Burton Ridgeway,
(Evidently the reincarnation of Alexander Hamilton )

ON TAXES

National income taxation is wrong; those who submitted the 16th amendment thought it would not go through, but it did, to deal a blow to the rich, which, of course, it didn’t. We are compelled to spend valuable time, money, energy, and wear and tear on the nerves to keep our tax-bill to a minimum. We need another way. If you do your own tax return, and you disagree, you’re an accountant, a glutton for punishment, or you need brain surgery.
You could check out the book, “Perfectly Legal,” by David Cay Johnston, of the New York Times. for an in-depth study of the way our tax system really works to the disadvantage of the middle class.

For the record, I believe income is the most reasonable thing to tax, but doing so requires filing forms - not just one, but many, and an organization of automatons must “serve” taxpayers by making certain the sweat of our brows is enough to feed their employer, the great behemoth.
However, income taxation is a bad way to fund the government because, aside from the need to complete complicated forms, from complicated instructions, it’s invasive: it demands personal information, and auditing, takes too much out of those who give the most toward our nation’s success: private-sector entrepreneurs, and wage earners, *and* is a tool for the extremely wealthy to legally avoid paying anything near what a reasonable traveler visiting us from Mars would expect them to contribute toward the welfare of the nation that supports them.

A special point to be made here is that the IRS has it’s own police force, and judiciary; the horror stories that result should not, and need not, be necessary.
It has also been reported on March 29th, 2004 by the citizen oversight board created by Congress, that the IRS cannot do anything to prevent tax evasion from growing, or even to keep it at the present level. Under-staffing and inappropriate salaries keep the bureau from doing its job, so they are hiring private collection agencies to do it. Well! wise up and get the job done with a new approach, why doncha?

Now, in September, 2006, the IRS is going to turn over to private collection agencies the job of collecting delinquent taxes below $25,000, because the job is too big to do themselves, even if privates cost much more than IRS agents. The job could be easier, my way.

Each CongressMember must vote on legislation, Yes, or No, based on how much he or she, as a representative of people in one part of a single state, could live with giving to each of the other parts of the country; it would be in most Americans favor if CongressMembers did not have to be faced with that burden, and power. A better approach is for federal bills to be absent most of the financial responsibilities they assume for on behalf of the people, leaving it to the states to deal with.

THE RIDGEWAY SOLUTION

We should be taxed at the state level, allowing each state to find their own ways to raise funds other than from income, if they choose to. With internet sales taking business from neighborhoods, and low income people carrying an unfair load of it, sales taxation is wrong too.
If we were to make this change, there would no longer be the necessity of states, and local organs of both government, and private, climbing over each other to appeal to Congress and the White House for support of local needs; we would support ourselves. Why on earth should money have to be moved to Washington, then re-moved to the states, everyone getting their hands on the pot as it moves along?

Under this system, wealthy individuals, and inter-state corporations ( physical locations in three or more states), would continue to be taxed on net income, at a graduated rate with no “twists,” dreamed up by accountants to reduce taxes ; gross income, less listed expenses to acquire that income, less social-benefits provided as incentives - by law, to assist their communities, would produce their taxable income.
An example would be a corporation using 338(h)(10) of the tax code in the purchase of another corporation, to take a tax deduction no one has tried until Great-Lifeco did in their purchase of a company and calling it a purchase of assets, rather than stock. They had made-out like bandits. (See Newsweek magazine, February 13, 2007, page 18; “The Cruncher,” by Allen Sloan.

Taxes paid to states by super-rich individuals ( a basis would be established) should reduce their national tax by a small percentage of their state tax, and such income to the U.S. Treasurer would favorably effect the national tax bills to the states.

”THE UNITED STATES”, NOT THE “UNITED PEOPLE”

Recognizing James Madison’s intent that the national government govern the people directly, and I, in my past life, having recommended, in 1775, that the Federal government should govern the individual citizen,( which I regret having done), I believe administration of the nation could be revised without weakening the federal system, and my original recommendation, in the interest of eliminating excessive costs, abuse, duplication, and policing.

