Let me first clarify that in the title where I reference “our” taxes, I’m talking about you, me and every other American tax payer. That’s according to National Taxpayer Advocate Nina E. Olson who is using the data to promote the need for tax reform. What a waste of time. I know I spend hours gathering all the data I have to enter into TurboTax each year.
I don’t write much about tax reform on the blog, but believe me I have very strong feelings about how bloated, overly complex, and special interest-ridden the current tax code is. There is a clear need not only for reform but a completely clean slate untouched by the hands of lobbyists. This is another area where the two major parties need to come together and do their damn jobs.
I’m not going to purport to know the answer to how we should be taxed, but it seems to me that you should always work from the premise of taxing things you would like to see less of since you are disincentivizing them. Thus, taxing wages seems like a dumb idea while taxing consumption would make more sense assuming you could make it non-regressive. I think I would also be in favor of implementing some of the Pigovian taxes discussed in this NY Times article by Adam Davidson.
What do you guys think? Anyone think the system we have now works effectively?