National Review's Luther Ray Abel reports on Ron DeSantis's latest pitch:
Florida governor Ron DeSantis (R.) called for the abolishment of the IRS during a CNN town hall in Iowa as he makes his final few pitches to the voters of the Hawkeye State. DeSantis said, “I want to eliminate the IRS, and I would like a flat — one single-rate flat tax.”
....While DeSantis’s call to level the IRS and its loopholes may strike the casual viewer as either a move of desperation for a flagging campaign or....
Nope, we can stop right there. It's a move of desperation, full stop. This is just about the oldest con in the Republican book, a cheap applause line with nothing to back it up.
For what it's worth, a flat tax would cut taxes on millionaires and raise taxes on the middle class. It would also blow up the deficit since no plausible flat tax would raise anywhere near the revenue we currently raise.
But you all know that. Everyone knows that—including Ron DeSantis.
I don't know about the idea that millionaires would pay less tax under a flat tax.
The more money I've made, the lower the percent of my income I've paid in taxes.
One year, the government actually sent money to me, instead of the other way around.
If all income were taxed alike, and there were no "expenses" deducted or loopholes considered, then a flat tax would certainly raise taxes on high earners. But they will never let that happen. Politicians are much too affordable, for one thing.
But I don't think that taxes are primarily about supporting the government. I think that they are primarily to give money value, and secondarily to encourage certain types of investments, which could not be done under a flat tax.
Except the billionaire class, and Wall St., and the GOP have spent the last 40+ years telling us that dividends and interest are not income. It is a return on saving that should be taxed at a lower rate than W-2 income.
Until they can define "income" it is all BS.
If all income were taxed alike, and there were no "expenses" deducted or loopholes considered,
Not sure why you put expenses in scare quotes. Millions of Americans—the vast majority of them who aren't wealthy—operate (small) businesses. The revenue they take in very definitely isn't synonymous with "income."
This brings up a widespread fallacy—especially beloved by the right's minions: namely, the one that equates having a single income tax rate ("flat tax") with tax code simplification. But again, this is a fallacy. The fact that we have multiple tax rates isn't what complicates things. Generally, one's tax burden is calculated by software that automatically applies the relevant rates. That part is easy-peasy.
No, tax code complexity flows from figuring out what actually constitutes taxable income. As it happens I agree we could (and probably should) simplify the tax code. But a broad elimination of the deductibility of business expenses would screw over millions of non-rich people.
The two best things we could do for both simplicity and fairness are: 1) allow automated return filing/tax bill calculation by the government, as most sensible countries do these days; and 2) flatten the tax treatment of different kinds of income (ie, wages vs. investment flows), so that the holders of huge portfolios don't make out like bandits compared to teachers or cab drivers.
+ 1
I had always been told by a friend who owned a small business to never argue with the IRS about income, you lose every time. Argue about deductions. I'd guess that's where many of the biggest loopholes are.
+ another 1. Exactly correct.
"Generally, one's tax burden is calculated by software that automatically applies the relevant rates. That part is easy-peasy."
I remember when it was a table in the back of the 1040 booklet. We should have far more brackets in my opinion.
Ron DeSantis really isn't even news anymore. He's two weeks away from putting out YouTube videos with titles like "The Coming Woke Apocalypse, 10 Things To Do Today".
buy my gold coins!!!
Crypto! NFT's!
I will bet Ron DeSantis doesn't actually know that.
9-9-9 tax? Anyone for 9-9-9?
Herman Cain???
Yes, I had to look that up--only vaguely recalled it.
why should it be a flat income tax. Make it a flat wealth tax. Everyone pays a percentage of their net worth.
Yay! Most people would pay $0!
Like a flat tax on income, a flat tax on weslth would hit the middle class harder. The rich would be better able to hide assets in foreign countries and in easy to hide/hard to value property.
Make it a flat wealth tax.
A nightmare to collect.
We have Mansard roofs because the French government once tried taxing people based on the number of floors of their home. Easy to determine, right?
"No, that's not a third floor. That's an attic."
A lot of turn of the century houses here in St. Louis are narrow and deep because taxes used to be based on the width at the front. There are some notable exceptions on old private streets where there's a really wide house specifically designed that way to show that they were so rich they didn't care about the taxes.
I'm picturing an IRS agent standing in a billionaire's home, trying to put a dollar value on the various artworks. Even if they don't hide assets overseas, wealth is still incredibly slippery.
I like a wealth tax in principle, but in practice it would be a mess.
I'm against it in practice and in principle (for the most part*). People's income vary, and when they make a lot they should pay taxes. Once they save some of it (after paying fair taxes - aye, there's the rub), it should be theirs. And most wealth for "normal" folk is in non-liquid assets, primarily their primary residence. Wealth taxes (including property taxes) force people to sell for no other good reason. Make income taxes high enough to support government spending and call it a day. It's more efficient, too. Or use sales taxes and make them high enough. Don't have all three. Just have one.
*I'm OK with an estate tax with a reasonable lower-bound (circa 5-10 million) and rate.
I think having all three, and maybe some more, makes it harder to evade taxes.
For example, my town has a business license tax based on gross receipts. As noted above, unfair. There are plenty of legitimate expenses required to get those gross receipts... but the tax rate on those gross receipts is so low it all comes out in the wash.
That makes a lot of sense. It's private property as a service (PPaS). Private property requires all sorts of government services like the judiciary, police forces, the military, the treasury and so on. Most wealth is in the form of government deeded land, government issued currency or securities, and shares in government chartered collectives. Even non-government issued property is granted government protection from people simply taking it away. The more property you own, the more PPaS you are using. Why not charge like that? The alternative is to make things like criminal enforcement, civil recourse, military defense and the like optional purchases, and good luck with that.
