TAXPAYERS SHOUDL GET SAME RIGHTS AS ACCUSED MURDERERS

The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.

-- Albert Einstein

As they begin to think about the annual "rendering unto Caesar" known as tax time, many Americans must have savored recent news reports that Congress is considering turning the tables on the Internal Revenue Service.

Proposed legislation would force the IRS to prove taxpayers are wrong in disputed cases, rather than requiring filers to prove they are right. In other words, the law would give taxpaying Americans the same rights -- innocent until proven guilty -- as accused mass murderers. It seems only fair.

Not so, says IRS Commissioner Margaret Milner. In an Associated Press report, she warned the House Ways and Means oversight subcommittee that the change would destroy the tax system. "You might as well repeal the income tax law and pass the hat," Milner said.

Relishing thought, isn't it?

Tax reform or not, you can rest assured the formidable IRS won't readily relinquish its hold over citizens' lives and pocketbooks.

Shifting the burden of proof away from taxpayers and toward the gargantuan state, particularly with a convoluted tax code, might very well invite even more government intrusion into taxpayers' lives. To investigate a suspected tax fraud case might require the IRS to more closely examine financial information from banks, credit card companies and other creditors.

Other provision have been suggested that would provide more protection for taxpayers, including a proposal from Rep. Andy Jacobs, D-Ind., that would allow judges to force IRS employees to pay damages if it was determined they had acted arbitrarily, capriciously or maliciously in pursuing a taxpayer.

Such provisions are beneficial, as far as they go. But they fail to address the real problem with our current income tax system and the way it's administered by the IRS. The 19th century French philosopher Frederick Bastiat had this to say about taxation: "When a nation is burdened with taxes, nothing is more difficult, as I would say, impossible, than to levy them equally. That state can have an abundance of money only by taking from everyone and especially from the masses."

There are two primary reasons for tax return errors: Taxpayer confusion causing simple mistakes, and malfeasance prompted by the desire to keep from the IRS what the law says must be forked over. One simple measure would eliminate a vast percentage of such mistakes. Congress should adopt a flat income tax, exempting the lowest earners and applying the same rate to everyone else.

A flat rate would enable taxpayers to spend only a few minutes each year filling out the required single page, simple tax form, thus reducing errors that derive from the current tax code's complexity. A flat income tax also would eliminate much of the incentive for finding loopholes and tax shelters and other ways to avoid the double and, sometimes, triple taxing of individuals and corporations. A simple accounting of earned income and paying out a flat rate likely would increase tax revenues as it eliminates the incentive to avoid paying what has become unfair redistribution of wealth.

Another benefit is that it would largely dismantle a burdensome and expensive bureaucracy -- the IRS.