I saw the image above this morning and it got me to thinking.  In some cases this is a dangerous thing, but here we are nonetheless.  I spent time thinking about the essential nature of our tax code, and my thoughts in general regarding it.  I mulled through my ideas, and boiled them down to a few very basic concepts.

• We need a system the collects taxation from all of the people residing in this nation.
  
• The underlying system must be fair.  It must include everyone.
  
• There should be zero loopholes.
  
• Everyone should pay the exact same rate of taxation.
  
• We should understand that the tax code is not and should be a tool to implement social policy.
• The tax return should fit on a three by five card with room to spare.

Obviously from these basic ideas you can deduce that I am not a fan of the current code.  It is overly byzantine.  It requires entirely too much knowledge on the part of individual citizen for the purpose of compliance.  It can make individual citizens into criminals, because of honest mistakes.  And it empowers those with the resources to do so, to game the system with the goal of paying zero tax.

I believe the time has come for us as a nation to end the current code.  We should drive a stake through its heart and start over again.  We need to admit that it is killing us, and have the appropriate surgery for it so that it can be excised from our hearts and minds.

We as a culture spend billions of dollars every year not on the taxes themselves, but rather on the process that assists us in paying our taxes.  That is lost capital that can never be put to productive use.  I endeavored to find a total figure for any single year in the last decade for this item, and it was not available, but the number I am suspecting would be huge.  If the average person in a nation of 300+ million people spends $20 total (that number is a rather low one) inclusive of time and effort, the conservative estimate comes to roughly $6 billion dollars.  Compare that with Amazon's total revenue for 2013 of $74+ billion.  The simple truth is that we spend entirely too much to comply with a tax code that gives back entirely too little.

Once we agree that the current code needs to go, the question becomes what do we replace it with comes next.  I believe in a simple controlling notion.  Progressive taxation as a conceptual construct is one of the most primal cause in our current dilemma.  The notion that because you make more you should pay a higher rate is at best flawed.  The citizenship rights of a millionaire are not magnified exponentially on the basis of yearly earnings.  

Each entity living, working, plying a trade, or engaging in a business venture in this nation should pay taxes and it should be the same rate for all of them.  We should have a national discussion as to what that rate should be to appropriately fund the government, but that number should be low, in single digits I would imagine.  And once that conversation is had, it should be implemented clearly, cleanly, and simply.

All income should be taxed the same way.  This does mean that I believe that capital gains taxation should be folded into the income tax process, and that the current process by which investment income is taxed should go away.  We should not allow the government to double, triple, or quadruple tax the same piece of income, just because it was earned from investments.  It should be taxed in the year it is actually earned, and that should be the end of it.  Anything more than that is part of the flawed logic that landed us in our current dilemma.

There should be no exclusions, loopholes, deductions, or set asides in the new code.  The simple principle is this, you earn X in a given year, your tax rate is Y, therefore your total tax should be Z. Simply put, the tax return should be short, simple, and fit on a three by five card with room to spare.  I believe the idea that tax policy is the best place to implement social policy is tragically flawed, and should be discarded as a relic upon the ash heap of bad ideas.

The does mean that average tax payers like myself, would be giving up a lot of deductions.  It also means that companies would be giving up 100% of their arcane giveaways.  It means that we would all be treated the same in terms of our total taxation.  No one gets special treatment.  It means that GE or Apple is seen the same by the IRS as John Q Public, which is a serious advancement in the cause of liberty.

Also, we should tax every dollar earned in the United States by every entity earning it.  It means the end of using intellectual property rights being moved offshore to avoid paying taxes on the revenue that results from them.  It means that any entity making a buck in the US economy pays the appropriate taxation on that buck!  Doing it this way, eliminates the need for tax havens in other nations, in the Caribbean, Western Europe, or the Swiss Alps.  The implementation of this strategy will mean extra billions if not trillions of dollars into the coffers of the treasury.

Once these reforms are discussed and implemented, they should all be inextricably bound together, to prevent future tinkering around the edges.  If future congresses wish to make changes, they should be forced to end the existing code at that time and start over again.  This will prevent this reform effort from becoming another byzantine behemoth a century from now.

Simply put...  The existing system of taxation is broken.  I believe it cannot be reformed.  It must be excised from our hearts and minds.  We should start over with something that better reflects what we need in our post-modern society.  There should be no fear in starting over.  America has done it time and again.  This should be no different.

I have spent time this week pondering the Hobby Lobby case, its impact, and what it really means. The case centered around a family owned and operated craft supply company.  The company pays its employees roughly twice the federal minimum wage on average.  The provided healthcare to their employees long before the so-called Affordable Care Act was ever conceived in the minds of the current administration.  This coverage also included contraceptive coverage.

That may come as a shock to many watcher's of main stream media coverage.  In fact, so extensive are the options on this coverage that it included sixteen of the twenty products mandated by the office of the Secretary of Health and Human Services.  That's right this whole fight is not a binary one.  It is about a total of four products that Hobby Lobby objected to on the basis of how they functioned and how that impacted their closely held religious beliefs.

Hobby Lobby asked for and accommodation on this subject, requesting to not be forced to pay for products that violate their conscience.  The department of Health and Human Services refused.  And then Hobby Lobby sued, citing that the ACA violated their rights under the Religious Rights Restoration Act, that was signed into law under President Clinton.  And the court agreed with Hobby Lobby's stance.

Some substantial histrionics, hyperbole, and overblown hand wringing has taken place in the wake of the decision.  Some of it from a sitting Supreme Court Justice, and that I was surprised to read.  Some pundits have likened it to slavery and apartheid.  Others have opined the nonsensical straw dog question comparing this decision to the Christian Science stance on medicine.  A simple read of the relevant legislation indicates this line of logic is a ridiculous position to opine, as the act does not provide for this.

Allow me to be clear, all the histrionics and hyperbole set aside, this case was properly heard and rightly decided.  In essence the decision says that closely held religious beliefs are not trumped by administrative edicts.  It says that the company owners can make choices in their healthcare package, and the underlying decision making process that are informed by their faith.  And that those choices cannot be revoked, countermanded, or otherwise supplanted by bureaucratic fiat.

In essence, this case is about freedom of choice.  It tells us everyone has a right to make a choice.  Employers can select the components of the healthcare package as the burden of their faith informs them.  Employees can make a choice to avail themselves of products and services, not covered by their health plan.  Employees can make the choice to seek other employment if they feel strongly enough.  Consumers can make the choice to shop at Hobby Lobby or not based on the dictates of their own preferences.

This entire equation of choice will work itself out without governmental interference.  This is what is meant by the 'least restrictive method' to resolve conflicts under the Religious Rights Restoration Act.  This case was clearly a high point for the proper use of judicial discretion and restraint.

And for those of you that call this and interference in reproductive health service decisions of women.  Let me say this, it is not an interference at all.  A woman and her doctor can still make choices in the patient's best interest.  Not a single product was banned.  Not a single procedure was removed from availability.  This decision merely says an employer doesn't have to pay for it as a part of the health plan if they find the choice to be against the tenets of their faith.

No woman at Hobby Lobby was denied services if they are needed.  No woman's so-called 'right to choose' was negatively impacted.  No doctor was told they can't perform procedure 'X', or prescribe medicine 'Y'.  Access to all of the underlying products and services was preserved.  In the final estimation, the histrionics are all unfounded.  At the end of the day, freedom of choice was preserved for everyone, from the owner paying for the plan to the members of their staff seeking to exercise a choice.  And that is a decision worthy of our founding principles.