Tax Day

I normally don't link to NRO because its not a news site but rather a commentary site.

However, given that this is tax day and a lot of people are scrambling to get their returns done or filing an extension (DON'T go near a post office today if you can help it), I will make an exception to the norm.

Chris Edwards talks about how to make the tax code more equitable and easier to handle. Basically it comes down to instituting a Value Added Tax (VAT) at the federal level in exchange for simple flat tax with low rates.

Personally I would rather replace the income tax with a VAT because if we keep both, it won't be long until we have high income taxes and high VAT. In the UK, VAT is currently 17% plus income taxes which are much higher then the US.

Keeping things simple will reduce the cost of compliance, reduce cheating and make it easier to catch cheaters and reduce the cost of collecting the tax.

Of course the reason the tax code is so complicated and will remain so is because politicians like to give special breaks to their friends and there by making more exceptions to the rules.