American Flat Federal Income Tax
David M Severance [email protected] 720-392-0420 ACCT525 Current Issues in Accounting
Victoria Marschner August 18, 2012
American Flat Federal Income Tax
Table of Contents
Introduction ...... 2 A Brief History of the US Income Tax ...... 3 Definitions ...... 4 Progressive Income Tax ...... 4 Value Added Tax (VAT) ...... 5 Flat tax ...... 5 Flat Tax Proponents ...... 6 Rick Perry ...... 6 Newt Gingrich ...... 7 Herman Cain ...... 7 Malcolm S Forbes Jr...... 8 Rep. Dick Armey ...... 8 Daniel Mitchell ...... 9 Flat Tax Opponents ...... 9 Holley Ulbrich ...... 9 Linda Beale ...... 10 The Popular Flat Tax Plans ...... 10 The Forbes Plan ...... 11 The Armey Plan ...... 11 Replace the Income Tax with a Flat 17% Tax ...... 11 Individual Wage Tax ...... 12 Business Tax ...... 12 Guards against Higher Taxes ...... 12 The Rick Perry Plan ...... 13 The Gingrich Plan...... 13 The Cain 9-9-9 Plan ...... 13 Economics ...... 14 Simplicity ...... 14 Economic Growth ...... 15 Eliminate the Tax Lobby ...... 16 Global Competitiveness ...... 16 Conclusion ...... 17 Works Cited ...... 21 Works Cited Continued……………………………………………………………………………………...22-23
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American Flat Federal Income Tax
Introduction
One might think it would be considered economic suicide for a Tax Accountant to write a paper on the concept of the United States(US) changing to a flat income tax.
The approach will be to balance strong opinion from the author that will be that will be backed up by research to support many of these opinions. The main reason for this approach is because this Tax Accountant is an American first and has grown sick and tired of special interests running our lives.
As will be discussed further, the idea of why switching to a flat tax and eliminating the majority of all “tax deductions” which have been lobbied by the various special interests like the National Association of Realtors (Rohrlich, 2012). Additionally, according to a report from the nonpartisan reform group Public Campaign; Thirty large
American corporations spent more money on lobbying than they paid in federal taxes from 2008 to 2010 (Murphy, 2011). Steve Forbes writes in his book, one in six private sector employees in Washington DC are employed by the lobbing industry. Half of their efforts are directed at wrangling changes to the tax code (Forbes, 2005, p. 8).
America seems to be is broken; political and corporate corruption and lack of ethics in Washington DC and on Wall Street. Read on and you will understand how the adoption of the Flat Tax is the road map to taking back our country.
A Brief History of the US Income Tax
Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 of the United States Constitution, reads “The
Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to
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American Flat Federal Income Tax pay the Debts and provide for the common defense and general Welfare of the United
States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United
States”; but is the current progressive Income Tax uniform throughout the United
States? Assuming the 16th amendment was ratified, does this ratification allow for a progressive Income Tax under the US Constitution. Does that change the original document calling for uniformity constitutional?
The nation had few taxes in its early history. From 1791 to 1802, the United
States government was supported by excise taxes on distilled spirits, carriages, refined sugar, tobacco and snuff, property sold at auction, corporate bonds, and slaves. The high cost of the War of 1812 brought about the nation's first sales taxes on Luxury items
(gold, silverware, jewelry, and watches) for 5 years but in in 1817, Congress did away with all excise taxes in favor of tariffs on imported goods to provide sufficient funds for running the government.
In 1862, in order to support the Civil War effort, Congress enacted the nation's first income tax law. This temporarily created the Bureau of Internal Revenue that managed tax collection duties. The income tax increasing government coffers by an estimated $340 million during the 10 year period it existed (Investopedia US, 2012). The
Bureau of Internal Revenue is known today as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The name was changed to emphasize a greater focus on serving the public rather than merely collecting taxes. Today the IRS is a massive bureau; in 2004 the agency collected over $2 trillion in revenue processing more that 224 million tax returns
(Investopedia US, 2012).
