58 lines
2.9 KiB
Plaintext
58 lines
2.9 KiB
Plaintext
THE FLAT-OUT TAX REVISITED
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Over two years ago, we published a column ridiculing some tentative tax reform
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proposals which had sprouted in the Congress. There was, at that time, a small
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move for reformation of our ludicrous system of taxation.
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We proposed a "Flat-out Tax," which would allow the government to take all of
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everybody's money and refund whatever might be left over. Americans would
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simply live on credit all year long and, hopefully, be able to pay off at refund
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time.
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Sound familiar? The president, in his televised message last week, mentioned
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that many of us wouldn't even have to file a return under his proposed tax
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program.
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Hmmmm.
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There were some other features in our Flat-out Tax which are included to some
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extent in this new proposal. For instance, we had suggested that the standard
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deduction should be raised to $25,000 per person. Just look what the president
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has suggested: raising the standard deduction!
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In our Flat-out Tax, we knew that revenues lost to the government from
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individuals would have to be made up elsewhere. We suggested making businesses
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tax, at least once in a while. Well, what do you know? The president actually
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proposed having corporations pay income tax!
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(Technically, corporations are supposed to pay tax now, but there are so many
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loopholes that many don't.)
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But there are still some of our proposals which need to be included in this
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new tax plan. (The administration obviously has a copy of our article -- it has
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stolen so many of our good ideas -- but it must have lost a page or two.)
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For example, we suggested making some foreign countries pay U.S. income tax.
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Like Japan, Israel, El Salvador and Korea. They get enough U.S. aid! They
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ought to be willing to pay some of it back in taxes.
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And we still think the Soviet Union ought to shoulder some of our Defense
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budget. After all, they're the ones we're spending all that money on. (At the
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very least, in the event of nuclear war the U.S.S.R. should be required to pay
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us back for whatever we dump on them.)
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We think an essential element of any new tax plan ought to have some
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provisions for the rich and for those with extraordinarily high incomes. Like,
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maybe, they ought to be able to make 'tax-adoptions' of needy folks. A
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tax-adoption would be a loophole, sure, but if a rich guy paid taxes for a few
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poorer folks and took a credit for it, the government wouldn't miss out on any
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money and the tax rates could be kept low.
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Our Flat-out Tax included a program of monthly or quarterly tax returns. Each
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period would be separate and unique. So, if you make a lot of money in three
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months and none in the other nine, you'd have a chance to save some money. And
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take long vacations.
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We'll reprint our original article if we can find it. It's amazing how much
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went straight into the president's supposedly new ideas.
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