Refiguring taxes
Re “Lawmakers see pot of gold in tax gap,” Feb. 4
So 12,000 U.S. corporations are housed in a single five-story building in the Cayman Islands? Talk about low-hanging fruit! Why isn’t the Internal Revenue Service investigating each of them, one by one? Are their executives’ millions also being recorded in the Cayman Islands? For how long have they been cheating the rest of us saps who’ve dutifully paid our taxes, hoping somebody could find the cash to fix a freeway or hire more cops?
Corporations and their executives who fleece the public -- along with the politicians who’ve made it possible -- are the worst sort of criminals. Somebody’s got to start cleaning house. Here’s an opportunity for the IRS to actually do some good for our country.
ELKE KOLODINSKI
Culver City
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Perhaps the next time The Times writes about unpaid taxes, it can report how hard the people in charge of the federal government have worked to get where we are. It could tell about all of the laws, policies and procedures that were changed to reduce revenue. The Times could tell about the reorganization of the IRS so revenue received by the federal government could be reduced.
Reduced revenue is used to justify the privatization of public assets and services that should be provided by the government and to enrich the friends of administration officials. A good example is the war in Iraq.
GORDON HILLESLAND
Portland, Ore.
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What ever happened to Rep. John Linder’s (R-Ga.) recommendation in 2005 to reform the federal income tax system by replacing the present impossible income tax with a national sales tax? Obviously, the federal government has been studying the “tax gap” problem discussed in the article for some time. I suggested to Linder the adoption of a national sales tax approach, with tax refunds to lower-income taxpayers but excluding higher-income taxpayers. That is the way to go to considerably reduce the tax gap.
There will always be a tax gap no matter what system of taxation we adopt. A national sales tax system would undoubtedly reduce the tax gap.
DRO AMIRIAN
Studio City