As I began to prepare my federal tax return for 2011 I became crazed at the profoundly convoluted complexity of the forms and language and formulas the IRS has devised to figure out what we owe. I’m sharing this new tax chart with you because in the reality I’d like to live in, taxes are okay but this is the way we determine our fair share to support the federal government. The entire tax code as it currently exists gets burned at the stake and this new plan gets established. It’s so simple that even a child could file their own taxes. And while the IRS and accountants might lose most of their reason for being, I’m sure that they could turn their attention to enforcement to be sure everyone reports all their income. I’m sure there must be some institute or think tank or university somewhere that could figure out what the implications of my plan would have on the economy and the national income, budget and deficit.
The Tonia Tax Plan applies to individuals and organizations equally. It taxes everyone on an incremental sliding scale that gets bigger the more you make. It takes a truly fair percentage of gross income, but there are no deductions of any kind allowed, none, zip, nada, nyet. It does not tax anyone whose gross income is $20,000 or less. It even has a small percentage for traditionally non-tax paying organizations that have net revenue of $500,000 or more, orgs like colleges, universities, and yes, even churches and non-profits.
This system would require people to report all income from all sources and pay their percentage of tax on an individual basis only – no joint returns, no exemptions for spouses or number of kids, or being blind or old or anything else. But the percentage is so reasonable that it would be virtually painless and would leave a significant amount of money to pump back into the economy, pay for daily living, investments, savings, etc. But again, some organization or think tank would have to run the numbers to determine the impact.
I’m curious to know what you think about this and how you think it might work out in the long run. I would so love to say I earned ‘x’, my rate is ‘r’, my tax is ‘t’, done.
I uploaded the spreadsheet to Google docs and the 2nd tab has the concepts. I’m sure I probably missed something but you’ll get the gist. I’d love to hear and respond to various what if scenarios.
Click to see spreadsheet: Tonia’s Tax Plan: 1% to 40% > $20k