Tax Day Is America’s Anti-Holiday and the Tax Code Is Anti-American, by Dan Mitchell.
Economists look at the tax system and focus on the warts that undermine growth.
- High marginal tax rates on productive behavior.
- Pervasive double taxation on income that is saved and invested.
- Ubiquitous loopholes that lure people into inefficient choices.
- International rules that reduce competitiveness.
Other people focus on the immorality of the tax code.
- Special provisions for the politically powerful.
- Abusive and biased behavior by the IRS.
- Indecipherable complexity and corruption.
- Politicians using the tax code to extort campaign contributions.
Australia introduced income tax in 1915. The USA was a couple of years earlier:
Today, big government rules supreme:
In other words, we could free ourselves of the income tax if we could somehow get rid of all the programs that were created once the income tax gave politicians a big new source of tax revenue.
The challenge is convincing politicians to give up their ability to buy votes with other people’s money.
hat-tip Matthew
