Income Tax Gripes

   Is anyone else irritated by the fact that it is next to impossible to correctly estimate and have withheld what you owe the IRS (and for that matter, your state, if you live in one that collects state income tax)?

   I consider myself a law-abiding citizen and though it certainly brings me little pleasure to do so, I dutifully pay my taxes each year. All I really want to know (as far ahead as possible) is how much the government says I will owe them for a year's work (and investment income). Yet, year after year, I am always off and end up with a rebate, which while better from a psychological perspective, than a bill due, is a worse "investment" obviously. What I really want to accomplish is that apparently unattainable goal - the zero balance!!

   I fear that under our current system this will never be within reach which is why I have to tie this into all my recent prattling about the presidential race.

   I am very interested in the "Fair tax" that Mike Huckabee has been enthusiastically championing. A consumption tax, such as I believe this is, would allow families and individuals to control their tax burden by deciding whether they could afford to buy non-essential items (and pay the large, national sales tax that would be attached). This is very attractive to me because it removes the penalty for doing well financially that I think our current income tax scheme applies. I think it would generate plenty of revenue to replace what the IRS presently collects, would encourage Americans to save substantially more than we do currently (the lack of which is a huge problem for both our economy and our national security), and likely remove much of the bickering in Washington around taxes in general.

   Maybe I am completely wrong about its viability but it does seem odd to me that no one else is considering this seriously. It seems to get tossed by the wayside, into the "big bin of lunacy" into which the mainstream media (and the Republican candidates, for that matter) has also cast Ron Paul and all of HIS "off-the-wall" ideas (curiously pulled straight from the Constitution, by the way!)