The recently passed federal highway bill, Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act, or the FAST Act, creates a new section of the U.S. tax code, 7345, entitled, “Revocation or Denial of Passport in Case of Certain Tax Delinquencies.” No matter how you look at the two IRS power grabs, it spells trouble for the taxpayer. Whether you’ll become a prisoner in your own country by being denied a passport, or harassed by unethical and ruthless IRS sanctioned private debt collectors to settle an alleged tax debt, …

The Fair Tax does not really abolish the IRS. BUT, the FreedomTax would achieve this goal for nearly everyone. As a simple, tax-efficient income tax providing for the at-source taxation of most income, the FreedomTax would end the universal personal-return filing requirement. This reform will result in most people never again having to file a personal tax return to pay their personal tax to the IRS. The FreedomTax will result in a dramatic down-sizing of the IRS, effectively abolishing it from our lives.

The IRS now requires nearly 95,000 employees and an annual operating budget of almost $13 billion to administer a taxation system having a design based upon over 77,000 pages and 5 million words of incomprehensible tax law. The FreedomTax would have a simple and less-burdensome tax design, estimated to reduce the size of the present Tax Code by 95%.

A new agency would be created to administer and oversee the Fair Tax, the Sales Tax Bureau (“STB”). It would be vested with audit and collection powers similar to those of the IRS, as would the state sales-tax authorities working with the STB to run the system. The Fair Tax bills introduced in Congress contain provisions to establish a toll-free telephone violation-reporting system and create a rewards program for private parties who assist the STB authorities in discovering or prosecuting Fair Tax evaders.

As a proxy for the Obama administration, the IRS has thus far successfully achieved their goal of blocking Z Street from educating Americans about the realities of Israel and the Middle East, while preventing them from exercising their First Amendment rights.

A faction whose passion to “transform” America in radical ways loses any sense of fairness or respect for the rule of law. At the center of the scandal is Lois Lerner, the IRS Director of Exempt Organizations. The House voted Lerner to be in contempt of Congress. Only six Democrats voted for the bill, again demonstrating the partisan nature of the scandal. The Obama Justice Department has refused to enforce the contempt charge. The GOP members of the House Ways and Means Committee have asked the new Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, to take action…

Cruz is wise to champion a flat tax early on in the presidential race for the White House, it may be enough to tip some undecided Republicans over to him, especially non-social conservatives who have not yet warmed up to him. He has a long history of advocating for a flat tax. And if he does become president, Cruz is the aggressive, gutsy type of leader who will make it happen.