re: The Flat Tax

You still have to define what exactly is subject to tax, and determine how to measure, or account for, what you are taxing. How do you tax the sale of something you manufacture? On the sales price, or on the sales price less the cost to manufacture? How do you determine the cost to manufacture? Do you use cash basis or accrual basis accounting?

A flat tax would reduce, but not eliminate, CPAs and tax attorneys value to taxpayers. I'd be willing to bet more people would turn to accountants and lawyers to file their initial returns under the flat tax than currently. And they would certainly use professionals leading up to the conversion to figure out how to minimize their total tax over the transition period.

All a flat tax would do is eliminate some tax planning to manage marginal tax rates. It wouldn't change the process of determining income subject to tax.