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OK, gotta weigh in here. Huckabee has clearly stated that he believes God created the heavens and the earth. He has also clearly stated that he does not know HOW he did it, how LONG it took, and that knowing that would not make him a better or worse president. He has clearly stated that he has more respect for an honest atheist than a dishonest Christian. He has stated clearly that it is not the president's job to write eighth grade science curriculum and that those things are best left to the individual states.
See: http://www.mikehuckabee.com/

Huckabee, as governor of Arkansas, was a GREAT administrator. He was elected several times in a heavily Democratic state.

Why I like Huckabee (this coming from a devout agnostic with atheist tenancies)

1. He supports the Fair Tax, which has been vetted by hundreds of economists. About the only people who really hate it are tax professionals who would be out of a job, and the IRS, which would be annihilated. It would eliminate the black market economy and also bring more businesses back to the U.S., along with their money. For the truth about the Fair Tax see: http://www.fairtax.org/

2. He supports ALL of the Amendments to the Constitution, including the Second, and just as important, the Tenth.

3. He can debate the pants off of any other candidate in the race. He has hands down won every debate in my opinion.

4. He can say anything he wants about amending the Constitution. He cannot actually achieve that goal and in my opinion he knows that and uses it to consolidate his base.

6. He has a record of being a very good administrator that works well with Democrats.

7. He is personally more likeable than ANY of the other candidates. You may not think that is important but put him and Hillary on the stage together and he is going to win the popularity contest every time.

8. He is a strong supporter of enforcing immigration laws and blocking the flow of illegals into the U.S.

9. He wants to give power back to the States (Tenth Amendment).

10. He actually got the NEA to back him because of his huge support for education as governor of Arkansas.

11. He is Chuck Norris approved (j/k).

Huckabee is by far the best candidate. He is more like Ron Paul but with a huge support for our military and our foreign policy. And, his supporters are not nearly as annoying as Paul's.

So, Huckabee gets my vote. I don't really care if my president believes in evolution. It's not his job to do that. His job is to be a good administrator and to turn this country around and I think he would be better at that than ANY of the other candidates running.

I've met Huckabee...I lived in AR for awhile when he was Gov. I'm not sure where you're getting these views that he wants to change the constitution, or impose his views on everyone. From my impressions first hand of him...he is not the extremist that many recently have tried to portray him.

Sure he has his religious views...no problem with that, but, from seeing him govern, and meeting and speaking with the man, I don't get that he wants to impose a harsh religious right regime. The other night on CNN I think...he was actually complaining that every debate centers too much on his religious views....that while they are important in his life, that many other issues are more important in how he'd want to reign as president.

I'm not a staunch supporter of his for prez....I'm a bit shy about his fiscal record in AR, and his stance on illegal immigration, but, he IS for the FairTax proposals, and I do like that about him.

his nutty ... dissolving the IRS idea
 
I assume you mean the Fair Tax. Which isn't his idea (although I hear he supports it) and isn't "nutty". Alas there are too many special interests with a finger in the pie of special deductions who will tell you all kinds of lies about how bad the FT is. Except for the 'but what about MY deduction' there are no good arguments against the FT.
 
Although not running, if elected I will serve, and the Fair Tax would be my #1 priority.

I originally was hoping for Ron Paul to pull it off, but with Huckabee pulling a surprise win at Iowa, I've changed my mind. Of course, his win caused me to check out these youtube videos of his visit to Jay Leno's show which further edged me in his direction. He is a very different kind of politician from those running. One, in my opinion, that is worth considering outside of Ron Paul for us slashdotters. The Youtube videos are here: Part 1 and Part 2.

One of his main points is to push the Fair Tax. If you need brushing up on it, here are some articles for you:
http://www.fairtax.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairTax

What is the FairTax plan?

