There has been much discussion about replacing the Income Tax with some other form of tax. While this idea has been around for a while and most of the people supporting it are well meaning, I want to examine if a replacement is needed.
How will the Government Survive? I talk to groups from coast to coast and many of them absolutely believe the government would fail if the income tax were repealed. This is a common idea and one that certainly appears to be sound. But this is based on a misconception that the income tax is most of the federal government’s take in taxes. On the chart (from US Government Accounting Office) you can see that the personal income tax is only 47% for 2011. You pay a lot of taxes without considering the income tax. This shows that the income tax is no where near 100% of the federal tax money.
Free Enterprise Society wants to eliminate the income tax due to fraud and deception of the income tax. We also want to restore the adherence to the US Constitution. This means that we want it followed and those that do not follow it - punished.
In my opinion the government can get by without the income tax if we limit the Federal government to the US Constitution, which is what we intend to do. The federal government needs some tough love. No elected official has been held accountable for lying cheating or stealing for some time. But this era of corruption is ending and many elected officials may find themselves behind bars in the near future. Americans are going to demand very strict accountability in the future.
Would a Sales Tax be Constitutional? The replacement taxes such as National Sales Tax, Fair Tax, VAT tax, being considered now, do not appear to be constitutional. Would it be a fair statement to say that
congress has used and abused every taxing power in the Constitution? I believe so. Then it would follow that if these alternative taxes were constitutional, we would already have them.
The congress would need to ask us to vote the congress additional taxing powers to implement the above taxes. This would be a serious mistake on our part.
I am not totally against a new tax providing it conforms with the US Constitution, but I am against giving the government a pass for lying to us for nearly 100 years collecting a tax we did not owe. I am against replacing one invalid tax for another unconstitutional one. Also, just because the government has had illegal spending in its budget for so long, that does not mean we need to continue illegal expenditures. If we want the government to follow the Constitution, then there is no room for exceptions. That is what we have today -- Exceptions to the Constitution resulting in practically no Constitution.
The government can survive with constitutional taxes providing it’s expenditures are constitutional also. From the 2011 expenditures it appears that 80% or more of the money spent by government does not conform with Article 1 Section 10 of the US Constitution which specifies the ONLY authorized expenditures.
Will the Income Tax go Away? Anyone that believes the income tax will be replaced by some new tax and we will never see the income tax again is in denial. Simply watching what has been done in the past will show the government’s intent. The income tax may go away for one or two years but then it be will brought back again. You will be told that it is being brought back on a very limited basis and that the average American (you) will never know it’s there. These were the words used in 1913 when purportedly passing the 16th amendment. The supposed income tax amendment.
Can this be done overnight? The income tax would need to be phased out over maybe 10 years and that would allow for the workforce to adjust from government jobs to private jobs. (There would be tons of unfilled jobs in the private sector.) The elected officials would have to really (not lip service) clean up the waste or go to jail. There are 1,000,000’s of government workers today that are not needed or are in unconstitutional positions.
More taxes would mean more irresponsible behavior The government wants to double your taxes. Even if we allowed this, the government would just find ways to double the budget again and then taking more away from you AGAIN in more new taxes. You can see by the chart that the US collected 2.3 Trillions dollars in taxes. But what is not shown is that Obama spent 3.6 Trillion Dollars. Arghhhhh. No matter what the American People give, government will irresponsibly spend more and more. This stops here! This stops now!
Conclusion I believe we can get rid of the income tax and not replace it. The Federal Government Budget will be much smaller when limited to constitutional expenditures. ( Smaller by 60-90% ).
-Simply by adhering to the US Constitution we can:
-Remove the Income Tax!
-End the Fed!
-Have Fast Economic Recovery!
-Have Freedom!
-Have secure Borders and Country!
-The Best Army in the World!
-Have NO Debt!
-Again be the Example for the World!
Steve Hempfling is the Director of The Free Enterprise Society. Visit their webpage at
FreeEnterpriseSociety.com 