In 1913, the 16th Amendment to the Constitution made the income tax a
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American Flat Federal Income Tax permanent fixture in the U.S. tax system. The amendment gave Congress legal authority to tax income and resulted in a revenue law that taxed incomes of both individuals and corporations. While Bill Benson makes quite the argument that the sixteenth amendment was never ratified (Benson & Beckman, 1985); the fact remains, since the ratification of the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, debate has existed over the merits of how best to levy the income tax (Teller, 2011).
Definitions Progressive Income Tax
A tax that takes a larger percentage from the income of high-income earners than it does from low-income individuals. The United States income tax is considered progressive: in 2010, individuals who earned up to $8,375 fell into the 10% tax bracket, while individuals earning $373,650 or more fell into the 35% tax bracket. Basically, taxpayers are broken down into categories based on taxable income; the more one earns, the more taxes they will have to pay
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American Flat Federal Income Tax once they cross the benchmark cut-off points between the different tax bracket levels
(Investopedia US, 2012). How is this uniform?
Value-Added Tax (VAT)
The VAT is best defined as a consumption tax
that is placed on a product whenever value is
added at a stage of production and at final sale;
it is most often used in the European Union.
The amount of value-added tax that the user pays is the cost of the product, less any of the costs of materials used in the product that have already been taxed (Investopedia US, 2012).
Flat Tax
In 1962, economist Milton Friedman came up with the idea of a flat tax which would erase the tax brackets now in place and tax everyone's income at the same rate.
Friedman’s flat tax would not include any deductions
(DeRose, 1999-2012).
The Wall Street Journal brought the idea of a flat income tax into mainstream
America with an article by Hoover Institution economists Robert Hall and Alvin
Rabushka (1983, revised1995) titled, "A Proposal to Simplify Our Tax System”.
Businesses are taxed on total sales less labor costs, cost of capital goods, and purchase of raw materials, while individuals are taxed on the difference between their
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American Flat Federal Income Tax total labor compensation and a personal allowance. There is no tax on savings and interest, no double taxation of dividends.
Herman Cain's 9-9-9 Plan:
Herman Cain's controversial "9-9-9" tax plan would replace the existing national tax code with 9% business taxes, 9% income taxes, and a 9% national sales tax.
Flat Tax Proponents
Almost every United States presidential campaign {season} that include a Republican primary in the third quarter of an election year since mid-1990’s; one or more of the candidates include a plan for the flat income tax. The current Republican season {2012} was no different. This campaign season brought out three (3).
Rick Perry
Rick Perry is proposing letting Americans choose between their
existing income tax rate or a new flat tax of 20 percent, part of a
tax and spending reform plan that the Republican presidential
candidate is dubbing "Cut, Balance and Grow" and lowering the corporate tax to 20 percent as well. Eliminate taxes on dividends and capital gains, aiming to free up money that presumably would be invested in economic growth
(Fox News, 2011).
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American Flat Federal Income Tax
Newt Gingrich
Gingrich advocates a 15% flat tax, keeping deductions on
charitable giving and home ownership, and allowing a $12,000
personal deduction. He also proposes four tax changes to help small businesses expand:
1. Eliminate capital gains taxes.
2. Lower the corporate income tax to 12.5%
3. Allow for 100% expensing of new equipment.
4. End the death tax permanently (because many small businesses are passed down to future generations) (Amadeo, Newt Gingrich 2012 Presidential
Campaign Plan for the Economy, 2012).
Herman Cain
2012 Presidential Candidate Herman Cain is the owner of
Godfather's Pizza. This business experience leads him to believe
the economy will naturally return to prosperity with less
government spending and regulation. Cain shares the fundamental economic platform of simplifying and reducing taxes to drive economic growth, a strategy known as supply-side economics (Amadeo, http://useconomy.about.com/od/2012-Campaign/p/Herman-Cain-2012.htm, 2012).
All of this debate keeps the concept of the Flat Income Tax in the public eye and on the water cooler circuit. It is interesting thing is that all three (partially for Cain)
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American Flat Federal Income Tax of the current proposals have their roots planted by Dick Army and Steven Forbes, and of course Milton Freedman.
Malcolm S. Forbes, Jr.