The FairTax plan is a comprehensive proposal that replaces all federal income and payroll based taxes with an integrated approach including a progressive national retail sales tax, a prebate to ensure no American pays federal taxes on spending up to the poverty level, dollar-for-dollar federal revenue neutrality, and, through companion legislation, the repeal of the 16th Amendment.

If you support a national sales tax check out this site.
FairTax
Sadly it will never pass because the aristocracy in Congress would have to pay assloads in taxes on all the bullshit they buy.

Not a flat income tax, but a national sales tax (i.e. consumption tax), with exceptions for food, medicine and a few other essentials.

Why should anyone have to pay for the right to work? That is what an income tax is, a fee you pay to work. I should be allowed to keep every single cent I earn if I choose to.

But, I have no problem with paying a consumption tax on things I want to purchase, and the larger the cost, the larger the tax I pay. So if you are wealthy, and spend it, you pay more.

The poverty pimps like to scream this is regressive as it causes the poor to pay more in taxes (which they don't pay today), which is garbage. If the poor can afford a wide screen color television, they can afford a few more dollars in tax on it.

There is a movement for this called the Fair Tax which gets attacked and blasted because it is backed by the likes of Neal Boortz (who by the way is a Libertarian, not a Republican), but it is well thought out and makes sense.

Of course it would eliminate the IRS and most accountants, and take power away from the vote-buying politicians (can't use the class envy card anymore), and would probably require the repeal of the income tax provision of the 16th amendment so a later Congress couldn't re-impose income tax on top of the sales tax (which you know they would do if given the chance), so you can expect all kinds of fights. I believe, however, at some point this generation of kids will take up the battle cry, though, so I have hope..

Our current giveaway^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h entitlements programs are based on the fact there used to be more workers than recipients, now with baby boomers retiring, that is no longer a valid assumption and our kids (I have 3 grown and working) will be paying more and more of their paychecks for the right to work so as to be able to cover the continual growth of these government forced wealth redistribution schemes.

Corporations don't pay taxes. People pay taxes. Taxes are just another cost that gets passed on to the consumer. I would recommend people look into the FairTax which would make it much clearer what and when we all pay taxes in the U.S. Plus, removing the inefficiency of embedded taxes in products of these companies would make them that much more competitive against overseas competition here and abroad. Not to mention numerous other benefits.... More at http://fairtax.org/

The solutiuon is simple: The FairTax ( http://www.fairtax.org/ ).

Tax havens are a predictable market response to a broken tax system. Businesses have a duty to reduce the amount of tax they pay by whatever legal means they find, and individuals are entitled to do so, since it's their money, not the government's.

That being said, if we want to get about ten trillion dollars currently held in offshore accounts repatriated to the USA, all we have to do is enact the fair tax, which will make offshore tax havens a moot point.

-jcr

Why? It's a democracy.

No, it isn't. The founders deliberately avoided the word "democracy" when authoring the constitution. They did so to keep assholes from imposing the "tyranny of the majority" on those of us who don't agree with their politics.

For example, we can simplify the tax code to make WalMart pay the same tax rate as my business would have to without expensive lawyers and offshore tax shelters.

Agree with you here. Government using the tax code to promote and penalize select businesses/behaviors is a Bad Thing(tm). A flat rate income/vat/NRST tax would work wonders. In fact, the Fairtax would do everything you requested.

Or, we can make companies that want to sell stuff in US (besides raw natural resources like oil for which we don't have much choice yet) follow several essential US labor laws, such as workspace safety, minimum wage, and overtime pay and limits.

Outsourcing is, in large part, a result of our income/payroll taxes. If a corporation is forced to pay taxes on labor, and then forced to pay duties when they export, outsourcing is a natural result. Adopting a VAT, NRST, or the Fairtax and eliminating the federal payroll taxes would make all labor tax-free in the US. This make a good deal of progress towards reversing the outsourcing trend. We can't do anything about the tariffs operated by foreign governments, but turning the US into a tax shelter for labor-intensive jobs could encourage such jobs to migrate from Europe the the US.

