Leaderboard

Simplify the tax system, specifically removing the vast number of exceptions and exemptions available to businesses and wealthy citizens. Reduce the nominal corporate tax rate a little to compensate. Adjust tax law so that businesses that do the majority of their trading in the US but use cheap offshore tax havens to register their shell companies that book all of the profits also have to pay US corporate tax. Basically every company doing significant business in the USA should be paying taxes. This on its own would make more difference than just about every serious proposal currently being discussed. I seem to recall the numbers on switching from a sales tax to VAT are also highly favourable but baby steps... It will take some time to get the tax system efficient even with political will. Most likely the country will collapse before it actually happens in reality.

At the upper income levels the tax laws seem to be a maze, with prizes for those who can twist the law in their favor. But even at lower levels it can get complex. I started grad school in 1960 and had a teaching assistanceship, about 3K for the academic year, and I worked in the summer. I paid taxes. Then the government decided that teaching assistanceships were part salary, taxable, and part fellowship, non-taxable. Unfortunately, "part" was vague. I and others called the IRS to learn which part was which. We found that if you call three times you get three different answers. I did whatever I thought was right. I was not audited, probably partly because no one knew just what was what, but also because even if an audit found that I owed money the amount would not cover the cost of the audit. I guess the rule making part of the assistanceship non-taxable was well-intended, but not well thought out. I think this happens often, and of course there are other times when the tricky rules are not at all well-intended. Well-intended for the rich, but not for the rest of us. So yes, I agree. I agree that simplifying would be good and I agree that the economy might well collapse before our leaders do an honest job of simplifying.

Yes, it more than pays for itself, and, IMO, even more importantly, it maintains the right spirit. We really do not want people thinking that only fools play it straight with their taxes. Play it straight. That's how I was brought up. There is a lot to be said for it. There are a lot of things that Rs should be embarrassed by. Gutting the IRS is high on the list. Of course Trump is at the top of the list. Wake up folks, wake up. You do not have to become woke to wake up.

One thing the democrats did to reduce the deficit which I thought was quite clever and should be uncontroversial was increasing the budget of the IRS. This apparently more than pays for itself by catching tax cheats, bringing in more revenue without raising taxes on anyone. Guess what funding Republicans want to cut as part of the debt limit deal! Somehow they want to protect tax cheats now! Maybe they are worried that the Trump audit will turn something up?