Can We Abolish the Income Tax?

(From the President’s Corner section in Volume 19, No. 7 of the Liberator Online. Subscribe here!)

In this issue‘s Intellectual Ammunition section you will find some truly shocking facts about the federal income tax.

It’s enough to make you mad — and, I hope, ready to do something about it.

In recent years libertarian arguments in many areas have made remarkable progress. The re-legalization of marijuana and other drugs has moved from a theoretical possibility to legislative reality. We’ve seen the elimination of centuries-old anti-gay laws. In foreign policy, the ideas of non-intervention are catching on so fast it’s scaring the political establishment. And the idea of libertarianism itself has gone from being an obscure, little-understood political philosophy to being the hottest idea in politics today.

None of this happened by accident. It came about because libertarians and others who favored liberty on these issues spent years challenging the status quo, opening minds, and bringing the libertarian position into public debate.

I think it’s high time we added abolishing the income tax to that list.

A few years ago I wrote a series of articles on how to argue for eliminating the income tax and replacing it with nothing.

I’ve combined those into one article, which you can read here. I hope it helps you in the crucial work of pushing the “abolish the income tax and replace it with… nothing” meme into mainstream American politics.

In my Liberty Minute column in this issue, I discuss the concept of the Overton Window, a very useful model for advancing the ideas of liberty. One of our major goals as liberty advocates is to raise the Overton Window to include ever-bolder libertarian ideas.

Can we do this with the idea of ending the income tax? Can we make that a part of the national political debate? You bet we can. It’s what Hollywood describes as “high concept”: it makes sense, it is exciting, and it is easy to grasp. Ron Paul’s longtime support for this issue is another big benefit. Paul’s millions of influential and active followers have the manpower to bring this idea alive for the mainstream.

Perhaps, not so long from now, the income tax will go the way of censorship, sodomy laws, Jim Crow, and other discredited and vanished tyrannies liberty lovers have sent into oblivion.