But I would be paying even more if it was a sales tax.

You haven't actually read the fairtax proposal, have you?

Start Here.

-jcr

The cost of IRS employees is noise. The real drag on the economy is excessive government spending, but even without getting a lid on the congress's profligate ways, there's a better way to collect the money, while doing far less damage. See here.

-jcr

Cgenman, this happens whenever somebody mentions fairtax. I'd recommend reading the link.

Synopsis though is that all citizens and legal residents would get a prebate for the taxes on poverty level spending. So your single mother, unless she's making a lot more than poverty level, wouldn't be paying more in taxes. Her kids would count in the prebate amounts.

As for making money from investments, sure, that wouldn't be taxed, but neither is income, so it doesn't really matter. The rich guys will pay their taxes when they buy a lexus or BMW, go out to eat in the fru-fru restraunt, etc...

Luckily, FairTax would abolish the idea of taxing virtual economies altogether, at least from what I've read and understand. Only services and first-hand goods are taxed, used items are not. Since you never purchased the virtual items to begin with, there is nothing to tax.

One small question arises from companies like Sony and SecondLife that sell virtual goods. Obviousy your monthly access fee would be taxed (recall that under FairTax, income is not taxed, only spending, so it's simply moving your tax due to your spending instead of income).

fairtax.org

The overwhelming arrogance of some people to believe that mere humans and our assorted activities have a major impact on the (average) mass of the atmosphere of about 5,000 trillion metric tons, is astounding in the extreme.

A single volcanic eruption spews more "greenhouse gases" and particulates into the atmosphere than all human activity for a decade.

The most logical and common sense reason for climate temperature variations is that great, bright, flaming ball of fusing hydrogen in the sky. Which, by the way, is known to be variable in its output.

So putting a sensor array on the moon, away from the influence of human activities , will finally settle this matter once and for all, so we can get on with more important matters. Like fair taxes http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer, or ending genocide http://www.savedarfur.org/content?splash=yes

Oh, and if you really want to reduce CO2 emissions, plant a few trees or flowers, they love the stuff.

from which to measure and study so called global warming. Or more accurately, solar radiation fluctuations and its effects on its satellites (the moon and earth).
The overwhelming arrogance of some people to believe that mere humans and our assorted activities have a major impact on the (average) mass of the atmosphere of about 5,000 trillion metric tons, is astounding in the extreme. A single volcanic eruption spews more "greenhouse gases" and particulates into the atmosphere than all human activity for a decade. And yet the worst that happens (globally)are beautiful sunsets for a couple of years then its gone.
The most logical and common sense reason for climate temperature variations is that great, bright, flaming ball of fusing hydrogen in the sky. Which, by the way, is known to be variable in its output. So putting a sensor array on the moon, away from the influence of human activities , will finally settle this matter once and for all, so we can get on with more important matters. Like fair taxes http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer, or ending genocide http://www.savedarfur.org/content?splash=yes, or who will be the next "American Idol". Oh, and if you really want to reduce CO2 emissions, plant a few trees or flowers, they love the stuff.

It sounds like you misunderstood what I wrote.

It is a prebate, not a rebate. It has nothing to do with how much you pay in taxes. It is a set amount sent at the beginning of the month.

"The monthly prebate check is calculated by multiplying the annual poverty level spending published each year by the Department of Health and Human Services times the FairTax rate and dividing by twelve. Poverty level spending represents what it costs families of varying household size and composition to buy their necessities."
Source

it puts the squeeze on people who need to spend most of their income on those basic necessities of life.

No, there is a prebate for the necessities of life. See the details.

"Under the FairTax, all Americans consume what they see as their necessities of life free of tax. While permitting no exemptions, the FairTax (HR 25) provides a monthly universal prebate to ensure that each family unit can consume tax free at or beyond the poverty level, with the overall effect of making the FairTax progressive in application."

