What type of tax is best economicly?

[RawAlex]

Mike, looking for "ONE TAX" to solve all the problems isn't going to work.

The IRS right now is a joke, eating up huge amounts of tax income just to keep itself going.

End user fees are a good place to start. Increase the costs for things like building permits, fishing licenses, etc. Basically, the government should make as many of it's own departments self supporting as possible. Paying $5 for a fishing license that cost $25 of manpower to produce is a waste. There would not be significantly less people with licenses if the price went up.

Increase the costs of license plates, drivers licenses, and such. Again, attempt to make the processes more self supporting. $10 or $25 for a driver's license that in itself takes $100 to produce is nuts.

Basically, make government services more expensive for the people who use them, and the turn around and cut everyone's tax rate.

(oh yeah, at the end of all of this, the fines for NOT having the right permit, license, whatever should go up accordingly. The risk / reward scenerio should always be adjusted to make sure people are not encouraged just to bypass things).

Flat taxes on income are nice. Simplification and removal of potential loopholes is another good step. Most loopholes exist because someone tried to write the rules to favor one group or another, political actions rather than good sense. Strip those things away and look at the basics, then start over.

Alex