BillyTK said:
Please to explain! I suspect many arguments arise here as a result of lack of sensitivity to regional differences of the object being debated, and I admit that all I know about the US income tax system comes from a particular episode of The Simpsons, in which Homer becomes a stoolie for the FBI. 
The main problem with saying the income tax is unconstitutional is the problem that it is specifically allowed for by a constitutional amendment. Even shanek agrees on this point, to let you know just how far downstream those that call the tax "unconstitutional" are...
The main problem with calling it slavery is that it is such a broad use of a term that calling such a tax slavery makes the word "slavery" meaningless, and since "slavery" has a pretty direct cultural meaning in the U.S. (that whole plantation, Beloved, Gone With The Wind and Civil War thing...), it such labelling can be seen as either gross insensitivity or an attempt to use the suffering of others to make a cheap political point.
As far as the income tax goes, every year every U.S. resident and citizen must file a form listing all income for the year. Also, the goernment allows deductions for cretain things, such as business expenses, mortgage interest, and charitable gifts. These must be listed.
Thus, I must file a form containing quite a bit of personal data every year. Plus, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has the power to "audit" me, which means they can crawl up my butt with a microscope and force me to provide proof for every deduction and any money that they think I needed to list as income. "Lifestyle audits" are even better. The IRS looks at my life and decides that my expressed income is too small for the way I live, and makes me prove I'm not hiding anything.
Small businesses get shafted when the IRS decides that a certain expense is too high for a business size or type and decideds to disallow it as a deduction, absent direct proof that the expense was paid. This creates a bookkeeping and storage expense as all recipts and such must be recorded.
None of this would really matter all that much if the income tax was maybe one or two percent of income, but it is quite a bit higher. Most people have the tax "withheld" from their paycheck and never really see the massive amount going out, as usually the amount withheld is in excess of the account owed, creating a "refund" when the yearly return is filed. This allows the government to somehow create positive re-enforcement for filing the tax return simply by paying back what amounts to an interest free loan.
However, those of us that have now or in the past made a living other than working for an outside company fully understand how much money is going out for these taxes. Not just the check to the feds, but the all the money and time wasted on compliance with the tax code, and the perverse incentives towards wasteful and inefficient economic behaviour it causes.
It is a policy with many hidden costs, costs that since they are not visible to the vast majority of Americans are ignored when the issue is debated.
All in all I'm not bothered by the amount of tax so much as the invasion of privacy and cost of compliance of the tax in its present form.
