Flat Tax

by Joseph Whalen

Created on: June 05, 2009   Last Updated: June 07, 2009

The Byzantine-like tax code that the IRS enforces today is overly complicated, cumbersome and rife with corruption for businesses and those savvy enough to take advantage of the plethora of loopholes available. Each year the tax code becomes more burdened with complex clauses and appendices that the average consumer is lost when it comes to understand they place within it. As a result millions of dollars are spent on professional tax preparers unnecessarily.

As the tax codes have progressively increased in complexity they have been catered more and more to the disadvantage of those who can least afford to pay taxes in a complicated system. In turn those citizens who are more in tune with the financial systems of the capitalistic economies of the world reap the benefits of countless loop wholes, tax credits and obscure rules to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. The burden of a complex tax code invariably falls on the shoulders of those less capable of supporting it.

While some will argue that a flat tax will over simplify an economy that is too complex for such infantile concepts, the fact of the matter is the more complicated with allow our tax code to become the less effective tax collection becomes. The end result is an economy that is suffering from a lack of sufficient tax revenue because those that should be paying the bulk of the taxes, while still paying the highest percentage or able to skirt their full tax liability through the creative accounting methods so famously employed by the wealthy thus robbing the general treasury of much needed funding.

Of course arguing the cause of a concept that will ultimately prove disadvantageous to the higher income citizens is next to useless in our country. America is clearly driven by the all mighty dollar. From our captains of industry to our politicians money is the rule of the land. Imposing a flat tax that threatens to claim the fair share of tax revenue from the very people who would be required to support and pass such a law is a concept that clearly will never come to fruition. Already comfortable with the current tax codes which they can easily hide their various funding sources behind, politicians today see no advantage to reforming laws which they are reaping the benefits from.

Add to the legal equation the power of lobbyists and you'll find even less enthusiasm for a fair system of tax collection than the lawmakers themselves hold for such reform. Businesses go out of their way to find new and creative ways to shelter themselves from the current tax codes. America sports the best politicians money can buy when it comes to our infamous lobbyists who are constantly trying to advance their own cause and the interests of their clients. In order for any legislation to be passed into law it must be approved not by the American people but by the American capitalist machine. This is an entity in American which is slipping ever further from the interests of the American people.

To question whether the IRS tax code should be abandoned in favor of a flat tax is akin to suggesting that corruption should be removed from the American political arena. Of course it should happen, the practicality of making it happen is what is most in question. Unless and until such a drastic change in our economy can be made to seem to be to the advantage of American industry and politicians we will never see such a change take place. Given the fact that the current system is designed in its complexity to serve those in power it is obvious that there is no real push on the part of our politicians to change a system which they are reaping the benefits of.

Learn more about this author, Joseph Whalen.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.