President of the US Picks

CPA’s are praying it is not possible as a good share of their business is doing tax work for the masses who are confused by the thousands of pages of IRS tax laws.

That is my most compelling reason to support Cruz. Even if he doesn’t get it done he may be able to scale back the current oppressive tax system to something that is at least close to being fair and understandable by all.

Why should we need to hire a CPA in order to pay our taxes. Think about that for a while.

You don’t unless you own a business or have a wide array of personal investments while claiming deductions for a bunch of different things. For most, it’s not that complicated.

As I mentioned, I’m no expert on our tax code. If a CPA (I think @anon50325502 is one) is following along they can better answer about the feasibility of abolishing the IRS and having a flat tax. The ones I talked to said it’s not, but I understand that is coming from someone who would lose a lot of business if that happened.

CountingBeans has mentioned before on here, the tax code is a boon for his business…But it could be a HELL of a lot more simple.

Ya, most CPAs are not doing 5 minute 1040s unless as a courtesy to some of their investment or business clients. H&R Block (read non-CPAs) are doing all those types of returns. The average individual income in the U.S. is about $50K and at that amount, you’re paying almost nothing in taxes (0%-3.0% +/- a tiny %). People don’t pay an effective rate of 10% until around $100K.

Not a CPA. BS accounting, MS accounting, and working on the CMA (more relevant for me).

The IRS will always exist. Someone has to collect tax revenue regardless of what type of tax structure we have.

This is also unlikely for a number of reasons that I’m aware of and probably many others.

  1. Any flat tax would need to be accompanied by a substantial reduction in expenditures and that simply isn’t going to happen (all at once). In my opinion, you would need to cut the size of government first then institute a flat tax.

  2. A flat tax is regressive compared to our current system. Sorry, but that ain’t gonna happen. Not in these here United States…

Anyway, 90% of the tax code is geared towards about 10% of the population and/or businesses, which is why I think it’s funny when fixing the tax code continues to come up. The majority of changes that occur will not affect your average American. That’s just how it is.

Beans has also mentioned, if IIRC, that a flat tax is unworkable in his opinion and that the code could be simplified for low-income (read easy return) individuals and not necessarily for higher earners and business. He would certainly know better than me, though.

100% correct.

Simplify for lower income.

My personal opinion is that we should eliminate the income tax entirely and instead implement a flat federal consumption tax. I don’t know what % it would need to be (and this assumes we reduce the federal budget), but I believe it is the fairest way to tax and eliminates the so-called “loopholes” that no one can ever seem to name.

Is that something like a VAT tax ?

A VAT is a type of consumption tax. I would not want to model our income-based consumption tax off European style VAT taxes, though.

I would probably just model it after most state sales taxes with exemptions for certain goods & services. The more you consume the more taxes you pay. You control your tax burden.

I haven’t read this, but it is apparently a well liked proposal:

Didn’t Huckabee want to do that? it made far more sense than the unfair complicated system that is now in place.

…I don’t know.

So, the flat tax.

Uh. Ok.

Well, being that every other President since Reagan (not to even get into Presidents before that) has grown the size of the government, the last two astronomically so, with majority support from Congress on both sides of the aisle, well, when you look at it that way, certainly his views are, by definition in this modern age, extreme.

Now, if you ask the question, are his views dangerous? Are they asinine? Are they insane? Well then you would certainly get a little less agreement from me.

Again, point to a specific CC view, putting aside for a moment whether or not it is possible to achieve. Would that policy be better or worse than what we are doing now? I can’t think of too many that would be anything but an improvement. Not to mention a move back toward the Founding Fathers’ original vision for America.

I own a small business AND I have to pay taxes to the IRS even though I live and make my money in Japan. On both sides my taxes are a fucking nightmare. And yes, I have to have two separate CPAs, one for each side.

More common today Congress doesn’t pass actual law, instead they pass a law granting regulatory authority to an executive agency. From that point on whatever the agency dictates is law. Congress has played an pivotal role in growing the government and centralizing power in the executive.

Yep. The agencies are created via law, the subsequent regulations that carry the force of law are created by fiat.

In TBs defense on this point, Cruz does say he is going to eliminate the actual agencies. Not that I think this is a bad idea.

https://www.tedcruz.org/five-for-freedom-summary/

No disagreement from me and Congress is complicit in it.

Yes, he says he wants to “wind down” agencies (which he can’t really do without Congress passing laws), and this is certainly an extreme position.

But, interestingly, in addition to winding down the Department if Education, he said he would block grant funding for education to the states. How is that “constitutionally conservative”? I wasn’t expecting to read that.

Yes, Huckabee was for the FairTax. A flat federal consumption tax that would replace all income and FICA taxes. There would be a “prebate” to reimburse Americans the tax they pay on necessities.

Did he ever say why they wouldn’t just exclude the tax on “necessities” at the point of sale?