Tax Riddles

I finally completed my 2005 income tax paperwork yesterday so that my tax accountant can process it for the Internal Revenue Service but while doing this I could not help but notice the following "Miscellaneous Notes of Tax Interest" in the guidelines that my tax accountant gave me:

"The business rate for automobile mileage between January 1 and August 31, 2005 is 40.5 cents per mile, and between September 1 and December 31, 2005, the rate is 48.5 cents per mile. The rate will change to 44.5 cents in 2006."

Surely I can't be the only person that finds this federal tax code riddle completely insane, can I?

Such an evolving tax policy is merely a burden - not a benefit - to taxpayers. Given the personal time involved in keeping track of mileage such a "benefit" does not even seem worth it but more importantly readers should be most concerned about the complete arbitrary nature of these tax rates;

40.5 cents
48.5 cents
44.5 cents

Why not simply eliminate personal and business income taxes or adopt a very simple, transparent FLAT TAX with no such deductions so we tax slaves can easily see EXACTLY how much government is taking from us. For instance if we had a 19% flat tax starting at $100,000 annual income this would create a very simply tax system that would also exempt millions of Americans from income tax.

The next step of course is the further reduction of the 19% to 17% to 12% to 8% etc. thus forcing the US Congress to justify the "need" to increase our income tax burden.

For more on tax reform please visit:

http://www.atr.org
http://www.ntu.org
http://www.taxfoundation.org
http://www.taxpayersleague.org

Todd