In place of direct federal taxation of individuals, on the passing of the national budget, the U.S. Treasurer would bill the Governor of each state for their proportionate share of the national budget, based on population. ( permitted by the constitution, article 1, section 2, clause 3 .) The states would add a surcharge to their own taxes, and recover it from their cities and counties. The payment would be made to the U.S. Treasurer by electronic transfer.
( There would be a formula that would have poor states pay less than 100% of their share based on population, and rich states would pay more than 100% . The same would apply to states in the event of a calamity in one of them.

There is of course the 16th amendment, passed in 1913; in the face of Washington’s predictable refusal to surrender partnership rights to our earnings once acquired. We could compel our reps to amend, or replace, it.

With much less of our money supporting parts of the massive federal, parasitic, enterprise we find unavoidable, we would be compelled to make our state governments substantially more sophisticated and efficient. Many states lack quality of government, and citizen interest, fast losing substance due to increasing federal control of our lives. We should correct this. Dependence on Big Daddy and Mommy, and the pushy Big Brothers and Sisters in all the other states, is addictive.
We would then be in a better position to care for our local concerns, such as mental health, child abuse, slums, improved infrastructure, more of our earnings in our bank accounts to finance local infrastructure, and more citizen interest in state and local affairs. There would also be money to fix potholes, and solve the problems of street people, and pedophiles. ( I have an extensive idea relative to the latter.) Oh! And be able to afford excellent firefighting and police departments.

Additionally, if states, * even under the present tax system, * would empower their counties to facilitate collection of sales and property taxes, distributing the income directly to their cities based on population, and remitting a share to the state, the political problem of state government depriving local municipalities of a fair share of their citizen’s money would no longer be.

Also, under the present tax system, we should modify mortgage interest deductions on personal residences. It should be based on the purchase price, interest on the amount below the current average priced home in the county could be deductible, with the interest on the excess not.
Actually, we would be better off, * under the present system, * with no deductibility of interest of any kind. Credit purchasing leads us into trouble, and there’s no reason for all of us helping others to buy more than they can afford. An economy supported by credit-buying is not stable; stability is a good thing. And, I do not agree that the government should promote home ownership for lower-income people. There‘s nothing wrong with paying half what a mortgage would require in monthly payments, in favor of a larger apartment, in a better neighborhood, wearing better clothes, having nicer home furnishings, and building an emergency fund in the bank, and owning life and disability insurance. There is no “human right” to equity!
Yes! A credit economy is bigger economy, but is it better?
(11/07) As for the bad net effects of home mortgage deductibility, see Atlantic magazine, 12/07 issue, “The Agenda,” by Clive Crook, for facts prove home mortgage deduction is a net loss to the economy .)

SOCIALIST STATES

If we were to replace federal taxation of the individual with billing states for their share of the national budget, the possibility of a state’s people deciding to vote for themselves a socialist system becomes possible.
Many Americans would like to live under socialism. With the tax system I suggest, we could permit a state to present a ballot proposition to the people:
If 75% of voters want a socialist economy, that state could declare itself so, and offer people a place to escape to from the individualism of other states. The rest of us could be free of their preferences in the voting booth.

WE SHOULD ELIMINATE THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT’S ADMINISTRATIVE CONTROL OVER THE INDIVIDUAL CITIZEN, AND INTRA-STATE BUSINESS.

We should kill the massive and complicated tax code, close the IRS, and disperse among the states the colossal crowd that constitutes this federal bureau. This would reduce our national tax burden to a large degree. Read “Arrogant Capitol”, by Kevin Phillips, for insight to the drain on our resources by unconstructive activities taking place at our expense in, and around, the District of Columbia.

Consider; the elimination of the Infernal Revenue Bureau would be one less argument from political paranoids hiding from government in the mountain states. The tax system would no longer be a tool to manipulate the economy, and to abuse, jail, and kill, individuals who resist them. The idea of manipulating the economy through the tax system is not written in stone. We could end it. ( Tommy Jefferson, that little !@$&* * * would love that! )

The government of a nation as large and diverse as ours should not run American lives from a single point, by a single set of managers, too far from us to feel threatened by our wrath. They care more for their personal progression, naturally! Though the constitution dictates federal authority, *management* of our common interests can be brought down to the state level.
We need to be a nation of politically attentive people, enthusiastically and actively concerned about the way our government operates; that’s possible only if the administration of our interests are more locally facilitated.

