Friday, May 8, 2009

A Letter to Steve Forbes

Dear Mr. Forbes:

As a CPA tax guy, I’ve been following your “flat tax” proposals for several years, and have taken your simplification ideas a step further with my “10% on everything” idiot-proof, two-page tax code. This approach is discussed at length in fictional form in my new book
An American Fable, and it is debated in Q&A format on my blog.

The advantages of a “10% on everything” tax code are:
  • Yields total tax revenue of $3 trillion plus, versus about $2 trillion today from income taxes, fees, tolls, licenses, duties, bondings, payroll contributions, unemployment insurance, disability insurance, health insurance, excises, assessments, property taxes, et al, which would be eliminated (along with my modest post-retirement income from tax services to long-time clients);
  • Is paid day-by-day;
  • Is buried in retail prices, like the European VAT, but without VAT’s accounting complexities for small business owners like my Italian brother-in-law;
    • Provides for a 60% share to cities and counties (10% to States), allowing a return to local rule over social services (healthcare, unemployment, disability) and local infrastructure (bridges, roads, buildings, tunnels, and schools);
    • Gets Uncle Sam out of our daily lives. His 30% cut ($1 trillion) is to pay down our national debt; protect us against enemies, referee internal conformity, and give us a functioning bank system;

    • We “local yokels” will take care of our schools, neighborhoods and townspeople—a return to Constitutional States’ rights after 150 years of Federal Caesarian command;
    • Is front-end loaded, with no back-end tax on business profits, interest income, investment income, capital gains or pension T-bond withdrawals. Gets my 8 grandkids (and near-term great-grandkids) off the hook for paying off our $10 trillion national debt and $20 trillion Social Security/MediCare actuarial; shortfall.

    • Promotes “low-class” Americans to “middle-class” Americans overnight, with a 25 grand minimum wage and a 10% T-bond retirement account.
    Steve, I don’t care who gets credit for what; I just want to see a serious debate about simple taxation, local empowerment, and T-bond conversion of Federal pension benefits. There are 50 million senior voters out here who love our country, but hate the drift to Socialism. We need authoritative voices to speak for us; don’t let us down!

    Yours very truly,
    Charles Fairfax Speer
    charlesspeer@yahoo.com (email)


    2 comments:

    1. Did Forbes ever respond to this interesting plan you've devised?
      Phil from Newark

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    2. Is you in any way related to the Speers in the East part of the country, mostly Massachusetts and Rhode Island? I went to school with Tommy Baldwin Speer. He was a ROTC standout and he was also a great rugby player. He got in a fight one day with Frank Medilia, and beat his ass all up and down the halls. His brother Gabe Scooter Speer was a college hoopster star until he married a nigger girl and that ended his contact with the family after that. His sister, Luella "Sweet Buns" Speer, married a Rondulet boy, heir to the female hygiene products fortune. Luella worked as a prostitute when she ran away from home at age 15 years old and I heard she was quite good. She returned to the family nest 4 years later, after her period of lustful craziness was finally concluded. The father, Bill Speer, I never got to know him, but he was an attorney and cross-dressed in secret quite a bit, from what I heard. His wife, Rosie Grubb-Speer was an absolute angel. She made the best damn three-bean salad you'd ever find, Charles Fairfax. Anyway, I could go on and on about those Eastern Speers, but I don't want to waste the time of a successful author like yourself. I'd be curious to find out if you're related to those Speers, yes, i surely would. God Bless and keep writing great books. One day i will have someone read them to me.

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