TL;DR: Individual citizens have MUCH stronger incentive to pay attention to the control of government policy by corrupt and malicious groups than in years past.
Corporations and individuals can make millions or even billions of dollars by influencing government policy. A single bill signed into law, a new executive order, a rule change at an agency, or a policy decision never even publicized can result in huge profits or additional power for various groups and individuals. For instance, Forbes ran a story over a year ago on forty (40) new billionaires "who got rich fighting COVID." -- Government policies and direct government cash were the main drivers of that new wealth.
In the past, you, the individual taxpaying citizen, would in most cases have only a few dollars taken from your pocket by that change in government policy, making the cost/benefit ratio of fighting the change very unfavorable.
The CEO of Global War Industries, Inc. gets to join the billionaire class, while you get a slightly higher tax bite. HE's highly incentivized to get the new bill introduced, passed, and signed into law. HE can easily spend thousands of dollars, hundreds of thousands, or more on this project, and he might throw in some coercion and blackmail if necessary. YOU, assuming you even hear about the bill at all, don't likely HAVE hundreds of thousands of dollars to oppose the bill and in any case the costs to you will be disguised and just become a part of your ever-changing tax obligation.
Relatively small input for a potentially HUGE return for those seeking to buy government power, versus huge INPUT (relative to the average citizen's wealth) for potentially blocking a small cost.
But as you know, things have changed.
The corrupt and malicious can still gain vast amounts of money and power by influencing government policy, but the average citizen now sees more clearly the costs -- including the most important, non-monetary costs -- of ignoring efforts to corrupt government policy.
Just another reason that NCSWIC.
The US needs a flat tax, no deductions, and no IRS. In fact I think we could probably put an end to all income taxes. This country imports enough shit to levy taxes on imports and run a fairly robust but downsized federal government with just the return on imports.
That alone will stimulate more American jobs, and the increase in the price of foreign produced goods will be an incentive to buy American made products.
In addition sales taxes and local property taxes should be capped to make sure they don't just find another avenue to rip off the American people.
All governments waste through fraud and theft a lot more money than they need to operate. The criminals need to be sought out and imprisoned until it stops, and that includes those in government and those bribing government.
Taxation is theft.
yes it is!
Income tax is the biggest and most fraudulent concept in economic history. It literally does not matter to pay down “debts” as is evident by the fact that TPTB simply print more money to reduce the value of the debt. Even in a stable, fixed monetary value currency system, the sole purpose of income tax is to fuel extraction of resources from the private class to the government class. There is no need for it.
My suggestion is a flat sales tax. Essentials could be excepted. Basically it would be entirely voluntary - like you want a Porsche, ok you get to pay a lot of tax due to its high price, but no-one needs one (if you are a Porsche fan, yes I understand, I need another one myself but please take my point).
Another idea I've seen for ENTIRELY voluntary tax would be lottery - since plenty of people buy into the dream of those....
"My suggestion is a flat sales tax."
That would be the Fairtax.