Let's hear it for one of the most diabolically clever government inventions ever, withholding, which lets our income-tax payments disappear a liittle every paycheck instead of coming in one big bill that would lead to national ourtage. As a result, we've gone from a nation founded on revolt over taxes that were a relative pittance to a nation of whining but compliant muggees:
Which makes the U.S. tax system, ugly as it is, something of a marvel. It raises revenue without raising a ruckus. A simpler and more efficient system would undeniably serve everyone better, but the current hodgepodge is so entrenched as to have become a political third rail, and attempts to reform it almost always fail or are gradually reversed. Witness Ronald Reagan's Tax Reform Act of 1986.
[. . .]
Countless other minor features add to the tax system's near-immortality. For example, the mortgage-interest deduction, an economically unjustifiable bauble, pleases millions of homeowners, creating a natural constituency against change. But the most interesting phenomenon is the steady scale of the overall take. If federal taxes are lowered, then people will have more money to spend, and they will end up paying more in sales taxes. Because of this, and more explicit offsets, governments at all levels have for some time been taking a bit more or a bit less than 30 percent of income from a large fraction of taxpayers.
Which must mean that 30 percent is something of a magic number.