ARIANNA HUFFINGTON. . . . . . tells us about good old U.S. Senator Robert Byrd, of West Virginia, who is always getting his cotton-picking paws on as much money as he can, 99.999% of which comes from every other state but his.
$140 Million for his steel companies, $20 Million for his jails, $2 million for a cool-water project, etc., to which he replied when asked about it,
“That great philosopher Mae West once said, too much of anything is simply wonderful.”
This is another reason for considering my idea of eliminating national taxation of the citizen, and local business. It would put a stop to legislators competing against each other for pieces of the pie to please their own constituents, because the federal government would no longer be taking the larger share of their citizen’s income. Federal duties, excise, and other levies on international commerce, and inter-state corporations, would reduce the amount needed from the states.

The only way we can put an end to this charade is by ending involvement in administering our domestic interests by federal people.
As long as our money goes directly to them, we look to them for redistribution, and that leads to the competition for “pork.” ( We are sold on the idea of completing the census form so we don’t cheat ourselves of our fair share of the money we send to Washington to be returned to us after they take their share. So Democrats fight long and hard to account for every street-person in their territory, which is not possible, so they fight for a formula that assumes a great deal, based on statistics.

Let’s relieve them of this burden. We should support our needs directly, before sending the Feds their allowance.

* * * The District of Columbia would be converted to a bedroom community, having lost all those bureaus. Parasitic ‘Crats would then return to their former homes where they would contribute their talents to more constructive pursuits in localsville.
If you’re a retailer, or restaurateur, in DC, I’m sorry!

ANOTHER THOUGHT

As long as we do have a federal income tax - for that matter even at the state level - I think we could do ourselves justice by eliminating personally determined business deductions in most instances; instead of claiming business meals, booze, golf, and other expenses used to reduce taxable income After all, if you want a piece of my earnings, you should rightfully share what it cost me to earn it, we should, instead, provide a stipulated percentage write-off from gross income for salespeople, the amount determined by type of business.
It should be based on the average selling expenses claimed by all salespeople two years before passing this legislation, as a percentage of gross income. This would eliminate abuse, audits, anxiety, and the cost of keeping deductions “reasonable.”

The average could be determined for each general form of small businesses, and professions, thereby trashing forms 1040c, and 2106. Those who could earn big bucks without buying lunches, booze, golf outings, conventions, or trips and such, deserve to make out, and those who spend more than the average should “eat it.”
This idea would also put a stop to business and sales people buying each other tax deductible pleasures, which they would not buy otherwise, and benefits which clock-punchers don’t enjoy.
We should also eliminate the aggravating, and expensive filing of the Alternative Minimum Tax calculation for many people with large tax write-offs.

If you agree with me on taxes, to any degree, tell your friends, relatives, news editors, Members of the House, U.S. Senators, and state legislators about it, this page, and your insistence that any of these ideas you support, be made real.

MORE

When the federal government sends IRS packing ( replaced by a much smaller department under the Treasurer ), and bills the states, based on population, the opportunity for states to conceive new ways to tax - not in addition, but in place of, would be at hand.

INSTEAD OF TAXING INTERNET SALES

Here’s an idea:
Sales, income, and taxes based on the value of the property which, as I mention elsewhere, has no good reason for being, and the internet stealing business from local retailers being a problem, a state could choose to have county governments tax, from *all* property owners, a percentage of their total rental income on residential, and business tenants. Landlords would add the tax to the rent; lenders would add it to mortgage payments;
Farmers, and other land-owning income-productive intra-state businesses could pay this tax only on the purchase price of their on-site residences, with the income-producing portion of the property paying a tax on gross sales, which would be factored into pricing.

There would be a much less complicated and invasive means by which to collect taxes for all levels, and departments, of administration. No more tax forms! And states would have a predictable income from year to year; an income related to the population, and housing, based on affordability. We could assume rent and mortgage payments to be the measure of a life style based on income, and businesses would have more control over their budgets; farmers and growers would benefit as well. This would make predictable year-to-year state and local budgets. Imagine that!
* Businesses would recover from their customers in the pricing.

* Sales taxes, property taxes, and income taxes, as such, would be eliminated. The current bru-ha-ha over taxing internet business would halt. (Sure!)

