Give me a *much lower* flat tax - ironically, the closest to paying fair share because paying same percentage but the pie size changes - and I'm good. And under a responsible government (whoops - there went this dream), that would be sufficient.

I'm having a hard time seeing how we escape or minimize this tax burden. And like my other notes, I'm not willing to take my money and run to be an ex-pat...and can't touch American soil again without getting arrested for tax evasion. And we have grandkids (and kids) to see that aren't going to up-and-move to another country.

Yet...

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Ross Perot famously proposed a "tax return on a postcard". No deductions, no anything. Just income here, tax due there. Everyone laughed him out of the building, at least until he won enough votes to sneak Bill Clinton into the White House with a pluarily of 43.8% of the votes cast (of course, every president is "elected" with a plurality of the total voting public).

Perot also described NAFTA as "creating a giant sucking sound" as it hollwed out American industry. Perot did not win, Clinton did, NAFTA passed, Glass-Steagall ended, the Interstate Banking Act passed, the Telegraph Act passed, Monica Lewinsky and Hillary Clinton became household names, and Mark Rich was pardoned. And here we are..:)

The generational wealth folks don't care if the inheritance taxes (or any other tax, for that matter) go to 100%. The current vogue among the "super-rich" is foundations, which become 501(c)3 (tax-exempt) organisations by dint of their tossing money at various enterprises - logically those enterprises who stand to create wealth for the same founders of the foundation. For example, Gates buys vaccine patents, Gates Foundation promotes vaccines worldwide. Gates himself earns very little income, but as an "unpaid" employee of his foundation, all his expenses are paid and written off by his foundation. This isn't new.

Every tax code change always embeds a leaky get-out clause for those with the best lawyers and accountants, and they are always well-informed as to where to find those leaks well before any legislation passes.

As far as the poor ol' USA goes, well, they'll just keep printing money and backing it with threats of violence to those (foreign and domestic) who fail to accept their toilet paper. At some point, the very richest will simply shut the place down and return us all to outright feudalism and disabuse us of the charade that we've been playing for over a century.

Gates personal little "circular economy" always chaps my ass (but doesn't kill me since I don't take his shots or eat his food).

And I think Perot was the first guy who I really listened to as he explained the advantages of a flat tax vs progressive tax with all of the loopholes.