This article is the first part of a two-part examination of the contentious issue of how state governments' provision of goods and services to the public should be taxed under a VAT.

Cutting the payroll tax cut, or even eventually eliminating it, might make more sense - if it happens on the Medicare, rather than Social Security side, of FICA.

To establish Social Security as a sustainable, solvent program, changes are necessary. A wide range of reforms have been proposed in recent years, and many of those proposals include changes both to future benefits and to payroll taxes.

Many retirees feel they have ‘paid’ for benefits through their payroll taxes. This is much closer to being true for Social Security than it is for Medicare.

Approximately 140 million federal tax returns were filed in the weeks and months leading up to April 18 this year. We know from past years that over one-third of taxpayers will file "non-taxable returns," meaning that they will not owe any federal income tax.

The real question is not whether millionaires should pay more than the middle class, but whether they should pay more than they do today? Raising millionaires' taxes may seem fair--they can obviously afford to pay more. But, this policy has significant economic costs.

If a value added tax is adopted, the revenue should be used to eliminate the corporate income tax and the Medicare portion of the payroll and self-employment taxes.

In this “Health Care 101” guide, Christopher J. Conover, author of the just-released “American Health Economy Illustrated,” distinguishes fact from fiction and answers some of the most fundamental questions about health care and health spending in America.