(WASHINGTON, DC)— Tax Day, April 15th, is a day so many East Alabamians despise. Every year around this time, folks prepare their taxes and dread the complications and confusion that come along with them.
But to truly understand how broken the tax code is and to see just how much working Americans pay in taxes, let’s talk about April 21st. That’s the day, according to the non-partisan Tax Foundation, on which working Americans, as a group, will have earned enough money to pay the nation’s collective tax bill, which includes all Federal, state and local taxes.
That means we Americans spend about 30 percent of our total national income on taxes. Some people pay more, some much less. The Tax Foundation also found that, collectively, Americans will spend more on taxes than they spend on housing, food and clothing combined.
It raises the question of why the president is proposing even more new taxes – totaling $1.75 trillion – over the next decade.
Washington doesn’t have a revenue problem; it has a spending problem. It’s got a terrible, jobs-killing tax code too. It is no wonder so many people feel they are taxed enough already.
It’s not just working Americans that feel like they’re spending so much of their working lives paying the tax bill. Small businesses are being squeezed. The taxes and penalties alone associated with the Affordable Care Act are forcing the small business owners into making increasingly difficult tradeoffs. These regulations have also made the tax code even more complex.
When Obamacare’s regulations force small business owners to choose between layoffs or reduced wages, it is working families that end up suffering the most.
Of course, if anyone could name their least favorite government agency, it must be the IRS.
This agency has only grown more powerful in recent years. After all, it is the IRS that is now in charge of enforcing much of Obamacare – the same IRS that has used its power to suppress the First Amendment rights of groups seeking to advocate for conservative policies.
So I believe we should just scrap the tax code altogether.
As a strong supporter of H.R. 352, the Tax Code Termination Act, I think it’s long past time to set a termination date for the burdensome tax code and make Congress come up with something better – something fairer and simpler to replace the old one. While we’re at it, let’s take that opportunity and get rid of the IRS once and for all.
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