Single Tax

Single Tax

OP-ED

A myriad of taxes at the Federal, State, County and City level now disrupts commerce and confuses our tax revenue streams: retail sales taxes, food taxes, sin taxes on alcohol and cigarettes, excise taxes on fuel, user fees for utilities, phone, cable, internet, airlines, rental cars, hotels, licenses, tolls, luxury taxes on expensive cars and jewelry, gift taxes, estate and death taxes, transfer taxes on titles, shares and bonds, stamp duties, VAT and ad valorem taxes, property taxes, capital gains and ordinary income, and payroll withholding taxes and Social Security. Government leaders or citizens in our democracy today cannot keep track of all these taxes and so cannot keep their government in check. It creates an unaccountable government with unaccountable departments and unaccountable elected and appointed officials and workers.

This impossible situation is remedied by The Valentine Constitution which replaces income, property, estate, payroll and all other taxes with a tax of 5% on both the buyer and the seller in every transaction. Everybody pays: religious institutions, non-profits, for profits, businesses, consumers, wholesalers, retailers, middlemen, brokers, stock traders, barterers. If it changes hands and has value, our government will take 10%. No other taxes or fee-based taxes of any kind will be levied by any government or department. The 5% tax will be immediately deducted from all buyers and all sellers in all transactions, and all 10% of the tax revenues will be immediately distributed to the government department as dictated by our transparent budget. Apps will allow citizens to easily track our tax revenues, government budgets and expenditures, and to rate the performance of government contractors. The Valentine Constitution further removes corruption from our government by prohibiting tax subsidies and favorable tax treatment to any person or company.

Valentine’s one tax ends the annual jolt of the hated and impractical income and property taxes in favor of a less arduous nickel and dime approach without future obligations hanging over the heads of citizens and business owners. It eliminates the time, stress and expense of annual filing, and the big annual tax bill. No one’s wages need be garnished and no one need go to prison for not paying taxes. No one need choose between paying the annual tax bill and paying off a requisite bill or some other pressing need. It eliminates the large year end balloon payments of income tax which interrupts personal, family and small business financial planning. It eliminates the onerous payroll tax. It saves the costs and stress of income tax preparation, filing, enforcement, and auditing. It creates more home owners by eliminating property tax which constitutes 25% of the cost of home ownership.

The single tax saves the costs in time, money and aggravation now spent on planning for and complying with taxes and tax related issues so that job creating business folks can focus on the business at hand, do more business and create more jobs. It results in the rich paying more than they do now which is fair since they spend and make more money and therefore use more resources. It’s worth it for the rich who can make up the difference using the time and cost and aggravation they will save not having to comply with tax issues, to instead get down to the business of making money. And it eliminates tax subsidies which now allow oil and other corporations to avoid paying any tax at all. Wall street company taxes amount to only 7% of our annual tax revenues. Eliminating all of the other taxes and fees which now stifle commerce and obscure transparency, The Valentine Constitution provides apps in each citizen’s single account that will allow citizens to track tax revenues and expenditures, and rate the performance of the government department spending them, so that we will finally be able to track where our tax money comes from and where it goes.

* * * * *

Valentine put all our issues into one piece of national legislation.

90% of Americans can get what we want most by compromising on issues we care less about.

We can now combine our power behind a single common goal and finally get what we’ve wanted for decades.

The amendments clause of our current constitution allows us to dictate solutions to our politicians and force them to vote on it.

Valentine spent 50,000 hours over 45 years adding solutions to all the modern problems our old Constitution fails to cover while keeping 90%, our foundations and rights intact.

All the information is bite-size, spoon-fed and shareable in 3 clicks on The Valentine Constitution app and site, the world’s largest political website.

Share it.