My immediate concern with the idea of a flat tax based on the information found on this blog is the tax cliff between $35,000 [zero bracket amount] and $35,001 [full flat tax applied] for a family of four. In addition, the various tax cliffs for single people and families of various sizes.

Jacob, I think you misunderstand the application of the flat tax. Whatever the income level at which the zero bracket ends, the tax rate is applied only to that portion of income above the zero bracket. The family with an income of $35,001 pays taxes only on $1 (for a total tax bill of 17 cents), not the full $35,001 (which would result in the much larger tax bill of over $9,000). It’s the same way (though with far fewer brackets) that the current progressive income tax system works.

Please note, Mr. Mitchell, that repealing the 16th Amendment will NOT prevent the imposition of an income tax. In Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co. (1895), the decision that necessitated the 16th Amendment, the Supreme Court ruled that taxes only on CERTAIN TYPES of income were unconstitutional. Specifically, taxes on rents, dividends, and interest, were judged to be “direct taxes”, and thus subject to the Article I, Section 9, Clause 4 prohibition on direct taxes, unless assessed in proportion to the Census. The Supreme Court, very clearly, had NO ISSUE with a tax on incomes derived from labor (wages), or any other income that did not fall into the category of “direct taxes”. Presumably, corporate and business income (largely derived from the sale of good and services) would be equally taxable, with or without the 16th Amendment.

Furthermore, the ruling itself was shaky. It passed by the slimmest of margins (5-4). It was based, first on the explicitly assumed notion that property tax is, by definition, a “direct tax” (which would be tough to discern as the intent of Article I, Section 9, Clause 4 of the Constitution), then on the even shakier extension that a tax on income DERIVED from property is ALSO a direct tax (with that logic, income on wages could have just as easily been labeled a “direct tax”, because wages are derived from the labor of a person, and a tax on a person IS, BY DEFINITION and without need of interpretation, a direct tax.) Moreover, the apportionment restriction, it seems to me, makes it clear that no tax can be considered “direct” unless it is, in fact, POSSIBLE to apportion that tax among the States by population, and a tax on incomes, regardless of source, is impossible to apportion in that manner.

My point is, in this day and age, the Supreme Court makes its living “interpreting” the Constitution, and it could easily re-interpret the phrase “direct tax” to NOT include taxes on rent, dividends, and interest, and in fact that would probably be a more accurate interpretation than Pollock. And so even that small portion of income derived from personal and real property could be made taxable EVEN IF the 16th Amendment were repealled. But the much larger percentage of income derived from labor and sales most certainly would still be taxable, without need of any further constitutional interpretation, if the 16th Amendment were repealled.

So, if the goal is to prevent the dual existence of an income tax and a sales tax, repealling the 16th Amendment won’t work. For that matter, there is currently no constitutional prohibition on a national sales tax, so even if the flat tax were enacted, that would not prevent a sales tax from existing simultaneously. Frankly, Mr. Mitchell, I don’t see why you support the flat tax over the fair tax, because, even if you were right about repealling the 16th Amendment, there’s no similar amendment that could be repealled to prevent a sales tax being imposed, because no Amendment is necessary for its imposition. Either way, fair tax or flat tax, there would have to be a NEW constitutional amendment to prevent the other. IF that’s important.

Personally, I don’t have a problem with the simultaneous existence of a fair tax and a flat tax, as long as the rates are both reasonable (totalling less than 20% of income).

Also, we should do away with corporate income tax. That is a PRIME example of double taxation – the corporation is taxed on the income it receives from sales, and then, when what’s left after taxes is distributed to stockholders as dividends, the dividends are taxed as well. Only people should be taxed, and a corporation isn’t a person. Moreover, eliminating corporate income tax would spur economic growth. I know there’s not a lot of sympathy for “corporations” right now, but corporations aren’t always big, evil, commercial empires. Hundreds of thousands of small businesses and family farms incorporate themselves for the purpose of protecting the assets of their owners, and if corporate income is made untaxable, the remaining small businesses and family farms will incorporate as well. Give them an incentive to invest in their businesses, to hire workers, by eliminating the corporate income tax.