Date: 2/25/2013
Tax Notes quotes Caplin & Drysdale's founder,
Mortimer M. Caplin on creating a new revenue source apart from current income tax to pay for the cost of government.
Excerpt taken from the article.
Mortrimer Caplin, who served as IRS commissioner during the John F. Kennedy administration, argued instead that every taxpayer should fill out a tax return as "part of the price of citizenship." He agreed, however, that the United States may have to adopt a VAT and cited a 1961 speech in which Kennedy argued that a "strong tax system is essential to a strong democracy."
"The Internal Reveue Service at that time had a different function," Caplin said. "A lot of it was really selling to the American public the importance of compliance with our tax laws."
