We Americans have been hungering for a project like the man on the moon project in the 1960’s. We are a nation of intense individuals, with family histories of leaving oppression to start a new thing. We need to be inspired to do something difficult together – truly change.
Here is a new thing. Totally different than the way we have been. Difficult yet attainable by a people melded and formed from all the best peoples in humanity. Let us change the way we fund our government. No more income tax, property tax, estate tax, capital gain, or the myriad little taxes on everything. One tax. Sales tax on the sale or lease of all goods and services. Everything except food. By corporations and individuals. Putting this new system in place would give us a purpose and a sense of community that our world lacks.
We can do this difficult thing. We can change. We can make it work. So many things are already in place to build on. Forty-five states already have sales tax systems in place. The states can collect the tax and send the federal government’s portion on. We would not need a huge IRS. Accountants could then assist with true business improvement decisions and not be burdened with tax reduction strategies. The government would be incented to foster active commerce. Interest rates on savings accounts would go up because business would be encouraged and funds would be needed for new equipment, all of which would be sales taxed, etc.
We have tried other taxes, they have worked to a degree but each has had severe limitations and we get bogged down in the details of trying to make an unfair system fair. Take a moment and think about how it could work. It would be fair to all. A universal sales-tax-only would be in the neighborhood of 17%. Daniel Feenberg (Ph.D., Economics) of the National Bureau of Economic Research has done an initial study on such a concept, using 1991 figures.
We have the 16th Amendment giving Congress the power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, but we don’t HAVE to do it!