Steve Forbes’ Flat Tax

* Re “How to Make the Flat Tax a Fair Tax,” Commentary, Feb. 5:

I agree with Robert Gnaizda and George Dean that Steve Forbes’ flat tax needs some changes. A 10% surcharge, however, negates the whole idea of the tax rate being flat. It is just another way to discourage hard work by making wealthy families pay a higher percentage of their income instead of their fair share.

JOHN KAUFMAN

Canoga Park

* I have a copy of the 1914 income tax return. That was the first year the income tax was effective. It’s a two-page form. If we just repealed all the modifications to the tax code since then and updated the amount in the tax bracket breaks by a factor of 10 and, perhaps the tax rates (which were between 1% and 10%) by a factor of three, we could probably raise more revenue with much less cost.

Of course, it would mean massive unemployment in the IRS, the tax accountant and tax attorney ranks. But it would free millions of man-hours for useful work. Business decisions would be made on real issues, not on tax considerations.

DAVID FEIGN

Santa Ana

* In your Feb. 4 Opinion section you published articles by Neal Gabler and Bruce J. Schulman that marveled at the nation’s supposed embrace of Forbes’ presidential campaign. I would argue that Forbes is not being embraced by the nation as a whole, but by a small group of Republican primary voters.

Furthermore, his success is due to two factors: 1) He’s got more money than God and he’s willing to sink a big chunk of it into an overpowering media campaign. And, 2) he’s an unknown quantity among a field of obvious losers.

ALEX OLIVARES

West Hollywood

* The tenor of Gabler’s article is incredulity mixed with consternation at the widespread, bipartisan inclination toward plutocrat Forbes’ candidacy for the presidency. He blames it, as all extremist liberals must, on a strange mood shift among the working class from distrust and despising of the robber barons of the 19th century to a naive, quixotic faith in this or that 1990s pirate captain of capitalism.

Being something of a published authority on empire builders (author of “An Empire of Their Own,” about the Hollywood moguls) you would think Gabler would remember that they did their building years before income tax laws were enacted--years before the welfare system made greedy pirates of the lower classes; years before the taxpaying, hard-working middle class and small business owners began to suffer the effects of it.

It doesn’t take much to see that candidate Forbes is winning over the social bedrock middle class by simply offering to get them repaid for their involuntary charity.

MORT SCHARFMAN

Los Angeles

* Like Forbes, I made my money the old-fashioned way: I inherited it from my father, who was thoughtful enough to buy a lot of oil stock in the ‘20s. (I also worked at a job for 35 years.) I have been figuring out my future taxes under Forbes’ flat tax plan. Since both Steve and I have all of our income from interest and dividends and other sources which Steve would exempt from income tax, our taxes would be: Steve, $0; Me, $0.

Now, I’ve also analyzed how much Steve and I would contribute to the largest expenditures of the federal budget. Neither Steve nor I would pay one nickel toward the defense budget, the financial support of the health needs of the elderly, or for interest on the national debt. The education of the next generation, the maintenance of our national highway system and the cost of the federal criminal justice system are actually a drop in the bucket--but we wouldn’t have to pay for that either.

What’s wrong with this picture? If you are a working person with a mortgage with high interest (no longer deductible) and no dividends or interest income, you are going to be paying Steve’s taxes for him. But not mine. Those are not the values my parents and my country taught me to respect. Anyway, it’s academic, because I’m a Democrat.

FRANK J. FROST

Santa Barbara