From ABC News, among other places:
“Another divisive issue, reforming the complicated U.S. tax system, is “going to take a lot of legwork to get something ready for a legislative package. I fully understand that,” the president said. He has avoided specifics but has said ideas such as a national sales tax deserve study.” (emphasis mine)
This is good. A sales tax is about the only fair way to knock down huge chunks of the massive income-tax edifice without being utterly regressive. Assuming they design humane exemptions/refunds into a sales tax system, anyway — people living in poverty shouldn’t have to pay high sales taxes to buy milk and bread, for instance.
The software engineer in me just loves the idea of replacing disastrously complex chunks of code^H^H^H^H law with smaller, more elegant ones that better serve our values: fairness, privacy, rewards for responsible personal financial behavior (like saving instead of spending), less soul-deadening busywork come April 15th, less withholding of pay via employers, and maybe even less pork! Rah.
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And just when I’ve gone and started a few small companies, and am perfectly poised to (finally) take advantage of the screwey tax system…
Btw, if the tax code is…well…code, then the legislators are the software engineers…
Where the @#%%^ is the QA department?
Serves you right for trying to suckle at the government teet!