I have an upper respiratory infection, so my arse is firmly planted on the couch with playoff baseball on the tube and a laptop close in hand.  Don’t feel like jumping into emails that stacked up over the past few days nor do I feel like wrestling with the kids or doing any work.  So, instead I settled in for a little light reading. ;)

I was reading a blog that I came upon last week - lot’s of political talk.  The author had a post about the Federal Deficit and National Debt.  Like I said - a little light reading.  A graph and a little research tell an odd tale.  Over the past 30 years, the Republicans - that party of small goverment and fiscal responsilibity - have been at the helm of most of the deficit spending and the Democrats - owners of social funding - have been at the helm of most of the balanced or surplus spending.  I’ll spare you my tail wagging the dog analogy for now, but there are many good and bad reasons for this trend.

Finances is a large part of my life coaching.  It’s simple: you cannot be your best or do what you love in life if you are a slave to debt.  Oddly, though, every single person (or couple) that I’ve coached flinches when I tell them to think of income tax as an expense - not reduced income.  People don’t get this but federal and income taxes are indeed an expense - you are paying for schools, fire/police departments. federal aid, military defense, and among many millions of other things, you are paying the expense of studying whether breast-feeding increases IQs.  All of these are expenses.  The premise is this - the government cannot trust you to pay these if we generated bills, so they garnish your wages.

Here’s a thought.  No more income tax.  This is not revolutionary.  Nine states have zero or partial income tax including Florida, Texas, Washington and Tennessee.  The idea: collect revenues from retail sales tax only on new goods and services.  This way, you only pay higher taxes if you spend your money. What a concept!!!

There is a plan on the rise that supports this method nationally - it’s called the Fair Tax Plan and would turn the IRS focus from consumers to retailers (much easier to manage), eliminate income tax season/reporting, reciepts, tax fraud, etc, etc.  I came across the Ten Reasons to Support the FairTax Plan:

1. You Keep 100% of Your Paycheck
2. You Never Have to File Another Tax Return
3. The Poor Pay No Taxes
4. No More Loopholes for the Wealthy
5. Criminals and Illegal Aliens Will Pay Taxes
6. No Penalty for Saving and Investing
7. The Fair Tax Increases U.S. Exports
8. No More Complex Record Keeping
9. The FairTax is Easier to Police
10. No More Social Engineering via the Tax Code

These links are worth taking a look at and possibly worth your support.  Maybe, just maybe, we can trade in April 15th midnight lines at the post office for gathering around town centers watching beautiful firework displays of our independence from a burdened tax system.  All at tax-payer’s expense - sales tax payers that is.