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.
Yours very truly,
Charles Fairfax Speer
