by D.P. "Bracken" Bracken
The proposal
to reform or replace the current federal income tax
system with a different one has sparked a debate of
considerable magnitude. Basically it has been reduced
to the debate between the flat income tax and
the national retail sales tax (NRST).
The outcome of
this contest between competing tax systems will
deeply affect you and everyone else in this great
country of ours. So, you might ask, what are the
differences between a flat-tax (do you notice the
word "income" is mysteriously missing whenever
the flat-tax is mentioned?) and a national retail
sales tax?
To begin
with, you should understand one of the major
differences by answering the following question:
Do businesses pay income taxes? If you
answered "Yes", you have fallen prey to a myth. The
myth that businesses pay taxes.
Under ANY tax system
ever devised, businesses never have and never will
pay taxes. The reality is that taxes, and the expense
of complying with them, are a cost of doing business
that is passed on to you - the consumer - in the form
of higher prices. All businesses file income tax
therefore it is the consumer that ends up paying all
business income tax and bookkeeping expenses.
This is
true for every dollar you spend; whether it be for a
loaf of bread, some new clothes, or your telephone
bill. Even your rent or mortgage payment contains
this added cost! Everything you purchase includes
this so-called hidden-tax estimated at between
10%-20% of the final price.
Everyone pays this
invisible tax; poor, middle-class, rich -- young and
old alike. Did you know that you are paying this
extra tax on every dollar spent? Now figure your
taxes for last year!!
Income
tax is the cause of this insidious hidden-tax burden.
The only way to get rid of it is to eliminate ALL
income taxes; whether they are called "flat",
"progressive", or any other name you care to
give them.
The national retail sales tax completely
does away with these hidden-taxes by eliminating the
corporate income tax and all compliance costs. The
NRST also eliminates: personal income taxes, estate
and gift taxes, most excise taxes, and capital-gains
taxes. Imagine replacing all of those taxes with one
(yes, one!) simple, easy-to-understand tax. As an
added benefit it also gets rid of the feared and
hated IRS - the flat-tax does not accomplish this
goal.
The economic
and philosophic advantages of changing our tax system
to a national retail sales tax are so numerous we
don't have room to mention all of them here, but just
think about these two for a moment - Freedom and
Privacy
Find out
more by contacting Citizens for an Alternative Tax
System (CATS) at 1-800-767-7577 or visit their web site at www.cats.org or call the CATS Las
Vegas Chapter at (702) 454-5736.
CATS is a national
grassroots, non-profit organization committed to
bringing about the end of the income tax and the IRS
by replacing both with a national retail sales tax
(NRST).
Become a member of a group of like-minded
citizens who are tired of this insane tax system and
demand real change from our elected representatives
in Washington, D.C. Join CATS now!!
© 2001 by D.P. "Bracken" Bracken
(Permission to copy in all or part and distribute freely as long as credit is given to author and Citizens for an Alternative Tax System.)