Steve Forbes, Editor of Forbes Magazine, is probably better known
for the concept of the Flat Income Tax in the US than Milton
Friedman. Steve Forbes former candidate for the US Presidency
(1996, 2000) and Author of “Flat Tax Revolution: Using a Postcard to
Abolish the IRS” (Forbes, 2005). The Forbes plan calls for a flat 17% tax on income above the first $36,000 and scrapping the tax code. ”Don't fiddle with it. Throw it out”
(2005). Steve Forbes believed (as many others’) it would eliminate the principal source of political corruption in Washington, DC.
Rep. Dick Armey
The Freedom and Fairness Restoration Act (FFRA) was introduced by
Congressman Dick Armey of Texas on June 16, 1994 in a Wall Street
Journal op-ed piece, and subsequently introduced it as HR4585 in the
104th Congress. Like the Forbes plan it scraped the 1986 Internal
Revenue code (as revised) and replaced it with a 17% flat tax “so simple Americans can file their taxes on a form the size of a postcard” (Armey D. , 1994).
Prior to being elected to Congress in 1985, Dr. Dick Armey was Associate
Professor of economics at University of North Texas from 1972 to 1977 and Chairman of the economics department from 1977 to 1983 (Guttery, 2002). If any politician would have a clue about effective tax policy, Dr. Dick Armey was certainly one of them.
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American Flat Federal Income Tax
Daniel Mitchell
Daniel is a senior fellow at the CATO Institute in Washington writes in
US News and World Report on April12, 2010, “It is time to implement a
simple and fair flat tax”. Instead of the hundreds of forms required by the
IRS, the flat tax uses two simple postcards. Families use the household
postcard, and all they need to know is their labor income, available on a
W-2 form. They then subtract an allowance based on family size. The remaining amount is taxable income, and the tax bill is based on the flat rate. The business postcard is equally simple. All businesses, from Microsoft to a hot dog stand (as well as individuals with "Schedule C" income), start with total revenues, and then calculate taxable income by subtracting wage costs, input costs, and investment costs. The IRS then gets a flat percentage of that remaining amount.
The special interests hate the flat tax because it means no loopholes, no complexity, no shelters, and no special preferences. All income is treated equally. Some taxpayers may not like losing various deductions, but treating income equally also means that there is no double taxation, so the death tax and capital gains tax are abolished (Mitchell, 2010).
Flat Tax Opponents
Dr. Holley Ulbrich
Dr. Ulbrich is an economics professor emeritus and senior fellow at the
Strom Thurmond Institute at Clemson University; is radically opposed
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American Flat Federal Income Tax to the concept of the flat tax. In an op-ed piece in US News, she calls it class warfare— yet another attempt to reduce the tax obligations of higher-income households in exchange for the unenforceable hope or promise that they might use the money to invest and create jobs, maybe even jobs in the United States (Ulbrich, 2010).
Linda Beale
Ms. Beale is an associate professor at Wayne State University Law School.
In an article in the New York Times calls the Flat tax regressive, in that they
place a high tax burden on the most vulnerable at the lower income scales
(Beale, 2011). There’s a lot wrong with flat taxes. The term is used to designate a "flat rate" income tax (often with a zero rate for the poorest) as opposed to our current graduated rate structure that imposes slightly higher rates on those who have more capacity to pay. She then goes on to sound like a President Obama political ad saying “and have benefited much more from the various government systems that make stable markets, inheritance and the other foundations of great wealth and large incomes possible”
The Popular Flat Tax Plans
The Forbes Plan
“America needs to take a new road, one toward an expansion future that is bigger and better than our past” (1995)
The first element is dramatic pro-growth tax cuts. Start by scrapping the tax code. Don't fiddle with it. Junk it. Throw it out. Bury it.
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American Flat Federal Income Tax
Replace it with a pro-growth, pro-family tax cut that lowers tax rates to 17%
across the board and expands exemptions for individuals and children so that a
family of four would pay no taxes on the first $36,000 of income.
The flat tax would be simple. You could fill it out on a postcard. It would be
honest. It would eliminate the principal source of political corruption in
Washington-- trading loopholes for campaign cash.