This won't affect illegal immigrants working
 
Exactly; this is like gun control laws. People determined to disobey this law will do so just as they ignore current employment laws.
 
  they choose to employ them not just because they are cheaper labor
 
And everyone always gets wrong WHY they're cheaper: payroll taxes. The face value of illegal labor is only a little lower than the legal labor but behind the scenes not having to pay the additional taxes an employer has to pick up makes the difference HUGE. Yet another reason to go to the Fair Tax. Tax reform would go a LONG way toward taking care of the illegal worker problem all by itself without this half baked database idea.
 
  because they do better work than the unionized workers here in the states
 
Oh no, not at all true all the time. The illegal workers the my HOA's maintenance contractor picks up at the day labor pool do extremely shoddy work. It all comes down to being ultra cheap which is how he undercuts all the other bids by at least half. Now if only the board would listen to the complaints more and look at the numbers less but that's another rant...

There's 'flat tax' schemes that still include a "standard deduction" similair to the 1040EZ we used to use when we worked part-time in school. So, for instance, it might be 18% of all income over 7K. But no deductions for mortgage, charitable giving, children, etc, etc. It's a better idea than a national sales tax, anyway.

I would agree with you if it were offered as a program for people who've had problems budgeting by themselves, however the fact that you have to pay penalties if you opt NOT to pay your taxes in advance ("withholdings") is proof that it's merely an advance on your presumed reliability.

It's just another one of those government scams they get away with that, if ANY other business tried something like it they'd be charged with violation of RICO laws. It's just like the Social Security pyramid scheme. The crap we let our government get away with is incredible.

It's also not so much these days to help people budget - the government doesn't care that they might be putting you out at the end of the year, it's a way to hide how much of your money they are taking. How many people, when asked how much they had to pay in taxes, actually say "I didn't have to pay anything! I actually got a refund!"

Make April 15th just another day!!!

Suppose i pay for my mmorpgs with game cards and use proxies to connect tot he game servers. how then can anyone be expected to track how much gold i have accumulated on my virtual d00d? I can see taxing the sale of virtual goods for real money (not that i agree with it), but it seems silly to expect purely in-game assets to be taxed.

The only time that this sort of thing should be taxable is when there is real income. IE someone farms up a horde of gold and then sells it for real money. That is income and should be reported as income (which consequently is taxable). The onus of reporting should be on the individual earning the income. The problem of someone not claiming said income should not be solved by legislating that the game administrators track these transactions, but by going to a tax collection scheme like the fair tax that collects tax from everyone at the cash register.

You're likely looking for this.

It's called FairTax http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer

The FairTax proposal addresses most of your objections.

Everyone gets a monthly prebate covering the tax on spending up to the poverty level. This eliminates taxes altogether for the truly poor, and makes the tax effectively progressive.

True, there's a limit to how hard you can punish success and productivity with such a tax, but the overall effect on the economy and, dare I say it, fairness, more than makes up for that.

Website: http://www.fairtax.org/
Summary: : http://www.fairtax.org/fairtax/thumbnail.htm

The FairTax proposal addresses most of your objections.

Everyone gets a monthly prebate covering the tax on spending up to the poverty level. This eliminates taxes altogether for the truly poor, and makes the tax effectively progressive.

True, there's a limit to how hard you can punish success and productivity with such a tax, but the overall effect on the economy and, dare I say it, fairness, more than makes up for that.

Website: http://www.fairtax.org/
Summary: : http://www.fairtax.org/fairtax/thumbnail.htm

Sigh....

Should have known this would come up. For the record, I support the fairtax idea. It's also progressive, though maybe not as much as currently. Sure, there are some issues with it, but I believe those issues to be less than the issues with the current system, which is massive fraud, complexity, and inefficiency. I happen to believe that it shouldn't take more than an hour for the average family to calculate their taxes.

