GOP CANDIDATE UNVEILS “FAIR AND FLAT TAX” PROPOSAL
|| By FITSNEWS || U.S. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky wants to “blow up” the federal tax code and replace it with a flat 14.5 percent tax on all personal income (wages, salaries, dividends, capital gains, rents and interest). Paul’s plan – unveiled via an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal – would eliminate hundreds of tax loopholes and deductions – preserving only the deduction on mortgages and charitable donations.
“My plan would blow up the tax code and start over,” he wrote, criticizing other “Republican” candidates who argue the system simply needs to be tweaked.
“In order to defeat the Washington Machine, we must drive a stake through the heart of the IRS and our terrible tax code,” an accompanying release from Paul’s campaign noted, adding that his tax proposal “is simple, fair, and cuts taxes for every single working American.”
According to Paul’s Journal column, in addition to the flat 14.5 percent rate his plan “also eliminates the payroll tax on workers and several federal taxes outright, including gift and estate taxes, telephone taxes, and all duties and tariffs.”
Payroll taxes, FITS readers will recall, were recently raised by Barack Obama and “Republican” leaders in the U.S. Congress as part of the so-called “Fiscal Cliff” deal.
Add it all up and Paul’s campaign says “$2 trillion will be returned to American families in the first 10 years,” an investment in the economy it says will boost American’s flagging gross domestic product by 10 percent and create two million new jobs over the coming decade.
In addition to creating an “economic steroid injection,” Paul says his campaign will have other benefits – like effectively shutting down a federal agency that has “routinely abused its auditing power to build an enemies list and harass anyone who might be adversarial to President Obama’s policies.”
Obviously he’s referring to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which was exposed two years ago for its discriminatory persecution of limited government groups (and which continues discriminating to this day).
“Another increasingly obvious danger of our current tax code is the empowerment of a rogue agency, the IRS, to examine the most private financial and lifestyle information of every American citizen,” Paul wrote.
That’s true …
This isn’t just an economic issue … it’s a liberty issue as well. Props to Paul for addressing both in his plan. Also, props to him for being willing to cut out exemptions which provide unfair competitive advantages to higher wage earners.
We’ve obviously been less-than-thrilled with Paul of late, but his tax plan strikes us as an excellent first step in a long-overdue conversation on how the federal government collects its revenue – and how much revenue it collects. It also represents his first attempt to answer the only questions that really matter when it comes to assessing the merits or demerits of candidates for any elected office …
1) What are you going to spend the people’s money on? 2) How much of it are you going to spend? and 3) Where are you getting it from?
So far, we like what we’re hearing from Paul on the latter question.
35 comments
Absolutely!
Blow up the tax code. Abolish the IRS.
States, counties, and municipalities will gleefully jump into the void to help you drain your pocketbook…… they will feast, with drooling mouths, on anything that they say is fair game…..
Well that would at least show how effective the local citizenry is at keeping taxes in check………………….
That being posted, we are getting “fee’d” to death by local and county governments fer sure!!!!
And every damn time the local/county pols proudly say: “We haven’t had a tax increase in years”!!!!!!
x 10
Throw in a national sales tax and I’ll vote for him!!!!
Something’s gotta fucking give!!
Been saying that about the tax code since 1972!!!!!!!
Who is this guy? Is he related to that Rand Paul guy who after announcing he was running for President vanished from the headlines? What ever happened with him anyway. Always expect to see him on of those “20 Stars who Are Aging Terribly” sites or something. Seems like years since I’ve heard anything about him.
“I’m for a flat tax- as long as the rate is zero. The object is to get rid of big government, not find a new way of financing it.”- Harry Browne
Need to include estate tax. Financing the oligarchy.
Rand Paul forgot his programming, go big or go home.
Taxing the dead is fucking criminal. I know farmers who’s families had to sell property to pay the tax for no other reason than their dad died.
This is a lie, that has been repeated over and over, by folks like the club for growth. There are special rules for real farm use property to prevent exactly what you say. These rules have been in place for decades. So please cut the lies.
He got that from Rush. Have had two parents die and didn’t have to pay estate tax on either. Threshhold is pretty high and as you said, there are multiple exemptions. Guess he wants the Kocksuckers, Soros and the rest not to pay anything.
Estate tax doesn’t kick in until a single person has a net worth of more than 5 million. 10 million for a couple. In addition, if farm property is involved the property can be valued as farm use property. This will cut the value by about 80% to 90% in most cases. So a “farmer” could be sitting on about 50 million in farm property before he would have to pay an estate tax.
So much for the poor farm family put out of business, by the evil government.
Same here with my parents who have passed away
And the “I love Rush”/talk radio crowd laps that shit up like a kitten at a bowl of milk.
“Rush lovers”/talk radio types are even worse than liberals for spreading lies and fear mongering when it comes to shit like this
And those “special” rules? How come this is not common knowledge? Is this some kind of secret “progressive” plot to keep the masses from buying their own farms?
