As far as tax goes, sales tax does not irritate me too greatly, at least I have some control over how much I pay.
Oh, I completely agree. In fact, income taxes should be eliminated in favor of a National Sales Tax (NST). I am NOT talking about a VAT (Value Added Tax), that makes everyone a tax collector. I'm talking a pure NST at the point of retail sale, period. If you exempt the basics (food, shelter, medical) it becomes automatically progressive... if you're only buying necessities you pay zero tax, and as you have more disposable dollars your tax scales accordingly. This syncs up with the desire of the Left to tax the wealthy more heavily while exempting the poor.
The REAL power of the NST comes from its efficiency. No more annual "tax day", the government gets its revenue continuously throughout the year. Paperwork for individuals goes to zero - no tax returns whatsoever. Same for most businesses, except for those with a retail presence. If we're honest, "businesses" don't pay taxes anyway; their taxes are paid by their customers and the business is just an unpaid tax collector. So let tax collection ride on the existing infrastructure for sales taxes. Individuals save time and money by not having to prepare tax returns; same with most businesses.
Last I checked, "tax compliance" in the United States consumed $600B every year. Plus a whole lot of trees. Compliance is a pure waste of resources. The NST would shrink that by 95% and put all that time and money back into productive uses.
Would there be loopholes? Of course. No system is perfect. But an NST would automatically make every person a contributor to society. No more free rides. Even if you're here illegally, or you're super rich, or if you're a tourist from another country, no matter your circumstance, if you spend disposable dollars on something beyond the basics you contribute to funding the government that makes society possible. That's as fair as I can imagine, and the NST does so with zero direct paperwork for individuals. It can be made revenue neutral with respect to today's income tax simply by dialing in the national tax rate. Last I checked, the estimate was 17%. Sounds high, but "it's in there already" so why not collect it efficiently, include everyone who benefits from society, and eliminate paycheck withholding and quarterly estimates and April 15th and all the rest of it for the same number of dollars delivered to the Treasury.
The one that gets me is property tax and with property values soaring this one really stings.
Agreed. Property taxes have a lot of rotten side effects. The worst one is that a family's home can be seized by the government if they fall on hard times and cannot pay. There's something diabolical and wrong when the government can render you homeless like that. Property taxes are generally levied based on "improvements" which evilly encourages owners to demolish buildings in favor of parking lots in commercial areas. That's just bass-ackwards... is that really what we want, more "unimproved" properties with cars parked on them?
Again, I'm not an anti-tax zealot. Taxes are necessary because government is necessary. But at least in the USA we seem to have devised the most inefficient, unfair collection method imaginable. And then forced the participants to pay even more time and money in compliance. And then, in the case of property taxes, threaten to seize their homes if they cannot pay. Surely we can do better.
{/rant}