Top ten reasons to move Income Tax to VAT

It's our favorite time of year again. April 15th is just around the corner and it's time for you to pay Uncle Sam for all of those good things that you are benefiting from. It's important to remember that the Government never wants less money, only more. There are a few reasons for this.

For you Republicans. Well it's obvious. At nearly a billion dollars a day, this war isn't gonna pay for itself. After all, we might need to lean over into Iran . We have banks to bail out as well as large corporations. There are an awful lot of palms to grease.

For you Democrats. Well there are an awful lot of poor people that need to feel like they are sticking it to the man. Surely there must be another way to buy the votes of the downtrodden. Oh yeah, and there are an awful lot of palms to grease.

As it is, it doesn't matter which side of the isle you are from, you will be supporting a party that wants our money.

Here's the problem. the Federal Income tax was instituted because the government just couldn't spend enough money and had to figure out a way to get more from it's people. Here's the problem. It was unconstitutional. Well that little fact wasn't going to stand in their way. in 1913 the 16th amendment was passed allowing for the taxation of everyone based on personal income. Well that opened the pandora's box that we have now in the form of our beloved 1099 form to be filed with numerous schedules to the IRS so that we can pay for our very efficient government.

The new solution. This solution is actually not new at all. It's quite old. they call it the VAT tax or Value Added Tax which would make calling it a VAT tax redundant. Basically a national sales tax that would replace the current income tax. And here are my top 10 reasons to move to a VAT tax

10. No more smug co-worker that already has THEIR taxes done. Some propeller heads have their taxes done the second the forms come out. Well GOOOOOOOOOOD for you.













9. No more filling out forms and schedules. Not only do you have to fill out forms and submit them to Uncle Sam, but you have to keep them around as well. 7 years you gotta act as a warehouse for the IRS. Sure it doesn't take up MUCH space, but who really does it 100% anyway? If I were audited for 2006, I can guarantee you i don't know quite where i put it.














8. No more working for free. What? work for free? nobody is asking me to do that are they? Well, the average wage earner takes 24 hours to do all of their taxes (this includes the receipt saving as well as the justification and the cheating). Lets assume that you make 15 dollars an hour (minimum wage is another discussion). that's 360 dollars worth of time that the IRS made you work for free. Grrrrrrr.





7. It's easy. this is really a corollary to number 9. If there are no forms to fill out etc, then it MUST be easier. After all, they will just take it out of your purchases.

















6. No more stupid TaxCut/TurboTax/HRBlock. So now in order to make it easier for the IRS to have my money, I'll shuck out 35 smacks to TurboTax to make sure that everything is being done right. yippee. at least the cost of the software is tax deductable.




5. Taxes should not be a tool for social reform. Telling the top 5% of wage earners that paying 60% of the tax burden isn't fair and they should be paying more is a lot like your mom and dad telling you you need to spend your Saturday mowing the lawn and edging only to be told later that now you need to do the garden and maybe grout some tile while your little brother watches the nth rerun of Our Gang on Saturday afternoon TV. Sure we need to help the poor. Of course the only way to pay for the poor is to bill the people that are richer than the poor, but the VAT works on everyone that buys stuff. I'm sure we can come up with a method to keep the very poor from paying on necessities. After all, we have food stamps on a visa these days.

4. Not as expensive. There is already systems in place to deal with taxes on most state levels. If we include a VAT, there will just be a few more numbers but not much more trouble for business. The savings in that we don't need to print and send out 200 million tax booklets and forms every year would be staggering. Not to mention all the jobs we don't have to pay for at the IRS. (of course this is probably a hollow victory since the VAT would increase the amount of audits etc on business, but I can't believe that auditing 100 thousand businesses isn't easier than auditing 300 million people.)

3. Frenchie pays too. Actually all foreigners will pay. This seems only fair since our government allows foreign lobbyists in the national government. Seems like they should pay since they are using our congressmen to give their countries aid. We have to pay their sales taxes when we vacation over there, it seems only fair.















2. No double taxation. Supposedly we are not supposed to be taxed twice on our income. It happens all the time though. We pay our state and fed taxes and THEN we pay gas taxes as well as local sales taxes. we are paying those taxes on already taxed income. That's supposed to be against the law.









1. NO IRS. Wow, you mean I don't have to live in fear of my property being taken from me and my wages being garnisheed because I couldn't come up with a payment for the IRS? They can freeze all my assets and I have to prove I'm innocent?! What kind of country is this? The one thing people in America fear more than their dentist is an IRS Audit.












P.S. If you want to do it like Richy Rich does. Just move to the Bahama's or Bermuda. They got no Income taxes at all. Mmmmmm...livin the good life.