You might need to understand that the Death Taxes are applied to everyone and there are no exceptions. IF your family farm is in jeopardy from estate taxes, then those taxes can be POSTPONED, but never eliminated. The best course is to incorporate the family farm for ongoing tax breaks and to reduce the Death Tax rates. (Once the hook is set, the fish can not get away.) … OR … Reach for your Second Amendment Rights, pardoner.
Flat Tax — perennial hobbyhorse of the loony Libertarians.
The sad part is it can take a generation or two to pull a society out of the rut of bad policy, so this half-libertarian train wreck of an idea is going to be felt by future generations. It’s coming, billionaires are paying too much to not get it and the politicians in DC don’t have enough sense to see it or enough ethics to care.
It should not take a generation to show some short term results. Almost immediately after killing off the IRS, many small businesses will start a hiring spree … then about six months later, small business profits will show positive signs and the markets will take off (again). … then the following year, when Gruberment finally admits that overall tax revenues have not fallen much, the markets and the economy will begin a steadily increasing climb. (It says so right here in the Hoover Institute Manual.)
You’ve had a progressive income tax for over 100 years. How satisfied are you with it?
Progressive income tax–second plank of Marx’s Communist Manifesto.
So, you think it a good idea to saddle your grandchildren with overly complicated, ridiculously unfair to the poor, tax code(s)?
See YouTube.com … search ‘Friedman Income Tax’.
(Disclosure: my tax rate, because I spend on average about $4K per year on tax lawyers, would increase quite a bit under Paul’s plan. But I for one would welcome any Flat Income Tax, without deductions, because it would cause my small businesses and the rest of the North American economies to flourish.)
Fuck income tax, make it a 15% sales tax.
I looked at the bank draft which had said $9829@mk1
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http://www.globalNetMoneyTarget/ranking/homes/
Rand somehow managed to hide that his plan make employee wages non-deductible for a business. That’s how he keeps it “revenue neutral”.
What a farce.
In many cases if such a plan passed(and it won’t), it would actually increase the tax burden, especially on small to medium sized businesses.
The Flat Tax is solely designed to increase tax on the middle class and decrease tax on the wealthy. That is all it will do. Nothing more. Republicans have become very adept making sure their tax proposals do not benefit anyone except their wealthy donors. Look at all the hoops they jumped through to make sure the average American received nothing from the Bush Tax Cuts.
Why bother reading the proposal when you can echo liberal talking points?
Some people just can’t think for themselves. Tom has that problem.
Government is so large that it serves no one. Put a stake in it and let go mean and lean!
No facts! No thought! If you don’t know the facts attack the messenger. Typical wingnut. Keep sucking up that far right BS. Its easier. You probably could not do the math anyway.
Hardly liberal talking points. All you have to do is look at the facts. That is the problem you guys never do the math. Never look at the facts. The Bush tax cuts centered on dividends and capital gains, but excluded dividends and capital gains in IRAs and 401ks. The middle class earns 95% of their Capital Gains and Dividends in retirement plans. This is why 99% of the benefit of the Bush tax cuts went to the very wealthy. The middle class saw no benefit.
These are not talking points these are facts.
You’re not wrong about the Bush tax cuts. You’re wrong about Rand Paul’s tax proposal.
No, I’m note. 83% of the benefit of the Bush Tax cuts went top 40% of earners. 67% went to the top 20% of US earners.
Specifically
40% of the benefits of the Bush tax cuts went to the top 1.00% of US earners. Those making more than $620,000 per year.
27% of the benefits of the Bush Tax cuts went to the to the next 19% of earners.
16% of the benefits of the Bust Tax cuts went to the next 20% of earners.
The balance went to the bottom 60% of US earners.
These cuts resulted in huge deficits to benefit very few people.
I apologize, I read you as saying I was wrong about the Bush Tax cuts. I will reserve judgment on Rand until I see the full plan, but I have never yet seen a Republican flat tax or sales tax plan that benefited anyone but the very wealthy. Especially given what would have to be cut.
Good to hear. His piece that was published in the WSJ, linked to in this article, articluates the broad parts of the plan.
There are two parts of the plan which I think addresses our shared concerns about the poor and middle class. First, the regressive Social Security and Medicare taxes are removed and paid for by the 14.5% rate. Second, the tax only affects income earned after a certain amount. The example he provided was that for a family of four, only income earned after $50,000 would be taxed. For reference, the nationwide median household income is about $43,000.
Paul is the only candidate that will change Washington. The rest are status quo folks that will trim around the edges.
I think Rand Paul has some way off base ideas but if his major campaign “thing’ is going to be a flat tax then I’m going to vote for him in the Republican Primary.
This country is really going to go to shit unless some SERIOUS changes are made to the IRS tax code.
A combination flat tax & national sales tax is my preferred method for revenue collection but IF Rand can get just a flat tax I’ll back him 100%
100% tax overhaul is my only soapbox!!!!!