It Ain't Fair!
Right after I wrote my essay on the American Tax System. my e-mailbox was graced with this note from George.
Who is George?
I think George is John and Jane Doe's long lost brother who has come to life after taking the cattle prod from the Congress one time too many.
Let's let George say it!
Subject: My Feelings On Our Income Tax System
Broken, complicated, corrupted, expensive, destructive and unfair are the words that best describe the federal income tax system after almost a hundred years of being treated like the personal piggy bank of tax lobbyists and members of Congress.
This is not simple a plain old pig sty. it is one that is so complex that it costs taxpayers and American businesses more than $300 billion a year in just paperwork costs. I am saying this costs is a given even before a penny of tax is paid. What people owe but don't pay amounted to more than $400 billion last year—a shortfall that, to make up, increased the average taxpayer's bill by more than a third.
In Washington, D.C., however, a new American aristocracy made up of political insiders, profits immensely by buying and selling pieces of the federal tax code. It is routinely used to buy votes and pit Americans against each other. This explains why almost half of the nation does not pay income taxes while the other half carries the entire load. Does such pandering represent the 'Achilles Heel' of our Republic and spell inevitable economic ruin?
Our tax system makes members of Congress powerful and it makes tax lobbyists among the richest and most influential people in Washington's elitist ranks. In a nation that threw off the power of pampered aristocrats in our founding, we need to recognize that these bastards are back and they are dining out on our money. Meanwhile, the nation continues to stagger under unthinkable, suffocating levels of national debt. Between promises to spend more and more to buy votes, coupled with insider deals to sell off more and more of the tax code, we the people are always left holding the bag.
Obviously corrupted, our nation's tax system caters to powerful schemers with access to Congressional tax writing committees at the top and ignores the just plain dishonest down below. More than a trillion dollars a year in America's "underground economy" escapes taxation. Drug dealers, prostitutes and gamblers revel in a taxation dead zone along with at least 10 million illegal immigrants. Millions enjoy the fruits of honest Americans' labors as their tax dollars go to pay for highways, our nation's defense, schools and every other federal program, while they pay no federal income taxes
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Well said, George
Thank you!
