Summary: The United States Tax System

The current tax code for the United States is almost 74,000 pages long. Or to put that into a different light: About 116 copies of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. It is small wonder that a few of the announced candidates for President of the United States, have again begun to kick the tires on the topic of a Flat Tax. But is a flat tax actually a solution to our country’s growing tax complexity? What are the potential economic effects of a flat tax (both positive and negative)? Finally, is a flat tax even a viable solution? In short, will it work? As a concept, a flat tax is spectacular. Simplicity at its finest. As a fiscal policy, I believe that same simplicity must be examined and inspected closely.

In the article, “The US Tax System: Who Really Pays” by Stephen Moore, he justifies his belief that there is little to no correlation between economic mobility and equality. Moore delivers his reasoning by contradicting relatively popular statements where some are virtually untrue and others are merely common opposing viewpoints. However, in the end Moore concludes his argument with the belief that raising the taxes on the wealthy would not help the poor’s income mobility, which I support one hundred percent.

Frederic Bastiat, a French intellectual who wrote about economics and government in the first half of the nineteenth century, penned, “When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.” This paper will focus on the legal system that authorizes said plunder in the United States. The tax code of the U.S., as of early 2017, is complicated and extremely lengthy. The majority of Americans consult professionals who study the tax code, in order to pay what the government requires of them, because the average citizen cannot understand the complexities of it. There is a plethora of reasons that the United

With the ever-increasing complexity of the United States tax code, it has become more important than ever for companies to understand and implement possible tax benefits for the company and its employees. One major benefit that applies to both is employer-provided meals. Employer-provided meals have become a major topic due to their double-sided benefits. These are both tax beneficial to employers, as the meals can be deducted by the business as an expense on its federal income tax return, which reduces the business’ tax liability. Concurrently, the benefit of the provided meal is excluded from the taxable gross income of the employee, providing the employee with a tax-free benefit. After fully understanding the laws related to employer-provided meals, a business could begin thinking about implementation of the benefit.

Pretty much everyone would agree that our current tax system is almost comically complicated, and that it is difficult if not impossible to accurately enforce. Despite evidence that the top 5% of earners pay about 60% of the income tax, many Americans readily believe that there are a

It’s not hard for any American to see that our tax system is a bit biased. "One of the issues that I have been preaching about around the world is collecting taxes in an equitable manner, especially from the elites in every country… There are rich people everywhere. And yet they do not contribute to the growth of their own countries. They don’t invest in public schools, public hospitals, in other kinds of development internally,” said Hillary at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting in 2012. Hillary Clinton suspects that American’s need an economy that function’s for everybody, rather than just those at the top believing the wealthy are not paying their fair share. Clinton demanded for a deadline to the tax reductions on the wealthiest Americans

Prior to the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment of the American Constitution, the majority of the income received by the federal government was through tariffs and excise taxation (Pollack, 2013). Tariffs are taxes “levied by governments on the value including freight and insurance of imported products (Tariffs and Import Fees, 2014)”. Excise taxes are “taxes paid when purchases are made on a specific good, such as gasoline (Excise Tax, 2014).” While the individual citizen did not incur wage taxation, through trickle-down economics, consumers often dealt with higher costs of goods as importers sought to recoup

Taxes are essential for they enable the economy to function more properly. Taxes are useful for funding programs such as, public transportation, education, and health care services, however, taxation on goods and other resources can negatively affect individuals whose socioeconomic status is low. In my opinion, taxation has different effects on different areas of our economy, taxes do affect American citizens as well as the economic policy by raising or lowering the amount of income the government receives.

Despite the revisions on the Amendment throughout the following decades, and on into the twentieth century, the in come tax today is as reasonably fair to the public as the taxations have ever been, and probably ever will be. The Primary concern here is that today, federal income tax accounts for somewhat half of the federal revenue. With tax reform, the government never sought a way out of debt for their homeland, it was, and always will be a way to claim money from the human resources it ultimately requires to participate in war, then takes the majority of that money and funds war. The US tax policies will always-incorporate enough revenue to stay at war, even if the well being of the US is not in direct threat of any entities either

The federal income tax system is an intricate system and increases its complexity through newly enacted laws and regulations. The tax codes are difficult to decipher; however, it is a system that maintains the development of an entire country. The political aspects serve to focus on major loopholes and develop strategies for improvements. The laws and regulations highly coincide and work cohesively to obtain its objectives. Undoing or restructuring the federal tax system would cause a major disruption on economic and social terms (Prescott, & Hardin, 2013).

Taxes play a huge party in the United States of America. Taxes are peoples and entities contribution to society to pay for all the things society provides us with. Money moves from consumers to business when people buy goods and services. When the economy is increasing and growing consumers earn more and make more purchases. Through all the purchases the government collects sales tax. The government collects money from the market purchases but provides goods and services. “The tax budget is divided into both mandatory and discretionary spending, depending on how it is allocated each year”(Reference/Government). The first time the government initiated tax was for the civil war in the 1860’s but then it was repealed in 1872. In 1913 Congress

If you are a working American Citizen, you pay income tax. We are so used to the income tax that we do not even look at that part of our pay checks anymore. When we discuss our pay with friends or family we refer to it as our take-home pay not what we actually earn. Next time you receive a paycheck stop and really look at the details. There is federal income tax, state income tax, and some areas have local income tax. Do not forget about Social Security tax and Medicare. Now, imagine that the income taxes were erased from your paycheck. That's a big difference, is it not? Actually getting the money you earn. That is the reason I am an advocate of the Fair Tax Plan. We get to keep the money we earn, the government still receives revenue, and

Benjamin Franklin once famously said in his private correspondence, “…in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes”. Benjamin Franklin was correct, taxation is inevitable, but the extent of taxation can be said to be close to nothing when banking offshore. Offshore banking has become a plague in America, crippling small business, enlarging the wallets of top corporations and keeping politicians afloat on a raft of “liquid money”. Not only is this “plague” very selective in its choice of victims, it directly affects the middle to low class, working American dramatically. Offshore banking extorts the basis of United States economics and regulation and should be illegal.

America might never have been an independent country if it weren’t for Great Britain's seemingly overbearing taxes. The colonies were adamant that taxing them was unfair as they were not being accurately represented. This grew into such a problem that it was one of the driving forces for independence. They fought for eight years to win it, and soon after established their own set of taxes. Tax rates have fluctuated since they were first implemented, but have always been based off the same progressive system. In a progressive tax system, those with more income contribute more, while those with less contribute less. This system has changed with us over the years, however, though there is no thought of starting a revolution to change it, its faultlessness

There has been criticism on corporate tax ever since it was introduced. One argument advanced that shows the burden of corporate tax is that had Bill Gates in 1975 opened the Microsoft Corporation out of the US, say in Bahamas, the company would have been richer. In fact Mr. Gates then went and did just that. The problem is that any company that does business from the US, either within it or transnational has to be taxed of all income in the US but earning outside is considered a deferred income. Thus the untaxed money outside is used for further investment. (Shaviro, 2011)