements - another area rife with unfairness and abuse. And politicians are addicted to pork and favoritism.

Taxation is so important a process and so prone to abuse that the ability to decide what is to be taxed and by how much shouldn't be left in the hands of the legislatures, but should be decided by public referenda. Legislators should put before the people any proposed changes in tax law, and that put to a vote.

American tax laws and the power of the IRS demonstrates that our government doesn't trust us. That we must report incomes frequently, if self-employed, pay estimated taxes and tolerate that our banks are required to immediately report any deposit exceeding $10,000 to the IRS mocks our freedom.

Most of us don't realize that the good prices we pay for many products, especially food and oil, are subsidized through taxation. We're paying the real cost, but it is hidden from us by the convolutions of the tax system.

If most Americans don't think we're overtaxed, then they should pay for my livlihood.

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