One of the more interesting features of The Voice (in addition to the pearls of wisdom penned by Yours Truly) is the person-on-the-street interviews. Week after week, ye olde reporter asks a select group to express opinions on a given topic. Lately, however, thanks to the pandemic, original material has been put on hold, and we are treated to re-runs.
In the issue of 22 April, the repeat was taken from the issue of 14 April 2016 and concerned what steps the interviewees would take to change United States tax codes. The responses ran the gamut of ideas one would expect from a heterogeneous group.
For the past four-and-a-half years, The Chas silently has offered his own opinions on whatever topic was posed. On the subject of taxes, he will break his silence.
No one likes to pay taxes, and so we all endeavor to pay as little as possible. Rich people hire armies of lawyers in order to pay no taxes (that’s how they get to be rich, don’t you know?).
The fact of the matter is that there is no such thing as a free lunch; if we want public services, police and fire protection, streets and highways, schools, we must pay for them. It’s a patriotic duty, plain and simple.
The U.S. current tax code is long and complex and therefore full of loopholes deliberately designed to aid one’s weaseling out of a fair share of taxes. Herewith are a few suggestions for reform.
• Income taxes. Once upon a time, the U.S. had a progressive income tax. If you earned a small income, you paid a small amount of tax; if you earned a large income, you paid a large amount of tax. The rates fell into several brackets, and the percentages rose with the amount of income. At one time, the highest bracket was 90%! It dropped to 70% during the Nixon administration and has been falling ever since. Now the top rate is 35% and there is no progressivism at all.
The Coddington Agenda recommends the following reforms: (1) set the lowest bracket at $50,000 to $100,000 with a levy of 25%; (2) increase the levy by five per cent every $100,000; and (3) set the top bracket at $1,000.000+ with a levy of 70%. Eliminate all tax credits, deductions, allowances, and exemptions. Prohibit the use of fines and penalties as business costs. Tax all sources of revenue of religious organizations which are extraneous to their alleged mission. Ban the use of tax inversions and tax havens in calculating income tax.
• Sales tax. This tax has to be the most unfair tax of all because it is not progressive and falls the heaviest upon low-income. The only real solution is to abolish all sales taxes/value-added taxes on essential goods and services, e.g. food, medicine, housing, utilities, and transportation.
• Property tax. Of all the taxes we have to pay, this one is the most misguided. All other taxes are based upon actual things, i.e. income and goods, whereas the property tax is based upon someone’s opinion of what your property is worth. As such, it is subject to change at any time for no other reason than the taxing body wants more revenue for whatever purpose. The taxing body prefers this system of assessment, because it doesn’t have to take any heat from the taxpayers for the increase; it merely sets the rate and allows the local assessor to throw a dart at a board with numbers on it to determine the assessment.
The fairest method of computing this tax and putting the taxing body on the hook for raising the assessment is to levy it based upon a realistic quantity. That is to say, base it upon the square footage of a property. If you owned a small piece of property, you would pay a small amount of tax; if you owned a large piece of property, or numerous pieces of property, you would pay a large amount of tax. If the taxing body wants more revenue, it would have to raise the rate and suffer the consequences.
BTW, don’t listen to mealy-mouthed politicians who claim that Americans pay too much in taxes. We don’t, compared to the rest of the industrialized world. On the other hand, the rest of the industrialized world provides its citizens many more social services than the miserly U.S. of A. The mealy-mouthed politicians are actually working for the super-rich who believe that they shouldn’t have to pay any taxes at all because they provide (low-paying) jobs.
Just a thought.