In summary, the only people that want a sales tax are those that don't understand it's implications and those that could pay less taxes by shifting the tax burden more on the lower & middle classes.

I'd likely pay more in taxes under the new system than what's currently the case. Still, I firmly believe that I'd ultimately come out ahead due to increases in the economy.

The notion that there is tax injustice because the top minority of Americans pays the majority of taxes is absurd. The people at the top of the food chain reap the highest rewards of our society. Without our national infrastructure, they wouldn't be able to make and horde millions or billions of dollars. They SHOULD pay a tax burden that more closely resembles their share of the US pie, not necessarily their share of the US Population.

I'd argue that the wealthy tend to be some of the cheapest for the government to support - It's the poor that consume the majority of the government's resources. Rich neighborhoods place less stress on pretty much every government resource going. There's less crime for the police to pursue, fewer fires as their buildings tend to be up to code, and not really getting much welfare. They do tend to get assistance, because like in other matters - they're rich because they know how to game the system.

Despite this all, the truly rich tend to pay less in taxes as a percentage than the middle class. Why? Because they've managed to game the system. Even when the top rates were much higher, research shows that the truly wealthy tended to pay about the same percentage in taxes. They simply diverted from making money to hiding money. Hired more accountants rather than more engineers.

As for them not investing money instead of spending it - That's the best way to grow the economy.

And I'm not too sympathetic for the 'poor' either. I happen to like the idea of charging a flat $4k or whatever per adult to fund our country. That way the largest portion of our population would be trying to get them to spend less.

I've paid income taxes even as a minimum wage earner. I think that's for the best.

You are exactly right with your last sentence. This is why there is a monthly rebate paid at the beginning of each month for the taxes that one would pay up to the poverty line. Since it is paid at the beginning of the month, the book refers to it as a "prebate." Those below the poverty line end up paying no net taxes; In fact, they get a prebate check each month for more than they could have possibly paid in taxes. Consult the chart here for info on the prebate.

In response to the rest of your post, doesn't the thought of these smaller companies paying taxes "out the wazoo" to keep their suppliers domestic bother you? The Fair Tax levels the playing field somewhat in this respect.

There are A LOT of companies doing this. Why? Because of our communistic oppressive taxation system. The solution? http://www.fairtax.org/ . Who can blame them for wanting to keep more of they money that they EARNED? Income is not distributed, folks. It is earned. Once something is done about our ridiculous taxation system, maybe some of those offshore accounts with all of the TRILLIONS of dollars that are in them will come back home where they belong. Until then, they will remain where the money can work for the person that earned it instead of for a tax and spend government. By the way, if you disagree with the FairTax, please GET THE FUCK OUT of my country. You do not deserve to live in a free society leeching off MY hard earned and then confiscated tax dollars.

Support the FairTax, bring corporate headquarters back to the US and end this ridiculous waste of everyone's time.

Why we need to dump the IRS and go with the fair tax! http://www.fairtax.org/

Under the FairTax, there would be no tax due on sales of any used items.

-jcr

The FairTax plan is a comprehensive proposal that replaces all federal income and payroll taxes with an integrated approach including a progressive national retail sales tax, a rebate to ensure no American pays federal taxes up to the poverty level, dollar-for-dollar revenue neutrality, and the repeal of the 16th Amendment. This non-partisan legislation (HR 25/S 25) abolishes all federal personal, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security, Medicare, self-employment, and corporate taxes and replaces them all with one simple, visible, federal retail sales tax - collected by existing state sales tax authorities. The FairTax taxes us only on what we choose to spend, not on what we earn. It does not raise any more or less revenue; it is designed to be revenue neutral. So it is also cost neutral - the final cost for goods and services changes little under the FairTax. The FairTax is a fair, efficient, transparent, and intelligent solution to the frustration and inequity of our current tax system.

another good reason for pushing the FairTax and getting rid of Federal Income Tax altogether.

