I have often expressed my opinion that the system of personal income tax is not only incomprehensibly complex and costly to administer, not only is it unfair, but it also represents an absolutely unreasonable intrusion by government into our personal lives. In my opinion, it should be abolished in favor of a value added sales tax which is easy to administer, which can be fair and reflective of social policy (e.g., through different tax tiers for different classes of goods) and would require no government intrusion at all into our existence.
But I am just a lone nutcase, so who cares what I think?
However, when it is a former secretary of the U. S. Treasury who advocates this very idea, perhaps people notice. I certainly noticed when Paul O’Neill made this very point talking to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria this morning.