There would be no tax on Social Security. No tax on pensions. No tax on
personal savings. It would zero out capital gains taxes and eliminate estate
taxes.
Since 1970 -- in just 25 years -- Washington spending has increased more than seven fold. During those same years, family income in America has declined. But the politicians say "we" can't afford a tax cut. Maybe we can't afford the politicians (2005).
The Armey Plan (FFRA)
Replaces the income tax with a 17 percent flat tax
The bill repeals today's complicated income tax system in total and replaces it with a low, simple flat tax. Under the bill, every dollar of income in the economy is taxed, with wage and pension income collected from individuals and all other income collected from businesses. Individuals pay 17 percent of wage income calculated on a return so simple it can fit on a postcard. Businesses pay 17 percent of business income, calculated on an equally simple return (Armey & Shelby, 1995).
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Individual Wage Tax
Individuals pay 17 percent of all wages, salaries, and pensions, after subtracting family allowances. The flat tax replaces the current income tax system, but not Social
Security and Medicare payroll taxes. Social Security benefits would not be taxed.
Business Tax
All business income, whatever the source (corporate, partnership, sole proprietor, professional, farm, and rental profits and royalties) is taxed at the one low rate. Businesses pay 17 percent of the difference, if positive, between revenues and expenses. Expenses are defined as purchases of goods and services, capital equipment, structures, land, wages and contributions to employee retirement plans. No deductions are permitted for fringe benefits, interest, or payments to owners. Collecting business income earned by individuals at its source -- the business -- allows for a simple, airtight system that ensures all income in the economy is taxed (Armey &
Shelby, 1995).
Guards against higher taxes
To help prevent a future Congress from raising taxes, rewarding a special interest, or complicating the tax code, the bill contains a provision which requires a 60 percent supermajority of the House and Senate to:
1. Raise the tax rate
2. Create multiple tax rates
3. Lower the family allowance
4. Add a loophole (Armey & Shelby, 1995).
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The Rick Perry Plan
The heart of Perry's plan would reduce or eliminate an array of taxes and replace the current progressive Income tax a with 20 percent flat tax, end taxes on Social Security benefits, estates, dividends and capital gains, which would most help upper-income people. He would lower the corporate income tax rate as well as the personal income tax rate. Perry's plan would let people exempt $12,500 of their income, plus $12,500 for each dependent, from taxation. He would keep popular deductions, such as those for mortgage interest, state taxes and charity gifts, for families making less than $500,000 a year.
The Gingrich Plan
Gingrich advocates a 15% flat tax, keeping deductions on charitable giving and home ownership, and allowing a $12,000 personal deduction. He also proposes four tax changes to help small businesses expand:
1. Eliminate capital gains taxes.
2. Lower the corporate income tax to 12.5%
3. Allow for 100% expensing of new equipment.
4. End the death tax permanently (because many small businesses are
passed down to future generations) (Amadeo, Newt Gingrich 2012
Presidential Campaign Plan for the Economy, 2012).
Herman Cain's 9-9-9 Plan:
Herman Cain's controversial "9-9-9" tax plan would replace the existing national
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American Flat Federal Income Tax tax code with 9% business taxes, 9% income taxes, and a 9% national sales tax.
Specifically, it would:
1. Eliminate all payroll taxes.
2. Remove the double taxation of dividends.
3. Do away with the Estate Tax and all taxes on capital gains.
4. Create "Empowerment Zones" in the inner cities which offer business and
individual tax deductions.
5. Combine the Fair Tax with the Flat Tax.
6. Eradicate the IRS and repeal the 15th Amendment (Herman Cain, 2012).
Economics
Simplicity
Because the existing system's maze of exemptions, loopholes, depreciation schedules, graduated rates, and targeted tax breaks is eliminated, taxpayers will save countless hours and expense in filing their yearly tax returns.
