The income tax only taxed the Rockefellers, the Morgans and the Vanderbilts. It was aimed at the top 4 percent, and the top rate then in 1913, was 7 percent. Woodrow Wilson had a big ceremony and said, "I'm delighted to be president at the creation of this popular new tax."

It turns out a VAT - a value-added tax - is a very easy tax to collect and a very hard tax to evade. It's a really good idea. It was invented about 60 years ago in France, of course. Because they're so good at taxing. They had a business tax that was easy to evade, and the head of the French IRS invented this value-added tax, which is very hard to evade.

We cut tax exemptions in 1986, it was the most admired tax reform in U.S. history. Congress and the president worked together then to eliminate scores of loopholes and exemptions and deductions; this made taxes much simpler, and allowed a major cut in tax rates.

Our tax code becomes so absurdly complex every 32 years that we have no choice but to scrap it and re-write. The 32-year period is up in 2018. So the time has come. History tells us that we're going to produce a fairer, simpler tax code by 2018.

We have the most expensive compliance system in the world. The IRS brags that they spend 35 cents for every $100 they collect. They're very efficient collectors. And the reason is they stick the real cost on you and me.

The Value-Added Tax, a sales tax that applies at every level of business transactions, is an easy tax for governments to collect, and a hard tax to evade.

Corporations use all sorts of complex stratagems to move their profits overseas, and thus escape the U.S. income tax.