RIDDING AMERICA OF THE IRS

Is this a good idea? We'd lose an entire industry's jobs. Think about all the collateral industries dependent on the existence of the IRS and their job losses. Tax attorneys and their employees; tax services, preparers, printers, advertisers, etc.; corporate tax departments and staff, etc.. Are we able or willing to absorb the number of workers who would join the ranks of the unemployed?

I actually don't think the job loss would be devastating if we abandon our present tax codes.

Say we went to a straight POS (Point Of Sale) tax, dividing a percentage of it between local, state and federal governments and abolishing any and all taxes on any income whatsoever. The tax would apply equally to individuals and commercial enterprises. The only form of income for governments would be a tax on all purchases of new items or services except charity items, food, medical services/medicine/medical insurance and utilities. We'd still need an IRS to monitor sellers' compliance with POS taxes. Any displaced IRS/collateral industry employees will be needed to administer the greatly increased needs of SS/Medicare due to the baby boomers just retiring.

What would be the upside of a POS tax? First off, businesses would be rid of strangulation by the government and better able to grow, producing more jobs. Yes, even SS and other entitlement programs would be financed solely through POS taxes. Citizens and businesses would have control of their own funds and the decision to spend or not to spend would be theirs alone. How about that??

Then - and here's the best part - if our government institutes policy that hurts our economy, individuals and businesses have no choice but to spend less. Thus, the govt gets less income and that's a really great set of brakes for stupid economics, out of control spending and/or pork at all levels of government and a damned good b**ch-slap to officials to keep our nation a safe, solvent and attractive place in which to live and do business.

The trick is to keep it simple with no buts, excepts or others. The tax code should be a one-liner that reads like this:

Consumer(s) shall pay an additional TBD% of and above the purchase price for the purpose of taxation to the seller who shall forward said TBD% to appropriate authorities.

This puts control of the nation's taxes squarely in the pocket of its citizens and forces the government to be wise stewards of our nation.

Is kicking government out of our pockets and the free market ever a bad thing?