It was recently suggested in a letter to the editor that the nation adopt a “graduated flat tax.” The writer was distressed because the wealthy seem not to have to pay their fair share of income taxes; that the tax burden for our country falls unfairly on the middle class and the poor. He should, however, be disturbed by the fact that anyone, rich or poor, must pay any personal tax. After all, the great American dream is to become wealthy and we work hard to achieve that end.

Why should those who have “made it” be punished for their success, regardless of what legitimacy achieved it? And why should the government impede the working and want-to-be-working, non-wealthy from being able to achieve their dream?

Personal taxes, when all is said and done, accomplish only this: the growth of government and its power and authority, intrusion into our private lives and the government’s ever-increasing encroachment on our constitutionally guaranteed freedoms.

One of our former IRS commissioners, Coleman Andrews, said of the implementation of the income tax: “Congress went beyond merely enacting an income tax law, but effectively repealed Article IV of the Bill of Rights, thereby empowering the tax collector to do the very things from which Article IV says we are to be secure. It opened up our homes, our papers, and our effects to the prying eyes of government agents and set the stage for searches of our books and vaults and for inquiries into our private affairs whenever the tax men might decide, even though there might not be any justification beyond mere cynical suspicion.”

Some are impressed with how simple a graduated flat tax would be; I contend that it can’t be more simple, or better, than no personal tax. Jim Dixon Southwest Harbor