April 15 has come and gone, but “double taxation” is still a tool that unscrupulous politicians are using to pay off supporters, attract donations from those seeking preferential treatment in the tax code, and divide people into the rich, the middle class and the poor.

Double taxation routinely extracts property from its rightful owners, redistributes it to others who have no defensible claim to it, and promotes bigger and more wasteful government through calculated deductions, credits, subsidies and grants. These actions also serve to mis-allocate increasingly scarce resources, distort price signals, and destabilize the (formerly) free marketplace. 

There is a growing need to minimize the level of double taxation that state and federal “revenuers” continue to levy upon individual income tax payers from every working class. Here’s what to watch out for:

1. Corporate/business income taxes: Producers pass on their increased “corporate” income taxes by raising consumer prices, so individual consumers who have already paid their income taxes, pay again.

2. Capital gains taxes: The hard-earned income investors use to buy capital assets have already been taxed.

3. Sales taxes: Income, which has already been taxed, is again taxed when consumers buy things.

4. Excise taxes: These too are taxes levied on things purchased with already-taxed income.

5. Tariff taxes: Again, taxpayers must pay more for imported goods with already taxed income dollars.

6.  Inheritance taxes. The dead already paid their income taxes, so why should their heirs be taxed?

7.  Payroll taxes. Earned income is taxed for Social Security/Medicare, and productive employees might get something back.

8. Licenses, permits, tolls, transfer taxes and other such user fees.

9.  Regulatory taxes: These “indirect” taxes directly increase the cost of all goods and services we buy, with already taxed income, by about $1.9 trillion annually.

10. The indirect “Inflation” tax: The Federal Reserve continues to print vast quantities of “fiat paper money” to finance the deficit, and this basically reduces the future purchasing power of any past and present taxpayers.

So,  the income tax burden for successful people who still pay them (barely half of our citizens), is getting heavier by the year. It is now high time to start a national debate for a more equitable tax code?

Phil Molvar
Southport