We just hobbled through another tax season. The excruciating excursion into the ridiculous thicket that is the roughly 75,000 page tax code.
All for the privilege of giving federal, state and local governments record amounts of our money.
A 2011 study said we then wasted 6.1 billion hours preparing to pay our taxes - and that was when the tax code was a mere 72,536 pages.
Built into these tens of thousands of pages are breaks and special exemptions galore. I am opposed to all of them.
I don???t like social engineering via federal law - so I don???t like even very popular things like the child tax credit. I want my taxes lowered and easier to file - I don???t want to have to produce progeny to get there.
To that end I???d happily give up the home mortgage deduction (of which I only recently started availing myself).
And lest we forget: the home mortgage deduction - combined with other horrendous laws and special exemptions, the Federal Reserve???s squelching of interest rates and the government uber-getting into the home lending business - is what caused the 2008 global economy meltdown.
What government attempts to manage - government destroys.
Not nearly all of the tax code carve outs even began benign. Many, MANY of the ???loopholes??? are written by Big Government proponents for Big Government cronies.
No one knows this better than the Democrats??? favorite billionaire - Warren Buffett.
Why do the Donkeys love him? In part because he talks a great Big Government game.
The Buffett Rule is part of a tax plan proposed by President Barack Obama in 2011. The tax plan would apply a minimum tax rate of 30 percent on individuals making more than a million dollars a year???.
The Buffett Rule is named after American investor Warren Buffett, who publicly stated in early 2011 that he believed it was wrong that rich people, like himself, could pay less in federal taxes, as a portion of income, than the middle class, and voiced support for increased income taxes on the wealthy.
Except Buffett wants us to do as he says - not as he does.
(I)n May (2014) Buffett said:
???I will not pay a dime more of individual taxes than I owe, and I won???t pay a dime more of corporate taxes than we owe. And that???s very simple.???
Buffett has the money to hire people to find every nook and cranny exemption in the 75,000 page tax code. And the money to hire government officials to further junk up the code to create even more exemptions specifically for him.
We the People do not. So as the code gets friendlier for the Buffetts of the world - it gets even uglier and more complicated for the rest of us.
Washington, D.C. needs lots and LOTS of real, actual reform - the common denominator of all of it being Less Government.
The purest form thereof would be the simplest - and fairest - tax code of all.
A true flat rate tax is a system of taxation where one tax rate is applied to all income with no deductions.
No deductions means no special carveouts for the Buffetts - and no way for elected officials to write them in exchange for campaign cash.
And what???s better than a simpler tax? No tax at all.
The Death Tax is government social engineering on stilts. Democrats don???t like people to have any money ever (save for the Buffett Rule crony exceptions).
So if after the government taxes everything throughout your entire life - from your income to your property to your purchases (and on, and on, and???) - you actually manage to accrue some coin, the government takes another 40% off the top when you die.
This is a part of the Donkeys??? ???tax the rich??? mindset and mantra. Except:
Farmers Urge Repeal of Estate Tax
They warned Thursday that unless it was abolished, agricultural producers in particular could be hit hard because of the soaring value of land the past few decades.
Todd Wilkinson, president of the South Dakota Cattlemen???s Association and co-owner of a feedlot near De Smet, said the ???death tax is a crushing blow that is facing all of us.??? Wilkinson said if he or one of his brothers were to die they would be forced to pay a ???big??? estate tax.
???I guess the point is I should just go out and blow the money, then my kids don???t have to worry about it. That???s the lesson we are learning in the (agriculture) sector,??? Wilkinson said. ???Just give us a break. Take this away. Don???t tax us out of business.???
The Law of Unintended Consequences. One no one can repeal - and Democrats never seem to realize exists.
