To the editor:

Steve Moore’s brief column in Friday’s edition of the Independent is absurdly inaccurate (boarding on out-right dishonesty).

He starts out with the claim that “[Trump’s] tariffs could raise as much as $6 trillion over the next decade in federal tax collections. These include up to 104% tariffs on China, plus the combination of reciprocal tariffs — we charge them whatever they charge us.”

There is no such thing as a “tariff on China” or any other country for that matter. U.S. imposed tariffs are taxes on items (clothing, electronics, food, raw materials, etc) imported into the US. They are charged to the importing company — not the country of origin itself — and ultimately paid by the consumer purchasing those items. Tariffs are sales taxes on imported goods, period. (Does Walmart pay your Minnesota and Marshall sales taxes for you?) And, just like sales taxes, the middle class and the poor will pay a higher percent of their income on the increased costs of tariffs than the wealthy –simply because they, by necessity, spend a much greater portion of their income on basic needs such as food and clothing.

And then Mr. Moore proposes to use the revenue from those tariffs to pay for tax cuts — for the wealthy. He proposes a “15% flat tax on everything”: personal income tax, corporate income tax, capital gains tax and estate tax. A 15% flat tax would be a tax cut for corporations, large estates (currently only estates larger than $14,000,000+ for single tax payers or $28,000,000+ for married couples pay any federal estate tax), and high income earners. It would be an income tax increase for single people earning less than $87,250 or married couples earning less than $174,500 per year, compared to our current graduated income tax rates and standard deduction.

His idea that we should eliminate all taxes and fund the government solely through tariffs and land sales is too ridiculous to merit a rebuttal.

Paul Bridgland

Marshall