The Tax Foundation, a Washington,
D.C.-based nonprofit organization which closely monitors federal tax policy, estimates the flat tax would reduce
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American Flat Federal Income Tax compliance costs by 94 percent. Complexity is a hidden tax amounting to more than
$100 billion. This is the cost of tax preparation, lawyers, accountants, and other resources used to comply with the Internal Revenue Code. The Internal Revenue
Service even admits that the current tax code requires taxpayers to devote 6.6 billion hours each year to their tax returns (Dalrymple, 2005). Yet even this commitment of time is no guarantee of accuracy. The code is so complex that even tax experts and the
IRS often make mistakes. All taxpayers, from General Motors to a hamburger-flipping teenager, would be able to fill out their tax return on a postcard-sized form, and compliance costs would drop by tens of billions of dollars.
Economic Growth
A flat tax would spur increased work, saving, and investment. By increasing incentives to engage in productive economic behavior, it would also boost the economy's long- term growth rate. Even if a flat tax boosted long-term growth by only 0.5 percent, the income of the average family of four after 10 years would be as much as $5,000 higher than it would be under current tax laws.
According to Harvard economist Dale Jorgenson, tax reform would boost national wealth by nearly $5 trillion (Jorgenson, 2003). It would do this in part because all income-producing assets would rise in value since the flat tax would increase the after- tax stream of income that they generate.
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American Flat Federal Income Tax
Eliminate the Tax Lobby
The report from the nonpartisan reform group Public
Campaign; “Thirty Large American Corporations Spent
More Money on Lobbying than They Paid in Federal
Taxes from 2008 to 2010”; explains, the 29 companies
General Electric spent more lobbying that paid no tax actually received tax rebates over the government than it did in federal income taxes between 2008 and 2010 those three years, "ranging from $4 million for Corning
(GLW) to nearly $5 billion for General Electric (GE)." The amounts spent on lobbying added up to $476 million, over three years this amount is further calculated as, roughly
$400,000 each day, including weekends." The same firms spent an additional $22 million on donations to federal campaigns (Murphy, 2011).
A flat tax gets rid of all deductions, loopholes, credits, and exemptions. Politicians would lose all ability to pick winners and losers, reward friends and punish enemies, and use the tax code to impose their values on the economy. Not only does this end a major source of political corruption, but it is also pro-growth since companies would no longer squander resources lobbying politicians or making foolish investments just to obtain favorable tax treatment (Daniel Mitchell, 2005).
Global Competitiveness
In a remarkable development, former communist nations are leading a global tax reform revolution. Estonia was the first to adopt a flat tax, implementing a 26 percent rate in 1994, just a few years after the collapse of
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American Flat Federal Income Tax the Soviet Union. The other two Baltic republics of the former Soviet Union enacted flat taxes in the mid-1990s, with Latvia choosing a 25 percent rate and Lithuania picking 33 percent. Along with other free-market reforms, the flat tax significantly improved economic growth, and the "Baltic Tigers" became role models for the region. Learning from its neighbors, Russia stunned the world by adopting a 13 percent flat tax, which went into effect in 2001.
The Russian flat tax quickly yielded positive results: The economy prospered, and revenues poured into government coffers since tax evasion and avoidance became much less profitable. The flat tax then spread to Serbia, which in 2003 chose a 14 percent rate. Slovakia hopped on the bandwagon the following year with a 19 percent flat tax, as did Ukraine, which chose a 13 percent tax rate. Earlier this year, Romania joined the flat tax revolution with a 16 percent tax rate, and Georgia adopted a 12 percent flat tax rate, which has the honor, at least temporarily, of being the lowest rate in the world.
In a global economy, it is increasingly easy for jobs and capital to escape high-tax nations and migrate to low-tax nations. This means that the reward for good tax policy is greater than ever before, but it also means that the penalties for bad policy are greater than ever before. This is why so many nations are lowering tax rates and reforming their tax systems (Daniel J. Mitchell, 2004).[ A flat tax will make America a magnet for investment and job creation.
Conclusion
Toward the end of the introduction of this paper, it was suggested that America seemed to be is broken. Every day in the news there is political and corporate corruption in the
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American Flat Federal Income Tax newspapers and on television. The lack of ethics that is rampant and for the first time in our history our credit rating was downgraded (Krantz & Chu, 2011). We are currently in
{allegedly ended in 2009) the largest longest recession (CNN Money, 2010) that without all the government spending would have been worse than the great depression.