Have you considered the possibility of using his flat tax proposal against him and the GOP in Florida?
Run ads telling Floridians how Ron and the GOP want to tax retirees when they earn their social security and when they spend their social security.
Democrats won’t do anything like that to Meatball Ron. It would be divisive and partisan. The Democrats are dedicated to keeping politics out of politics.
Really, all you’d have to do is point out that a flat tax would eliminate the tax deduction for charitable contributions and why does Ron hate God?
The Democratic Party's consultant class would never do such a thing. It would be crass and political. They want to keep the party pure and nonpolitical. Losing elections unless and until the people are spontaneously motivated to rise up against the Republicans like in 2018 and the most recent midterms but nonetheless not offending any conservatives or cheapening the party with partisan political messaging designed to win elections.
This is why Republicans support Trump and are crazy not to. If he wins they get to keep their cushy jobs or even get new/better ones. If he loses they know they will be quickly forgiven particularly if they write a tell-all book showing they knew he was corrupt all along.
The tax deduction for charitable contributions has already been eliminated for all but the wealthiest people by the combination of an increased standard deduction and the SALT limits.
Maybe your tax rate should reflect how many teeth you have left. The fewer teeth, the lower your taxes. It's obviously fair because it's easy to understand, and not completely arbitrary because rich people usually have more teeth, so it's progressive.
What about dentures? And would implants (which are more expensive, as far as I know) be taxed differently?
(Asking for a friend.)
I honestly don’t know why DeSantis is still trying to be President. His only chance to win is if Trump dies or goes into stage 7 Alzheimer’s. If he annoys Trump too much and Trump is President next year his career is over. So much easier to step aside now and bow down to Trump and do some major ass kissing to get into his good graces. If Trump loses he can try again next time. If Trump dies or goes bonkers DeSantis can step in pretty quickly. And, really, DeSantis doesn’t really have to worry about Nikki Haley. Does anyone really think a brown woman is going to be the Republican Presidential nominee?
I think she knows that. If she’s running for anything it’s pretty much to increase her profile to get on more and richer corporate boards of directors. Maybe also to be Trump’s pick for vice president
I would be shocked if Trump picked her as a running mate. Just not sycophantic enough. Elise Stefanik seems like the front runner for that position particular now after her destruction of the college presidents. And she’d be more like a doting wife than a vice president.
Agree completely. I think Nicki's deal is raising her profile enough to get on more corporate boards and to stay on the ones she's already got. Being an undistinguished former governor and UN ambassador from the distant past means that she's probably got an expiration date on being sufficiently famous to qualify for a corporate board and this will ideally refresh her famousness.
Trump would never pick someone who had the gall to run against him. Well, maybe he'd forget that Andy Martin ran but that's about it.
I think DeSantis has shown that he's bad enough at this that this was his one and done. 2028 isn't going to be a thing for him. He's the 2024 Scott Walker.
Haley is hoping for Trump to suffer a major medical event before SuperTuesday, or 2028. She's probably more viable than DeSantis both now and in the future, but that's not really saying much. But she's not going to get the VP nod either. Trump is going to play that choice out for all the drama it's worth for months. Especially if any of the trial dates actually happen before the convention.
He's still trying because his wife wants to be First Lady and she will not relent.
Bingo!
Well - https://itep.org/the-pitfalls-of-flat-income-taxes/
It would also do nothing to simplify your taxes, as 99% of the effort is calculating your income.
100% this. Furthermore, it wouldn't eliminate the need for the IRS, whose main goal is also verifying that income has been reported correctly. Calculating the tax is a relatively trivial part of tax filing.
Okay, so maybe a flat 10% tax could work. Put it on all purchases, from that loaf oo bread to ... each and every stock market transaction. Sell 100,000 shares of LargeCo at $10 apiece, for a total of $1 million? Great! $100,000 immediately goes into the US Treasury. Do it 100 times a second, like traders shaving cents are currently doing, and bingo! No more deficit! Maybe even a profit!
And maybe excess revenue that willl allow taking off the tax on food and medical stuff.
I'm all for a transaction tax on program trading -- we already have a tiny little bit of that in different taxation rates for gains on assets held short-term vs long-term, and that's a good thing -- but a pure sales-tax or VAT regime would totally screw lower- and middle-income people because they basically spend all, or almost all, their income. In effect, they'd be subject to a tax rate of X% x 100% on income, while wealthier people would be taxed at only, say X% x 50% or X% x 20% on income. It's pretty settled that sales taxes are regressive.
Oh, sure; I know. I was trying to make a point about putting a GRT on the big ticket transactions that the monied class and other major investment houses do. These folks care nothing for the loaf of bread going from $4.00 to $4.40.
Notice how Social Security taxes are not talked about? Anyone proposing a flat tax should be asked if they support removing the cap on Social Security taxes.
The Flat Tax Revolution, started by Steve Forbes & regularly touted by the Heritage Foundation. It isn't a serious policy proposal. It's just one of those things Republicans propose when they feel a need to talk about something other than their racism & bigotry.
Bingo!
'Flat tax' is about tax rate. Rates, even multiple rates, are easy.
Tax complexity is about tax base.
Some flat rate arguments are about base: for instance the 'carried interest' swindle, where income for investment managers gets turned into capital gains.
Basically, anyone arguing for flat tax is hiding their refusal to talk about the real problems of tax administration: problems that come from ascertaining and applying base rules.
And anyone arguing that with a flat tax you don't need an IRS is hiding their real objective: protecting the people who don't have tax taken out at source. Those are the people who underpay now and wouldn't pay at all but for the IRS.
There are countries where no-one much pays tax, other than through withholding. You don't want to live there. Probably you don't want to go there.
Flat Tax is a dumb idea, but "eliminate the IRS" is brain-dead. Is this flat tax going to collect itself?