Happy Tax Day!

To celebrate, let's recall the Jane Galt Tax Plan:

1) Get rid of all our poverty programs, except those aimed at the disabled, and temporary unemployment assistance, and institute the negative income tax. That is to say, the system should be continuously progressive, from a steep negative rate of up to 100% on very low earners, gradually declining until it zeroes out around $28,000 a year, and then rising gradually until it maxes out around 35% on the top brackets.

2) Eliminate FICA and pay for Social Security and Medicare out of general revenue. It's time to stop pretending it's a pension system, when there are no assets in the "trust fund"

3) Eliminate the corporate income tax

4) Eliminate the special treatment for capital gains. All income should be taxed at the same level, regardless of its source.

5) Eliminate all deductions. Period, end of statement. No mortgate, student, child, etc. All causes are equally worthy in the eyes of the person who possesses the deduction; it is a waste of our time as a nation to sit around arguing about who deserves what.

6) Just say no to the Value Added Tax. In theory, it's a good tax. In practice, because it is extremely hard to tell what proportion of the price of anything represents the tax, it removes the good and natural pressure upon tax rates.

7) Get rid of the estate tax, and tax the capital gains on whatever is sold.

Explication if you click through. Needless to say, I don't think I'm in disagreement with any of the seven proposals. And there is no way in hell that any of them will be enacted, except (possibly) #7, which is the least damaging of any simply because of its small scale. In time, #2 might become necessary or at least we might transition to that point de facto. #4 is common-sensible enough that some bold legislator or president might propose it as part of a larger tax plan and sneak it through, but it would never pass on its own.

Elsewhere, we learn that in order for a flat tax to be revenue-neutral, it would have to be ~ 32% for all income above $35k (all income under $35k would be untaxed as a standard deduction).