2009 Stimulus Check

The Income Tax is inherently an unfair, broken system, so entirely manipulated by special interests with inside-Washington influence, that the time has come to stop tinkering with it and replace it.

• The tax code is one million words and 5,000 pages with 12,000 pages of regulations. The IRS publishes 480 tax forms and 280 forms to explain them.
• In fact, they send out 8 million pages of forms and instructions each year — enough to circle the earth 28 times.
• Currently, American citizens spend more than 5.4 billion hours every year filling out tax forms.
• Last year, Americans spent more time complying with tax laws than building cars, trucks, and airplanes.
• And worst of all, the federal income tax penalizes work, savings and investment – the very values we need to promote economic growth and opportunity for all.

Almost all Americans see the income tax as absurdly complex and confusing. Congress’s attempts to simplify or fix the code have only succeeded in making it more complex. Since the Tax Reform Act of 1986, it has already been revamped with over 4,900 changes.

Once a change is made, individuals are forced to pay professionals to handle their personal taxes and companies must do the same. And what’s worse, companies end up passing these expenses on to the consumer (in terms of higher prices) or to the employee (in terms of lower wages).

Some experts have placed the tax system’s overall burden to the economy (in terms of both direct and indirect costs) at a staggering $618 billion or 65 percent of the revenue collected.

Not only do exports create higher paying jobs in the U.S. but they also provide a stronger economic foundation for our nation.
Unfortunately, the income tax creates problems for us here as well. The federal income tax paid by all manufacturers, as well as these manufacturers’ costs of compliance with the Internal Revenue code, are included in the selling price of all goods “Made in America.”

These costs are embedded and cannot be removed when the goods are exported. Making matters worse, when they arrive in the foreign markets, most countries add their taxes onto the prices of these goods.

This means an American-made product carries the costs of both governments (the United States and the country in which the product is sold). In many instances this double-taxation can price our goods out of the market.

Most foreign goods entering the U.S. contain no tax at the federal level as we only tax income, not sales. And foreign governments often take the taxes off of their exporting companies’ products.

Bottom line: We only tax our own manufacturers, making U.S. products less competitive even in our own country. We are exporting businesses and jobs under the income tax system.

One of the most disturbing side effects of U.S. tax policy is the toll it has taken in human misery.
The more complex the tax code and the higher the overall rate, the more coercive and intrusive the tax collection agency becomes.

The IRS is five times larger than the FBI. Our government has more agents investigating taxpayers than pursuing terrorists and criminals. The IRS has admitted to Congress that it targets lower income individuals and small business owners.

Adding insult to injury, only in the U.S. Tax Court are you guilty until you can prove your innocence.

On a broader level, the income tax erodes socio-economic harmony. As diverse groups try to come together across racial and income lines to address the pressing social issues of our times, the income tax undermines them by fueling class conflict, division, and envy.

With the income tax there is no incentive to work for the common good, there are only “special interests” vying to protect themselves from the intrusion, burden, and cost of government.