Anyone unfamiliar with Steve Forbes's prescription for reforming the Internal Revenue Service, which is to replace it with a postcard, might want to start the initiation process with his latest book, titled “Flat Tax Revolution''.

Forbes, the two-time Republican presidential candidate and chief executive officer of Forbes Inc., lays out concisely how different life would be with a single, low tax rate on all income.

For corporations, the flat tax means hundreds of millions of dollars saved each year on tax compliance. In the meantime, individuals would get an across-the-board tax cut, thereby increasing their incentives to work and form businesses. And for the government there would be additional tax revenue from stronger economic growth and reduced incentives for tax avoidance.

The question is: why isn’t everyone clamoring for a flat tax?

The answer to this question is that the current tax code is Washington's way of retaining its hold on power. This is the reason why, short of a huge grass-roots swell of support, the flat-tax reform that is sweeping Eastern Europe is still a pipe dream in the U.S.

The plan Forbes has is quite simple: All income would be taxed only once, and as close to the source as possible.

Forbes uses a 17% rate, which is a far cry from what Forbes refers to our current complex “assortment of rates and deductions, favoring certain types of investment or behavior (that) produce a distorting effect on the economy with far reaching ramifications.''

Under a flat-tax, decisions would be made for economic reasons. There would be no tax shelters whose function is tax avoidance. According to Forbes, a flat tax would be “too transparent, too simple, to hide tax liabilities.''

Most current exemptions and deductions, including those for the mortgage interest and charitable giving, would be eliminated.

For anyone turned off by losing the mortgage deduction, Forbes has a compromise plan: You can still continue wasting both your time and money to stay with the system. Last year, Americans spent over 6 billion hours and $200 billion preparing their tax returns.

However, for the rest of us, Tax Day (April 15) would become just another day in the calendar year as we file our entire return on a single-page form or postcard.

Forbes has torn down all the arguments against the flat tax, including the loss of the mortgage deduction. This is because lenders would no longer have to pay taxes on the interest they earn from borrowers, which would cause mortgage rates to fall, offsetting the deduction.

Forbes presents evidence showing that charitable giving is not a function of a particular tax rate but, more accurately, a reflection of the economy's health. According to Forbes, even as the top marginal tax rate fluctuated between 70% and 28%, charitable giving remained constant at about 2% of national income.

Although Forbes sympathizes with the idea of having a national retail sales tax, his flat tax wins the competition, starting with the fact that it wouldn’t need a constitutional amendment, only a simple law, to implement it.

Here are some of the ways Forbes says we'd be better off with a flat tax:

* A flat tax unleashes productive resources in this country through its incentives to work, invest and save.
* A flat tax makes U.S. corporations more competitive overseas, freeing them from having to pay taxes to the U.S. government on income earned abroad.
* A flat tax benefits low-income families, with a family of four not having to pay federal income tax on its first $46,165 of income.
* A flat tax provides a bonus for the federal government, with revenue projected to increase $56 billion, more than they would have under the current system over the next decade

At the present time, the tax code is so convoluted and complex that even those whose job it is to understand it don't. A recent Treasury Department study found that so-called IRS “experts'' manning toll-free help lines gave the wrong answers to tax-related questions 27% of the time. Adding insult to injury, Forbes writes. “And yes, you are still liable for any errors, even if it's the IRS that makes the mistake!''

But the best reason for scrapping the federal tax code, which contains 9 million words including the rules and regulations that go along with it, is that it will take the corruption out of politics and return the country to us, i.e., “We, the people.''

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