Saturday, March 27, 2004

Well, That Isn't Working Like We Thought It Would

Via Strike the Root we are made aware of some interesting tax facts.

"In 1967 there were 71.7 million U.S. taxpayers. Of those filing returns, 155 reported incomes over $200,000 and paid no income tax. Those 155 represented 0.00022 percent of taxpayers.

According to the Joint Economic Committee, “in 1969, more people had written to Congress to complain about the 155 people who paid no income tax than had written about the Vietnam War.”

Seeing an opportunity, the government “did something.” Since government is coercion, what it did was pass something called an Alternative Minimum Tax. Did the ATM catch those trying to keep their private property (income)?

No. “In 1976, Treasury reported that 244 taxpayers who earned over $200,000 in 1974 had owed no income tax.”

The ATM disallows many standard deductions and is not indexed for inflation. By 2010 it’s projected to affect 32 million taxpayers with incomes under $100,000. Like the original income tax of 1913, the ATM was heartily approved by voters because it would “soak the rich” and force them to pay their “fair share” of Leviathan."

The above was gleaned from an article written by Terrence Jeffrey titled “The IRS gets one right," which was published at Townhall.com.

Personally, I think the concluding remark of George F. Smith at Strike the Root sums it all up quite well.

"That the solution is to dump Leviathan and all its taxes apparently doesn’t occur to most people. Or maybe it does and is rejected as too “impractical.” Better to ensure that no slaves escape than to abolish slavery."

Posted by John Venlet on 03/27 at 08:21 AM
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