It's not just that the income tax system is broken; like the protagonist in classic Greek tragedy, it was fatally flawed from the start.  It violates every principle of good government.  Like a cancer, it has spread throughout the financial life of the nation, creating perverse economic incentives and centralizing vast powers in the federal government. It is for this reason that the Founders never established taxation on personal income.  Not until 1861 was it instituted: a temporary version was enacted during the Civil War and then was repealed afterward.  Then, in 1913, the Sixteenth Amendment established income tax as a permanent feature of American life – but even then, it was very small, and was literally a tax only on the wealthy. Since then, the practice of taxing income has expanded downward, to the lower levels of the economic ladder, imposing a burden even on those living on bare subsistence wages.  Worse yet, the tax code has morphed...(Read Full Post)