Years ago I came up with a crazy tax scheme that was so nutty it might work. Here's the revised version.

The total of all taxes may not exceed ten percent. Sales tax can be no more than ten percent total. Property taxes can be no more than ten percent.

The Federal government receives nine percent of any and all taxes and fees collected in it's jurisdiction.

Any government entity receives nine percent of any and all taxes and fees collected in it's jurisdiction. States would receive nine percent of all Federal taxes collected, nine percent of all county taxes collected, nine percent of all city taxes, nine percent of all school district taxes, and so on.

Cities would receive nine percent of all Federal taxes collected, nine percent of all state taxes collected, and so on.

There are four goals here. First is to put an absolute limit on taxes.

Second is to move the focusing of tax auditing away from the citizens and to the various governments. All those levels of government can keep an eye on each other.

Third, all those levels of government will want to maximize their own revenue and not share. Which means limiting the number of governments involved.

Finally, the Federal government can't dictate how a city will spend it's share of Federal revenues.