Anticipating some possible nitpicking by Irishman.
Yes, it covered other stuff besides flat tax, still, not the idea of state collection.
Yes, the state collection requires additional overhead on the state level, but one would expect them to be a little more efficient about it being closer to the people they are collecting from. Also, this would allow state taxation to conform more accurately to their citizens’ needs.
Kyberneticist, okay, I did come on a little strong. I have no issue with your pointing out other methods for collecting taxes, and asking for criticisms and comments on them. I will not nitpick the statements in that regard, because I don’t care.
My frustration and my comments were directed to the first post in this thread - posted by me - in which I stated,
None of your comments addressed that point. In fact, you completely overlooked my point, that the IRS would not be abolished. And you repeated the remark I already stated annoyed me.
So either you skipped my post, or you ignored what I said and repeated the remark anyway. I guess the latter wouldn’t technically make you an imbecile, but rather a troll. And that would mean I fell for it.
Neither troll nor imbecile. I would like to point out AGAIN that the majority of the beauracracy in my friend’s scheme would be stateside. This is not a solution to your essentially insoluble non-problem (how to collect taxes without the overhead) but it does remove most of the responsibility from the Federal government. I did not skip past your commentary, but I didn’t see it as saying anything particularly new either, so I offered this half-solution as an opportunity for me to learn something about the US system of government.
I realize you may feel a bit defensive about your little thread here, but really, that is not that far off topic.
Irishman,
Actually you can never abolish the IRS, however the states cannot be relied on to take care of business, it would be a complete mess. The IRS does, however, need to be reorganized from the way they are. One good thing on the states is that if the tax collectors are closer to home, maybe they would not have so many people trying to screw them out of something and the IRS having to get ugly.
Then none of this would be an issue anymore.
Kyberneticist, I never said you were off topic. I do not take issue with you posting that suggestion - it is perfectly in line with the thread. My whole issue was your repeating that same comment as if I had not already pointed out how stupid it is.
I reacted a little strongly. For that I apologize. I was worked up by another discussion on another board that was going nowhere quickly. My frustration level was high, and seeing your comment set me off.
I still say it’s a stupid thing to say. I even heard a politician say it the other day on the news. I rest my case.
Well, it’s still not clear to me why moving the beauracracy down mostly to the state level would not be more efficient.
But, I will accept the fact that you were affected by your mood at the time, even if I don’t think you (as much as a couple of other posters) really addressed why this particular scheme wouldn’t work.
But I am more then happy to let the whole matter drop.