UPDATE ON KATHERINE HARRIS--Abolishing the IRS

Congresswoman Katherine Harris, R-Fla., of the U.S. House of Representatives recently has been hinting at favoring a national sales tax and abolishing the IRS as she continues with her campaign to unseat Senator Bill Nelson, D-Fla. Harris stated that there are many qualities in a national sales tax that make it preferable to the present mixed-up and confused system of taxation as levied by the IRS. She further stated that she would support steps to abolish the IRS given that no such agency would be needed if a national sales tax were implemented.

The Congresswoman is now starting to talk my language!

For years I have been calling for an end to the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS operates as its own quasi-government, complete with its own collections agency, police force, detective agency--all with the power to place citizens under arrest or to dog them relentlessly, before it is actually proved that they intentionally broke a law. According to IRS protocol, you are presumed guilty until you prove yourself innocent if one of their tax collectors happens to think you tried to weasel your way out of paying a few hundred bucks. In other words, rather than the burden of proof being on the IRS to show you broke a law, the burden is on YOU, the taxpayer, to prove your good faith intentions to complete your tax return truthfully. Such a heavy-handed tactic is like pitting David against Goliath. The IRS has to prove nothing. They accuse. YOU are the one who is charged with the ominous task of proving that you did not cheat.

Such bullying led the U.S. Congress several years ago to hold hearings about the matter. The result was that the IRS received a reprimand from Congress and instructed to change tactics. Although this was a wonderful step in the right direction, clearly it was not enough.

The U.S. Tax Code is a labyrinthine maze of confusing, contradictory, and often unintelligible gibberish that even most lawyers have trouble navigating. Try getting IRS help with some of the more difficult questions about contradictory tax laws. It is common to get three different answers from three different IRS personnel, only to discover that you are in deep trouble because you took the advice given by one of them. To be fair, even the IRS does not fully comprehend the tax laws which are handed to them by Congress. And thus, the IRS is not fully to blame.

A sound national tax policy should include the following ingredients--simplicity, fairness, equitable application across the board to all citizens in all income levels--including corporations--and ease of payment and collection. A national sales tax fulfills all of these provisions, particularly if we exclude food and medicine from taxation. The plan is simple--it is collected each time you make a purchase. It is fair--high ticket items bought by upper income bracket individuals would pay much more than those at the lower end whose purchases tend to be low ticket items. The national sales tax is applied equitably across the board to all income groups, who pay a percentage of purchased items, just as they do local and state sales taxes. Corporations would receive no discounts but required to pay their fair share as well, thus ending corporate welfare. And the plan is easy--the businesses where items are bought would collect the tax and send it to the Department of the Treasury. Bye-bye IRS!

Normally I am not a single-issue voter or advocate. But in the case of the Florida Senate race, this single issue is of such vital importance that this alone is enough to cast a vote for Katherine Harris. Her opponent, Bill Nelson, has made it abundantly clear that he intends to end the Bush tax cuts, and thus raise our taxes. And thus, he has no intention of reigning in the IRS or even considering a different, fairer system of taxation.

The Harris campaign, in my opinion, has a winner with the tax issue.