America need to be repaired, we the people need to take back control of this country that one politician after another has sold to some special interest. Shown here in this project paper has been a theoretical discussion of how eliminating the current progressive income tax system and implementing some rendition of the flat income tax written about by Steven Forbes, Dick Armey or Robert Hall and Alvin Rabushka. The current tax code doesn’t work, American spend billions of hours and millions of dollars on lawyers and accountants like us to avoid the “progressive” income tax as we know it.
With the Flat tax, saving and investment is encouraged, business will have access to all the capital it needs, unemployment as we know it would be non-existent.
The implementation of a Flat 17%-20% Flat tax on corporations would bring so many employment opportunities back to the United States we would need another baby boom like after World War II. Without the current tax code and all of the exemptions and loopholes companies have no reason to lobby for lower taxes and special benefits.
Individuals would have true motivation to prosper, save and invest and businesses would be encouraged to grow. There would be no need for the current Internal Revenue code. No need for Schedules M1-M3 on the current 1120. Whether the US continues with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) or something that is merged with IFRS, the bottom line will be net profit will be taxed at 17%-20%. No need to worry about things like installment sales, tax-free exchanges. Another area would be foreign
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American Flat Federal Income Tax taxes; it would simply be an expense item. NO benefit to the US Corporation for overseas operations. In actuality, the lower simple tax laws would provide a huge reason to bring the factories and jobs back to the USA.
For those that would argue that charities would suffer; that is likely not true. When is the last time you thought about the deduction at Christmas when you dropped money in the red kettle. Was a tax deduction the primary motivation behind the recent contributions by Kiss and Neil Diamond to the victims of the Century 16 disaster in
Aurora? No!!! America is the most generous country in the world and we always will be.
For those that argue the rich should pay more; where does this concept really come from? Form a bunch of people that need to address their jealously. America is still the land of opportunity; it’s just been lobbied to DEATH and is having a hard time coming back.
Lastly, let’s look at the revenue that would likely be brought into the US Treasury by switching from our current complex tax code to a simple fair Flat Income tax. Initially, those revenues will likely decrease, but as the economy grows and becomes strong again; Supply Sided Economics has shown that when there is more money in an
American’s pocket; consumer confidence is higher and suppliers of products and service are heavily demanded. In the long run, revenues will surpass what they ARE
NOW (Tax Policy Center, 2010) which might make it possible to reduce the current $16
Trillion debt (US Debt Clock, 2012).
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Barack Hussein Obama II was right about one thing, we need CHANGE, we need to fire the lobbyist by implementing the Flat Income Tax and “We the People” can then TAKE BACK CONTROL OF OUR COUNRY.
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Works Cited
Amadeo, K. (2012). http://useconomy.about.com/od/2012-Campaign/p/Herman-Cain-2012.htm. Retrieved August 28, 2012, from http://useconomy.about.com/od/2012-Campaign/p/Herman- Cain-2012.htm: http://useconomy.about.com/od/2012-Campaign/p/Herman-Cain-2012.htm
Amadeo, K. (2012). Newt Gingrich 2012 Presidential Campaign Plan for the Economy. Retrieved August 28, 2012, from Useconomy.about.com/od/2012-Campaign/p/Newt-Gingrich-And-The-Economy- 2012-Presidential-Campaign-Plan.htm: http://useconomy.about.com/od/2012- Campaign/p/Newt-Gingrich-And-The-Economy-2012-Presidential-Campaign-Plan.htm
Armey, C. D., & Shelby, S. R. (1995, July). A Comprehensive Plan to Shrink the Government and Grow the Economy. Ney Your, New York, United States of America.
Armey, D. (1994, June 16). Review Merits of Flat Tax. Wall Street Journal.
Beale, L. (2011, October 13). A Plan for the Uber-Rich. New York Times.
Benson, B., & Beckman, M. (1985). The Law that Never Was: The Fraud of the 16th Amendment and Personal income Tax . South Holland: Constitutional Research Assoc.
