Notice the way many of our elected officials created a divide between the socalled 99 percent and the 1 percent in the amount paid in federal income tax? How did our country get into such dire straits?
Here are some facts to consider, in the 1950s and the 1960s, 70 percent of all federal income taxes were paid by the corporations and 30 percent from the taxpayers. By the 1980s, only 25 percent was paid by the corporations and 75 percent was paid by the individual taxpayers.
Since then, the more was needed by politicians to run for office, the more tax breaks were developed to help the corporations earn higher profits and larger bonuses for their top officials. So as the politicians would spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year to be re-elected, corporations would pay much less in taxes. So, of course, all the funding came from the corporations to gain favor for decisions made by our elected officials in the corporations’ favor, and more of the tax burden was placed on the individual taxpayer.
Finally, these corporations would move manufacturing and their main offices out of our country, putting millions of Americans out of work and paying no federal income taxes.
Now the easy fix is the plan that Steve Forbes recommended when he ran to be a candidate for the presidency; the answer is a flat tax with no deductions. But this flat tax should also include all corporations. If the flat tax was determined to be 6 percent, then all taxpayers and all corporations would pay 6 percent of their gross pay or gross profits to the federal government with no write-offs. In addition, factories doing manufacturing out of the country would pay much higher tariffs on their goods imported into our country. This would lead to the development of millions of more American jobs as these companies move back.
In addition, the more jobs, the more paid into Social Security, the more income taxes paid, the less people living on public assistance, and perhaps this country could again be the greatest and most respected.
Mark Klein
Monroe