On Sun, 16 Dec 2007 00:14:32 GMT, Han wrote:

Dave Hall wrote in
:

Flat tax is something like
Up to $25,000 no tax
25001 to 75,000 7%
75001 to 175,000 9%
175.001 to whatever etc.

No mortgage deductions, no oil drilling credits, offshore assets, no
reason to pay a tax accountant.

So I assume in this world there would be no deduction for wages paid
to employees, no deduction for the purchase price of items you then
sell, no deduction for your factory's utility costs, etc., etc. So the
grocery store that sells $1,000,000 worth of groceries would pay the
same tax as the jewelry stoe that sells $1,000,000 worth of crap, even
though the grocery store had $950,000 in costs while the jeweler had
$500,000 in costs. HMMM, seems wrong.

Oh, now you are saying that there would be deductions for cost of
goods sold, or rent, or utilities, or wages paid.... So just what
deductions were you eliminating for those millionaires??? I don't
think the mortgage interest deduction on your home is the big tax
shelter abuse.

Dave Hall

This is the problem we are faced with: What "deductions" are you
allowing? The system is now so complex that it is wildly out of control.
IMHO it should not be so that lawyers/accountants are absolutely required
to even design a business model. We should strive to get near the
proposal, let's say with eliminating 10% of the "loopholes" or whatever
you want to call the deductions each year.

I agree with that. The basic concept should certainly be that taxes
are for the purpose of raising revenue, not for incenting activity or
punishing some othet activity. The objective should be to make the
system such that people didn't have a reason to design business or
personal decisions around tax consequences. That itself is a complex
concept and isn't going to be accomplished by these "flat tax"
concepts that have no thought behind them.

Dave Hall