* Renters would pay the tax in place of all other taxes in the form of higher rent, pure and simple. ( naturally, a graduated conversion must be made)

* Low-income people would no longer pay a disproportionate percentage of their income to sales tax.
* Paychecks will no longer be reduced by withholding taxes.

* Owners of homes without mortgages would pay this tax in place of all the others, based on the price of the property at the time of purchase, and income-producing - paid-up, business property taxation would be easier for them to deal with.

* Those who live on the move in mobile homes have official states of license. States would account for such citizens, and tax them based on the price they paid for the vehicle; if they also have a foundation-based home to return to, they could be partially relieved from the tax on the travel-home, though I don‘t think it right, but such homes are generally owned by oldsters. Additional homes would be fully taxed by the states in which they rest if such states use the same system; own two homes in the same state, pay two taxes, naturally.

Bear in mind, when property is sold for a higher price, future taxes would be based on that higher price. Also realize that the tax rate on a $400,000 home, would not be the same, or anywhere near, any sales tax rate! ( $10,000 in annually taxed purchases produces $775 = ($64 monthly average ) at 7.75%; at .0185%, a $400,000 home would produce the same, increasing the mortgage payment by $62-the same as paid in sales taxes over the year. That‘s a wash!)

Without a sales tax, buyers of goods and services would pay no additions they are specifically aware of; the price of the purchase would be our only concern. Sellers simply decide how to recover their own tax outlay, competing with each other on total price.
All buyers would thus pay no more than the advertised price. We would pay county, state, and federal taxes in our mortgage, rent, or purchase price of paid-up domiciles, and businesses, in place of separate taxes from three levels of government. And there would be no double taxation. One more time!; and no more “April 15th“!
( A future national holiday? )

We each live in one city, probably work in another, and entertain ourselves in many of them from time to time, but currently don’t support all of them. City governments and so many expensive city halls, legislators, mayors, and separate municipal hierarchies, cost a lot of money; it’s not intelligent!

Why do we tax things when it's people who earn the money and enjoy the things? How can anyone believe that sales taxes are a fair replacement for income tax? Income tax is relative to earnings, therefore ability to pay, where a sales tax is based on spending which, in most instances, has nothing to do with ability to pay because of credit buying. What strikes me is that only those who buy many things would support society under the national sales tax concept, and those like myself, who buy relatively little, would pay much less. How does that pass the fairness test? ( Consider the percentage of a million-a-year gross-income-earner spending on sales-taxable goods and services, and that of one earning $40,000; it‘s not proportionate!
That’s why the rich like a sales tax instead of income. I myself would make out like a bandit! )

Taxing domiciles, for local, state and national government would hit everyone at a much fairer distribution of weight, correspond with personal life style; be less intrusive, require no coercion, and cost a hell of a lot less to administer.
The viability of a domicile tax in place of all others, would have to be examined by disinterested third parties qualified to judge it. The equaling of a domicile tax with the income to all levels of government currently generated, is possibly, if not probably, impossible. However, reducing income and all other taxes gradually as the domicile tax is instituted gradually, would be a good approach. The impossible becomes possible with a change in attitude. Only the fear that it could be proved workable would defeat a move to inquire as to it’s feasibility.

HIGH INCOME EARNERS

About those who enjoy more than ten times the income of the average wage earner, a graduated income tax should be levied on them, with their “Domicile Tax” payments deducted from the gross. We must make the super-rich pay a tax much more than they currently do - in a multitude of cases, they pay nothing. With this in mind, I propose we compel legislation that would eliminate all the slimy means by which the mega-rich individuals, and corporations, avoid taxes. It must be simple, and require 90% less verbiage than legislative proposals, and laws, currently do.
I imagine the tax income that would result would eliminate the national debt in two years, and repay all the money stolen from the Social Security trust funds in the next two years. It would also reduce, or eliminate, the feds tax bill to the states, if my system of taxation were to be adopted.

I passionately recommend you acquire a copy of, “Perfectly Legal,” by David Cay Johnston. It’s revelations will make you sick, but you will get the idea that those who legislate our tax laws are cancelled-out by those who make a living by dreaming up ways for the super-rich to avoid them. ( it’s really “evade,“ but like Johnston says, it’s perfectly legal, so it‘s “avoid.“)
It’s a great book!

