georgephillip
Senator
David Kay Johnston teaches the history of taxation and tax laws, and he believes "(i)t's time to consider whether to get rid of income taxes, personal and corporate."
"Times change. Tax systems must change with them or else their lubricating effect turns to sand, wearing down the gears of commerce.
"Just as the Industrial Revolution transformed a nation of farmers and mechanics into a land of factory hands and office workers, so too the digital revolution and globalization are fundamentally remaking society.
"We need for our tax system to serve our 21st century civilization and its needs, including the costs of aging infrastructure and an aging population, costs that will be borne one way or another..."
"In ancient agrarian societies the ruler took a share of the crop. In the cash economies created by the Industrial Revolution the state taxed incomes. But is income the right tax base for the 21st century, when computer software makes it possible to wrap economic income in a cloak of tax invisibility?
http://blogs.reuters.com/david-cay-johnston/2012/01/06/time-to-junk-income-taxes/
"Reuters columnist David Cay Johnston is the president of Investigative Reporters & Editors (IRE), an education organization with 4,200 members. A 13-year veteran of The New York Times, David won the Pulitzer Prize in 2001 for enterprise reporting that uncovered loopholes and inequities in the U.S. tax code. He wrote the best selling tax books Perfectly Legal, which won an IRE medal, and Free Lunch. His latest book, The Fine Print: How Big Companies Use "Plain English" to Rob You Blind, will be published in September."
"Times change. Tax systems must change with them or else their lubricating effect turns to sand, wearing down the gears of commerce.
"Just as the Industrial Revolution transformed a nation of farmers and mechanics into a land of factory hands and office workers, so too the digital revolution and globalization are fundamentally remaking society.
"We need for our tax system to serve our 21st century civilization and its needs, including the costs of aging infrastructure and an aging population, costs that will be borne one way or another..."
"In ancient agrarian societies the ruler took a share of the crop. In the cash economies created by the Industrial Revolution the state taxed incomes. But is income the right tax base for the 21st century, when computer software makes it possible to wrap economic income in a cloak of tax invisibility?
http://blogs.reuters.com/david-cay-johnston/2012/01/06/time-to-junk-income-taxes/
"Reuters columnist David Cay Johnston is the president of Investigative Reporters & Editors (IRE), an education organization with 4,200 members. A 13-year veteran of The New York Times, David won the Pulitzer Prize in 2001 for enterprise reporting that uncovered loopholes and inequities in the U.S. tax code. He wrote the best selling tax books Perfectly Legal, which won an IRE medal, and Free Lunch. His latest book, The Fine Print: How Big Companies Use "Plain English" to Rob You Blind, will be published in September."