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Politics : Piffer Thread on Political Rantings and Ravings -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MulhollandDrive who wrote (4829)	11/29/2001 8:50:26 PM
From: Original Mad Dog	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14610

I once was in favor of a completely flat tax. I have evolved my thinking somewhat as I have paid more and more taxes and also as I have seen more of other countries' systems as compared with the U.S. I would make three major changes to the tax code(s): 1. Flatten the income tax, but not completely. Something close to where Reagan first changed it to (15 and 28 brackets, with no soak the rich stuff on top of it). Rationale is that the distribution of income and wealth in the U.S. is unequal to a greater extent than elsewhere, and although in most cases this is deserved, I don't have a major problem with doing a little redistribution on the back end as long as it is not major. Promotes a sense of fairness among the less fortunate. 2. Make social security all come out of the employee's paycheck, instead of disguising half of it as a business tax. 3. Eliminate all capital gains taxes and allow pent up deductions that were subject to the 3K limit to be taken immediately (or on an accelerated basis). The 3K limit would become obsolete because you would neither be taxed on the capital gains or able to take capital losses.....capital gains and losses would not be tax events. As an aside, I am not ready at this time to reduce the overall tax burden. While that is a worthwhile goal, we need enough in the coffers to buy cruise missiles and bombers to deal with the world's many pieces of dung. EDIT: I forgot to say one more thing......I don't believe in taxing consumption at all, or at least not in a major way like with a VAT.