pretax deductions, maximizing capital gains treatment, home tax and mortgage deductions?

Isn’t that a lot of tax advantages already? Most people don’t even do itemized deductions on their taxes. They just file a 1040EZ and that’s it.

But even within the pretax deductions, there are quite a few deductions available – daycare and healthcare spending accounts, 401k deductions, even transportation deductions like bus and trolley fares (some companies do have these reimbursements).

If you have a side business (not for wage slaves, obviously), you can access the home office deduction (available whether or not you own your home), and the associated deductions for utilities, property taxes, office expenses, and (big one) home office depreciation.

There are also the college savings accounts, the Roth IRA’s, the Regular IRA’s.

But back to our original topic:

Alarmclock: I agree that learning more about the tax code as it stands now is a great idea. I did say: “there is no political will to make such a change” — this is code for “Let’s everyone put on your imagination hats”. I’m just playing a game of “SimUS” (like SimCity)…

Learn more about the tax system first and maybe you’ll see how badly your current argument is. As you can see above, there are many tax avoidance methods and they are available to everyone. If you look at the tax code, you will find that wage slaves are the most heavily taxed (their income is relatively easy to track). The tax code encourages a certain amount of risk taking and entrepeneurship by allowing you access to more tax benefits through small businesses and investments.

For myself, I would like to change the tax code as well, but your method thoroughly destroys what made the U.S. of A. great – entrepeneurship, rewarding of risk taking, and personal success through work ethic, ability, and ambition.