CNN Money. (2010, Novenber 23). An eyeblink glance at the economy, Recession: The longest ever. Retrieved August 28, 2012, from http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2009/news/0910/gallery.economic_recovery/8.html: http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2009/news/0910/gallery.economic_recovery/8.html
Dalrymple, M. (2005, April 15). Americans Spend 6.6 Billion Hours on Taxes . Associated Press.
Daniel J. Mitchell, P. (2004). The Economics of Tax Competition: Harmonization vs. Liberalization. Washington DC: The Heritage Foundation.
Daniel Mitchell, P. (2005). A Brief Guide to the Flat Tax. Washington, D.C: The Heritage Foundation.
DeRose, J. L. (1999-2012). Flat Rate Income Tax Definition. Retrieved July 30, 2012, from ehow.com: www.ehow.com/about_6715009_flat-rate-income-tax-definition.html#ixzz229cqsSFb
Forbes, S. (2005). Flat Tax Revolution: Using a Postcard to Abolish the IRS. Washington DC: Regnery Publishing .
Fox News. (2011, October 24). Perry Pitches Scrapping Tax Code, Offering Optional 20 Percent Flat Tax. Retrieved August 6, 2012, from foxnews.com/politics/2011/10/24/perry-to-pitch-scrapping-tax- code-offering-optional-20-percent-flat-tax/: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/10/24/perry-to-pitch-scrapping-tax-code-offering- optional-20-percent-flat-tax/
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Works Cited Continued
Guttery, B. (2002). Representing Texas: A Comprehensive History of the United States and Confederate Senators and Representatives from Texas. Woodway: Eakin Press.
Herman Cain. (2012, April 15). C TV, Something NewEverday;999. Retrieved 28 2012, August, from Hermancain.com/999/: http://hermancain.com/999/
Investopedia US. (2012). investopedia.com. Retrieved July 30, 2012, from Revenue Act Of 1862: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/revenue-tax-act-1862.asp#ixzz229JvqUVX
Investopedia US. (2012). Progressive Income Tax. Retrieved July 30, 2012, from Investopedia: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/progressivetax.asp#axzz229JcBZR8
Investopedia US. (2012). Value-Added Tax - VAT. Retrieved July 30, 2012, from investopedia.com: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/v/valueaddedtax.asp#ixzz229ileEm1
Jorgenson, D. W. (2003, March-April). Efficient Taxation of Income . Harvard Magazine, pp. 31-33.
Krantz , M., & Chu, K. (2011, August 8). S&P downgrades U.S. credit rating from AAA. Retrieved August 28, 2012, from http://usatoday.com/money/economy/2011-08-05-s-and-p-downgrades- credit_n.htm: http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2011-08-05-s-and-p-downgrades- credit_n.htm
Malcolm S. Forbes, J. ". (1995, October 9). Steve Forbes. (R. MACNEIL, Interviewer)
Mitchell, D. (2010, April 12). Eliminate Tax Brackets and Complicated Forms With a Flat Tax. US News and World Report.
Murphy, E. (2011, December 13). 30 Major U.S. Companies Spent More on Lobbying than Taxes. DailyFinance.com.
Pearson Education, Inc. (2007). History of the Income Tax in the United States. Retrieved July 30, 2012, from Infoplease.com: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005921.html/
Rohrlich, J. (2012, July 15). Real Estate Lobby Launches Shock and Awe Campaign to Block Tax Reform. Retrieved 30 2012, July, from Minyanville.com: http://www.minyanville.com/mvpremium/2011/07/21/real-estate-lobby-launches-shock/
Tax Policy Center. (2010). The Numbers: What are the federal government’s sources of revenue? Retrieved August 28, 2012, from taxpolicycenter.org/briefing- book/background/numbers/revenue.cfm: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing- book/background/numbers/revenue.cfm
Teller, L. B. (2011, Spring ). The Flat Tax:An Analysis of America’s Most Controversial Tax Reform Idea. The Public Purpose, pp. 139-157.
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Works Cited Continued
Ulbrich, H. (2010, April 12). Flat Tax Is Class Warfare. US News and World Report.
US Debt Clock. (2012, August 28). US Debt Clock. Retrieved 28 2012, August, from US Debt Clock: http://www.usdebtclock.org/
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