| SEDIT -- The Self-Directed Income Tax |
Welcome!
What this site is not about...
What's new on the SEDIT page(latest update: 31 Mar 98)Welcome to another long-overdue update of the SEDIT page, providing you with information about the Self-Directed Income Tax -- a Modest Proposal to return decision-making power to American taxpayers. I've caught up on the backlog (at last! hallelujah!), so the numbers that you see on the results page are the most recent averages. I have been considering changing the focus and structure of the survey; many submitters have mentioned the proper role of the federal government as opposed to states and municipalities, but the SEDIT idea is applicable, perhaps even more applicable, to those other governments as well. We might add a couple of columns... but please stay tuned. One thing that is definitely new is that I think I have focused in on a critical aspect of this idea, which is explored in the essay "The Self-Directed Income Tax and Religious Freedom". Please check it out and let me know what you think. In the future, I still hope to be able to enable real-time updating of the statistics. If you have any clue about how I might actually do that, please drop me a line. From the previous update, March 1996: Since this page was first put up (quietly) in April 1995, we have logged more than 500 visits to the page, and have received more than 50 responses to the survey. Strangely enough, at first very few of those responses actually provided numbers reflecting the respondees' suggested spending priorities -- the rest were either variations on "It's a great idea, but it wouldn't work" or "Let me share with you my ideas for the complete restructuring of the American political and financial system, only $29.95." Fortunately, that's changed, and the numbers submitted in the past few months represent everything from the effects of raw ideology and knee-jerk reaction to thoughtful consideration of personal and national priorities, and even perceptive questioning of the survey's basic assumptions. I find myself enheartened and pleasantly surprised by the results. Hopefully, you'll find the results interesting and perhaps even enlightening -- and if this page makes even a few people stop and think about something they haven't thought about before, I will consider the time well spent. Welcome, and thanks for visiting! What is the Self-Directed Income Tax?(written April 1995)Well, it's that time of year again... the time when patriotic Americans show their patriotism by giving Uncle Sam the absolute minimum amount of tax money possible. This may seem paradoxical--one could imagine a society where people are eager to contribute to the workings of their government. Nevertheless, while politicians and pundits take it as given that people don't want to pay taxes, few bother to examine why this should be the case. Clearly, many of the factors involved are purely economic--but another cause is our perception that we don't really have significant control over how our tax dollars are spent. Letters and phone calls to our representatives have limited impact compared to the influence of corporate lobbyists and Washington's established bureaucracies. So, why not circumvent the bureaucracies, and take back control of our tax dollars? There's a way to accomplish this: the Self-Directed Income Tax (SEDIT). In its simplest form, this would take the form of a chart at the end of your tax form, listing the various functions of government. You would just fill in the percentages to specify which areas of government you wanted your tax dollars to support. To mention only one benefit of this plan, Americans would no longer be obligated to support any government activity that was offensive to their moral beliefs -- whether it was public broadcasting or defense spending, the CIA or the NEA. There are many more implications to such a plan, and much to be said about it, both pro and con. I invite interested folks to join in discussion on the appropriate newsgroups (such as misc.taxes) and mailing lists, or to write to me with your comments and ideas. To promulgate this idea, and to get people thinking about their priorities, I am offering folks on the Net the opportunity to try out this idea with the SEDIT Survey. [return to top][return to smendler home page] |