0-10-100

The tax man’s taken all my dough.

The headline is Deroy Murdock’s new tax plan:

Republicans and thinking Democrats should embrace my modest proposal: The 0–10–100 Tax Plan.

“0” is the number of deductions that would be allowed: Zero. The home-mortgage deduction? Gone. Business-dinner write-offs? Kaput. Charitable deductions? Sayonara.

As soon as we permit one exemption, then we must include a second. And then a third. Americans quickly would become freshly mired in the unfathomable bog that governs taxes today. The best way to handle the 73,954-page U.S. Tax Code is to go Nagasaki on it: Every loophole left behind.

“10” is the flat-tax rate on gross income. What did you make in 2014? Send 10 percent to Washington, D.C. Period. See you next year.

The 10 percent rate applies to income, regardless of source. So wages, speaking fees, capital gains, dividends, royalties, stock sales, gifts, and gambling winnings would face a 10 percent tax in the year that the income is received. Estate income would endure a 10 percent death tax, from dollar one. While I know any death tax will annoy my fellow supply-siders, we live in a world of tradeoffs. Oxen must be gored from Left to Right to make this work.

Please take a few minutes to read the whole thing, about which Arthur Laffer said to Murdock, “Your plan is as near perfect as any I’ve ever seen.”

Barring the unlikely repeal of the Income Tax Amendment and the establishment of the Fair Tax, this is the best idea of seen in a long series of them.

What’s your impression?