Taxes suck. The Canadian form of taxing on winnings makes total sense. Laws like this only keep good men/women down. Maybe it's time for a tax revolution such as this?

Shouldn't this story have been labeled under Politics rather than Science?
http://www.fairtax.org/
Like the cliche says: "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." The U.S. Tax code has been re-engineered for one purpose to empower the powerful "Professional Politicians" and special interest groups and lobbyist, while holding back the common man. We went to war against England over a 1/2% tax on tea.... Then again the British Pound Sterling was worth a lot more than our current neutered U.S.
Dollar.

They usually ask for your SSN (Social inSecurity Number) at the time you apply for a job. If you don't provide it, you probably aren't even considered for any position with their organization.

What would be nice is a strict privacy law that prevents SSNs for being used for anything other than communications with the IRS. Credit bureaus, banks, potential (not actual) employers, would be liable for a large penalty under such a law for even asking about your SSN unless they have already hired you or generated taxable income for you. Ideally, there would be a FairTax, not an income tax, and latter point would be moot -- SSNs would be irrelevant and you could (legally) fill in any 9-decimal-digit number where a form requests/demands an SSN and nobody could object to the figure you provide on legal grounds -- to do so would be unfair discrimination. The idea there is to make the government turn against itself, with the equal opportunity folks battling the revenuers, leaving the rest of us citizens to quietly enjoy our lives without annoying intrusions by Big Brother and Big Corp.

For another flat federal sales tax idea... take a look at FairTax. The basic idea is all purchases are taxed, and everyone gets a rebate check monthly for (poverty level income) * (tax rate).

Nephilium

With some notable exceptions, businessmen favor free enterprise in general but are opposed to it when it comes to themselves. - Milton Friedman

(I accidentally posted this above in reply to the wrong post. I duplicate it here, anonymously and karma-free. If you like it, mod the previous one up.)

Congress just needs to say "Everyone has to pay X amount of what they make each year."

Wrong.

Congress just needs to say "Everyone has to pay X amount of what they make each year."

Wrong.

I think the best way to go is to only use sales taxes. That way, you tax the "idle rich", the wealthy that have lots of money but don't necessarily have an income to tax, because they still buy stuff. The more you make, the more cool stuff you can buy, but the more tax you pay. But if you are poor, and only buy the essentials, you basically pay no tax. Check out fairtax.org/.

The alternative to income taxes would be federal sales tax, which is generally considered to put an undue tax burden on people who don't make a lot of money...eg, the rich man and the poor man buy a loaf of bread, and the 30 cents tax on the bread that goes to the Fed means nothing to the rich man, but means a lot to the poor man.

"the rich man and the poor man buy a loaf of bread, and the 30 cents tax on the bread that goes to the Fed means nothing to the rich man, but means a lot to the poor man."

Not with the "fairtax". Under the "FairTax" plan, everyone gets a "prebate" equal to (tax percentage * poverty line). Make less than the poverty level, pay no taxes (in fact, you get a check). Make more than that, pay more taxes.

As you said, the .30 tax means a lot more to the poor man than the rich man. The same goes for the "prebate" check.

Some of us detest the income tax, not just because we are "people who make lots of money". The IRS has _way_ too much power, and it really shouldn't be the Government's business how much we make (or not), or what legal means we use to acquire it. Sales tax is already vigorously enforced in many (most?) areas, and what you buy is (usually) bought in public anyway.

I personally prefer a sales tax to the way we are nickel and dimed (personal tax, estate tax, capital gains tax, alternative minimum tax, social security tax, medicare tax, self-employment tax, corporate income tax, and the myriad government-caused fees, surchases, tarrifs, etc.)

No paperwork for most citizens (yay!), less paperwork for businesses (overall, though more for sales-tax related things), illegal immigrants pay taxes, and they don't even get a rebate, removing most of the need of the IRS and their power. What's the downside?

http://www.fairtax.org/

We waste incredible amounts of time and money working around our Byzantine internal revenue code. There's a better way to handle this.

