The U.S. tax code or: the Tax Accountant and Tax Attorney Full Employment Act
Cato’s Dan Mitchell hates accountants and tax attorneys. Hates them. Wants to drive them right out of business.
Why else would he post this?
I suppose this is a good time to recycle my flat tax video. I don’t mention this in the video, but Hong Kong’s flat tax system, which has been around for more than 60 years, requires less than 200 pages. Slovakia’s flat tax law is thinner than a magazine.
Well that’s great, Dan, but how exactly do tax lawyers and accountants make a living in Hong Kong or Slovakia? How do they get paid when the system’s so simple even a third-grader could file taxes?
Here’s that video, by the way:
Throws at least one hard elbow at really pure libertarian thought (that part about how Bill Gates should pay a thousand times more in taxes). Plus, any defense of the Flat Tax ought to really spell out how the personal exemptions make it far more progressive than its enemies want us to think. Still, a well-spent six-plus minutes.
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Wherever the flat tax is implemented, the economy SOARS as entrepreneurs are unleashed… Slovakia, Estonia, et al went from creaking communist relics into engines of growth as soon as the FAIRNESS and clarity of the flat tax was known by all.
Ole Jack Kemp was right…
In what way is “that part about how Bill Gates should pay a thousand times more in taxes” a “hard elbow at really pure libertarian thought”? I think you misunderstood the video.
Watch it again, and pay attention this time starting at the 4:30 mark. The Gates comment was part of his argument that the ‘class warfare crowd’ should favor the flat tax, because it eliminates all the breaks and loopholes that disproportionately go to high earners (and are often passed by politicians to gain and/or reward supporters). Note the chart at 5:05.
Lower tax rates therefore don’t necessarily translate into lower taxes. If I’m paying 17% of my income in taxes, then Gates is paying 17% of his income in taxes. If his income is larger than mine, then so is his tax bill. That is hardly a criticism of libertarianism. I’d call it exactly the opposite.