Define taxable income under a flat tax.
JWK
If, by calling a tax indirect when it is essentially direct, the rule of protection [apportionment] could be frittered away, one of the great landmarks defining the boundary between the nation and the states of which it is composed, would have disappeared, and with it one of the bulwarks of private rights and private property. POLLOCK v. FARMERS’ LOAN & TRUST CO., 157 U.S. 429 (1895) JUSTICE FULLER
All individual monetary gain from labor or investment less a standard individual deduction.
No different than today except no graduated tax rates and all of the complex deductions.
Monetary gain? So, bartering one’s labor for an equal exchange is exempt from the “flat tax”?
Now you’re getting obscure. As much as the Feds would like to, they will never be able to enforce a tax on barter of labor.
The federal government does not now enforce a tax upon those who provide their time, labor and skills at a Walmart in return for a wage?
JWK
Not so far as I know. But what difference does it make? We talking about the difference between the income tax that we have … one that has a graduated taxation rate and a highly complex set of deductions, exemptions and rebates, with one that has one tax rate and one deduction that is the same for everyone. How they define what is or is not taxable income is immaterial if it is the same for both systems.
Actually, as we have found out, how “they” define what is and what is not “taxable income” is one of the very tools used to manipulate who pays and who does not pay the tax. Additionally, as long as we allow Congress to lay and collect any tax calculated from profits, gains, salaries, wages, sales, tips or any other lawfully earned “incomes” we will continue to suffer the same miseries as we now do, including the tax system being used as a weapon against political “enemies”.
It is also important to note that a flat tax subjugates that part of the big compromise of 1787 requiring any direct tax to be apportioned among the states so whenever a direct tax is laid each state’s share of a total being collected is proportionately equal to its representation in Congress, i.e., representation with a proportional financial obligation whenever the people are taxed directly ____ one of the most important protections against the socialist’s mantra “tax the rich”.
Our Founders got the tax system right and provided checks and balances to prevent the very sufferings we now experience under “income taxation”___ a tool used by dishonest politicians to carry out their evil intentions.
Real tax reform is found in the Fair Share Balanced Budget Amendment which would return us to our Constitution’s original tax plan as our founders intended it to operate.
JWK
