variable = high >> capital flight >> end of the USA
The answer? My first instinct is to say it is not any one quick fix, rather the code could be simplified and improved in many ways, so it is just a matter of going through all of it to make incremental adjustments one by one that make good sense, but making the changes is hard.
Some of them are just a matter of a hard slog of making changes. People would tediously need to be convinced of the desirability of every change. There will be a negative , however minor, offsetting every benefit that will cause someone to argue against every change. Congress and the IRS will not want to admit that what they did in the past was stupid.
and those are the easy changes.
Then you've got all of the tax complications and inefficiencies that give special benefits to a minority of people or organizations, or organizations over individuals. In these cases, making a change is especially hard, because the special interest benefactors will always argue passionately for keeping their benefit.
And then there are issues that go beyond individuals, regarding how organizations and internationals operate, which get even more complicated.
So perhaps a radical sweeping change has a better chance of being accomplished than many incremental adjustments.
I have not entirely dismissed the options you and Pearl have advocated. They do have their appeal. I definitely like the idea of equalizing rates between different types of income where possible, and eliminating most deductions.
I also like the idea of having less kinds of taxes. You suggested eliminating the income tax, and increasing sales taxes. If this could be made to work and not destroy the economy or the populace, this would make taxes much simpler for most people. however, I would also consider variations on this theme. What about eliminating other types of taxes, like sales taxes, or social security taxes, and increasing the income tax? How about exempting self-employed non-professional individuals from income taxes? How about eliminating all taxes on individuals, and only taxing corporations? What about eliminating income and social security taxes, and replacing them with a tax on financial transactions?
i will have to give this more thought. I have lots of small suggestions to modify the current code, but I am not sure if sweeping or incremental change is the way to go.