-jcr

I think many readers missed the point of the article, which is not that gamers have to report any IRL income from the game on their tax forms, but rather, how do you make a suitable tax scheme within virtual environments. Many virtual economies suffer from either significant inflation or deflation, which has a tendency to benefit the uber rich players, and penalize the more normalized income players. Which is not unlike IRL economies in different countries around the globe.

I for one think that using virtual economies to experiment with tax reform ideas is an idea far overdue. For example, wouldn't you like to see the The Fair Tax put into practice to see what ramifications it would have on a functioning economy? I mean, that is legislation that is posed annually to the US Congress. Or even implementing a tax system like what a country currently employs, then mucking with it to see if there is a better option.

Unfortunately, while this is a worth while goal, many virtual economies do not have the same market forces as a real one. For example, barrier to entry into a industry is very low. You're an enchanter in WoW and want to be a Tinkerer? No problem, drop your skill and work up points in another. IRL it's not so simple. You want to be a automobile producer? You can't simply aquire skill points and make it happen. You need to purchase capital, expensive capital. Plus virtual economies suffer from other problems as well, such as the ability for people to gain significant market monopoly power. Those of you who play WoW on Arthas and are Horde. Um, sorry about running the Auction House prices on gems up 500%, but the game let me... Game manufacturers and GMs really don't regulate the economy as much as say the Federal Reserve would, and they allow players to establish Cartels and other organizations that will allow them to set prices and control the flow of goods.

While virtual economies are not perfect, with some effort, we could really use them as models to test economic theories without affecting our IRL economies. This would be great for Economists who work on tax reform and other areas. Kudos to someone else finally figuring it out.

-Runz

This would be a lot more costly than you think, and so wouldn't be worth it to a group of local accountants to try to pull off. My father is a CPA with his own business, and he'd love to see his accounting program on Linux to save money, but a new application is out of the question.

There's only a couple of really comprehensive income tax applications out there. My father does accounting for many states, so just because an accountant is in NY, for example, doesn't mean he only does NY taxes. Plus the tax laws are horribly complex, with over 50k pages (depending on who you ask you'll get a number a lot larger than that even), with conflicting rules.

More importantly, the code changes EVERY year, they just can't leave it alone, so it's not a one time investment. Keep in mind, this is not something that does the 1040EZ form - taxes for businesses and people who do a lot of investing and have a lot of deductions and so forth can be very complex and all need different forms. This is not a replacement for the $50 income tax program you can buy every year.

So many of these programs help the accountant manage a business or someone's personal finances all year long, and then automatically generate the correct paperwork, but that's only a tiny portion of my dad's business, most of which happens between January and May.

Now, if you got thousands of accountants to pony up money ahead of time with the promise that in two years or so they will have a replacement, then it might work. Good luck with that.

I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm saying it's not a practical solution in anything but a truly LONG term approach, which requires investment money that won't see a return for way too long.

A better approach is to support the FairTax and just eliminate the need for such complexity altogether.

BTW, to keep this a bit more on topic - my dad is currently running Windows 2K workstations at his office. He upgraded from 98 about three years ago, which is several years after XP was released. If history repeats itself, he'll be upgrading to XP when the first version of Vista is nearing it's end of life. He read an article similar to this one and was really worried about all the upgrades he'd have to do (small office, but still 4 or 5 computers can be very expensive for a small business like his) until I pointed out that he's still running 2K, not even the latest OS, and that his computers are more than capable of running XP, and that in 2 or three years, by the time he upgrades to XP, his computers will be more than capable of running Vista.

Now, if Vista gives us something fundamentally different - if the accounting software people decide to use Vista only features, it will be a different story. But as I pointed out, the bloated software is already of beastly proportions because of the complicated tax code and how many new rules need to be written in every year (or removed) - they're not porting it to a new platform any time soon.