My idea can be addressed by a Democratic legislature, not that I particularly like many Democrats, who go too far with other people’s money, but not Republicans who wouldn’t touch my ideas even if their “family jewels” were threatened.” We need to fill the House and Senate with independents.

ANOTHER BEEF

Archie Bunker’s son -in-law, “Meathead,” ran and won a campaign for California’s proposition 10. Meathead’s project - an excellent one - is children, but what does nicotine, in particular, have to do with children?
With this case as the most recent example, I ask you to join my campaign to stop tax-support of anything that in no way relates to the thing or activity, taxed. Property taxes, as an example, should cover the effects of a specific piece of real estate on the environment, its demands on the municipality, and its impact on the immediate neighborhood.
As for education, if all people pay property taxes, including apartment-dwellers, through their rent, why should education be supported by property? It should come from the general fund, the source of which are the very same people who pay on property (see my brief on public education).

This tax is not to punish property owners, it’s a hold-over from the days when property was the measure of a man; with property, one voted, with property, one was constructive; without property, one was to be used, and watched. It hasn’t been that way for a very long time. We should bury it, as we did with other class-conscious legislation.

GAS TAXES are not deposited to the account of any department specifically connected to the automobile; the roads, maintenance of present traffic controls, and the installation of new ones, the Departments of Motor Vehicles’ cost of operations, or any other thing in connection with servicing the demands of vehicles. The money goes into the general funds to be used for anything legislatures want in order to make happy those who keep them in their positions.

I suggest a system that tells us precisely where each tax dollar goes, and why. Just as in my plan on health insurance, where those who don’t ingest “poisons” should pay less than those who do; drivers should directly support the demands they make on the rest of us, proportionate to the extent they do so. Every part of our community life should be financed by those who cause each expense. I prefer user fees instead of taxes wherever they could be. We have a very un-intelligent system to which we’ve become conditioned. It’s time we yelled, “We aint gawna take it no maw!”

Let’s demand that gasoline taxes go directly into accounts for the administration of vehicle-related needs, and no other. Let’s demand an annual accounting of income and expenses from those funds, to be published in all metropolitan newspapers, before any bill for an increase is put into the hopper. The same with all taxes, on all levels, for all reasons. Mileage is the only true measure of a driver’s responsibility to the cost of auto related needs; gas taxes, should be the sole support of those needs.

A WAY TO REDUCE A BUDGET, GUARANTEED!

At the start of each fiscal year, department heads in a bureaucracy be guaranteed 1% of a reduction in funding of his department, the bonus to be credited to his/her retirement plan on completion of that budget year, if a savings had been realized, with no reduction of projected productivity.

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© 1997 burtonridgeway @yahoo.com

Please examine these other briefs:

A better way to secure our benefits:
Social Security
*
“Political leaders everywhere have come to understand that to govern they must learn how to act . . . who are we really voting for? The self-possessed character who projects dignity, exemplary morals, and enough forthright courage to lead us through war and depression, or the person who is simply good at creating a counterfeit with the help of professional coaching, executive tailoring, and that the whole armory of pretense that the groomed president can now employ? Are we allowed anymore to know what is going on, not merely in the candidate’s facial expression and his choice of a suit, but also in his head? Unfortunately. . . This is something we are not told until the auditioning ends and he is securely in office. . . As with many actors, any resemblance between the man and the role is purely coincidental.”
Arthur Miller, playwright.
A proposed end to the spectacle we tolerate
”The FECMA Conspiracy.”
*
Who’s body is it, anyway?:
Abortion
*
We need a better approach to:
"The War on Drugs"
*
Our kids are in trouble:
Public Education
*
Are we destined to go on and on
about the right to own an arsenal?
Guns and the 2nd amendment
*
Is it really a threat?
A National ID Card
*
A commentary on the not-so-little
things about our legal system.
Law, Order, and Justice
*
The solution to:
Health Care finance
*
Our cities are terrible!
*
Commentaries on a variety of
issues and questions:
Miscellaneous.
*
Rev./Rab./Fr. Burton
at the pulpit
*
On Near-east problems
*
For your funny bone:
Thoughts too minor for serious people to spend time on
*
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