It is time for a change to the federal tax system. The income tax is a very expensive and inefficient method of collecting revenue. It is very easy to cheat the system by paying people “under the table” and cash businesses to not declare all income. Even though we have a graduated tax scale many times people with higher incomes pay the same or lower tax rate than people with lower incomes because of deductions and loopholes. The tax system discourages small businesses because of having to deal with withholding, quarterly reports, and payroll taxes. Few business owners dare to do their own tax reports so they end up spending hundreds or thousands a year to have their taxes done. Employees with a basic 1040 to fill out quite often pay to have their taxes done to avoid trouble with the government. H&R Block alone is a multi-billion dollar corporation. Businesses have been lost because another company buys competitors and close them and are awarded tax breaks for doing so. There is a much simpler and fairer way of collecting taxes; a national origination tax that taxes non-food products at the manufacturer (for domestic products) and at the receiver (for imported products). This is much easier to enforce and regulate and allows for different rates for domestic and imported products gives American businesses a more even playing field to compete. More business owners would be more willing to hire help because the tax burden would be eliminated. The minimum wage could go up because there would be no employer contributions because they would all be collected in the origination tax. The cost of collecting taxes would be substantially less because there would be less enforcement necessary. Finally since on average a person’s spending is relative to one’s income, people with higher incomes would pay proportionally more taxes than people with less income. Keith Stern North Springfield, VT