The Flat Tax

[liveonearth]

OK, so everybody's talking about it. I'm no tax expert, but I hear the liberals saying that it's "ludicrous" and worse. The assertion is that it shifts the tax burden from the rich to the poor and middle class. While this might be true if all you consider is the rate that we are SUPPOSED to pay, I have my doubts about its ultimate truth. The reason for my doubts: the more people make, the more they invest in ways of avoiding taxation. Loopholes. Shelters. Dodges of every kind. Since I'm planning on starting up a new business soon, I've been studying up on such things. There are lots of ways that business can take advantage of the tax structure to pay far less than the rate that is supposedly being paid. The upside of the flat tax idea: simplicity makes it much harder to hide all the places where you get away with not paying. Exemptions. Expense accounts. Fancy accounting. The appeal of simplicity is that perhaps, just maybe, the result might be the opposite of what the liberal media is spewing right now. The proof is yet to come on either side. Certainly the system we have now is messy.

Anybody out there have something more than talking points to spew about this?