> Get rid of sales tax, property tax, exemptions, IRAs, 401ks, short capital gains, long capital gains, medicare, state, all of that bullcrap. Annualized, non-annualized, credits for having an EV on the 4th day of the second Tuesday while being a fisherman, married and single filing differences, end all of that.

I agree with your overall point of simplifying taxes by merging more things into income tax, but some of the taxes you mentioned are levied by local governments to fund themselves. The United States has a federal system; it would be a much bigger change to centralize all of the funding.

Didn’t they just get rid of the IRS automated filing app? You’ll have to kill off TurboTax and siblings to simplify the tax code.

I wholly support drastically simplifying the tax code - I disagree with the extent to which you'd simplify it since there is a very good reason to have property taxes and some of the sin taxes have notable social benefits. Additionally, using tax rebates as an incentive to install home solar is an excellent initiative for the environment. Our tax code should be pretty simple - it shouldn't be a single line (or even multiple graduated lines).

Until we simplify the tax code, though, can we properly fund the IRS to actually audit it? I think my thing (funding the IRS) is a lot easier to do quickly than your thing (completely rewriting how the government garners revenue) and I don't want perfection to be the enemy of the good.

Taxes aren't just there to provide an income stream to the government. It's also a mechanism to guide behavior via incentives (or punishment). Right or wrong there we're providing an incentive to hold assets longer, or use less fuel or buy from domestic producers etc.

Ok what about for the people that mainly earn their living not from an income paid by a job; ie the richest people in the country?

> Get rid of sales tax, property tax

The very first things you list aren't related to the IRS at all. They're local and state taxes, and to get rid of those would require a radical rewriting of the Constitution itself. Not to mention it would destroy all fire department, county hospital, school, city park, state park, etc. funding.

This misses the point that tax exemptions are the way politicians campaign for voter blocks. Having different kinds of taxes makes it easier to target a voter blocks more precisely.

Why would you simplify the tax code if the whole point of the tax code is to create loopholes so you can pay way less taxes than the public would vote for?

The tax code exists for Welfare Queen Billionaires like Elon Musk.