It is Time for the Consumption Tax

The Federal Income Tax, since it's first categorical introduction following the ratification of the 16th Amendment to the US Constitution in 1913, has been nearly equally unpopular and the subject of resentment and scorn for everyone who pays any. Both the rich and the less well off feel that they money they earn is unfairly and inequitably taken from them by the government. Much has been written about this and a plethora of tax 'reform' suggestions appears every highly political year (like this one, 2008!) Somehow, though, no matter how well or honestly intentioned, most of these proposals tend to miss the two underlying points.

The first is that there MUST be taxes of some sort if people expect, as they all do, their government to provide services they feel are imperative that they are not able to secure for themselves. Short of this, we would be left with a type of fiscally feudal anarchy in which the rich would survive and the less well fixed would simply expire. The second and equally important (but oft overlooked) reality is that taxing income (money earned) is a paradigm concept that is impossible to administer fairly no matter what tax 'plan' is brought to the fore.

The Income Tax Laws of this country are so complex, as to render them essentially incomprehensible to even the most educated among us. The volumes and volumes of regulations, conditions, caveats and exceptions to the once basic formula for taxation of income have become so compounded by (and for) attorneys, tax experts and the exceedingly wealthy, as to render them tantamount to laws under which we all live that few of us have the capacity to understand. It has become a game. The prize is to earn more while paying less. The winners are, inevitably, those with the resources to mobilize the expertise it takes to understand how to win without going to jail. This is conspicuously unfair to the rest of us.