At tax time, lots of money under table

Christian Science Monitor ^ | 4/13/05 | Ron Scherer

[Zhangliqun]

No I haven't read or even heard of HR 25. But I do know what a VAT is and that is not what I am proposing. The money should be taxed only once, not multiple times.

[hosepipe]

The federal government is BLACK HOLE..
No amount of money/funds will EVER be enough..EVER..

Withholding funds from the federal government by individual taxpayers by any legal means is a PATRIOTIC DEED...

[ol' hoghead]

The paint must have been on sale.

[Hillary's Lovely Legs]

Your house looks to be about 6 garbage cans wide.

[jslade]

With the FairTax your money is only taxed once. Check out fairtax.org. Some great info there.

[Swordfished]

Here in Santa Monica, if you wash your neighbors pays you $20 to wash his car, and you report this as extra income on your taxes, the city will hunt you down and force you to pay a yearly 'business license' tax. Minimum $75/year, first time fee $95, then $1.25/$60,000 gross business after that. So the company doing $3.6 million in business pays $1.25 more than the guy who washed a car once.

Really encourages hobbyists!

If I hear that 'render to Caesar' line one more time...

[JeffAtlanta]

A national sales tax, YES. And at the wholesale level ONLY.

That would be a disaster. Retail ONLY is the way to go. Then everyone knows how much tax they pay.

This also eliminates the taxation of businesses and the need for a whole floor of tax accountants and lawyers.

[Swordfished]

if you wash your neighbors pays you $20 to wash his car

make that:

"...if you wash your neighbor's car for $20,..."

[Somewhat Centrist]

It would "catch" the painter on the spending side, same as you and me. It puts us on equal footing with the underground economy.

Note that most estimates of NRST rates don't tak ethe underground economy into account.

If the 15% in the article is right, NRST could be significantly cheaper than current estimates. I suspect the 15% is low, especially with all the illegal immigrants we have nowadays.

---

I'm afraid I'll have to burst your bubble, but since money spent on "illegal services" would not be taxed as consumption you have come no further than you have in not taxing the same transaction as illegal earnings.

The consumption tax paid by illegal workers would make up for the tax not being levied against legal workers purchasing illegal services.

[Salgak]

Maybe I shouldn't have picked that quarter off the ground in the parking lot the other day. . . Gasp! Arggh!! UNDECLARED INCOME!!! (grin)

[Publius6961]

You are out of your cotton-pickin' mind.
Plain English is plain English. Or we can go to the original Greek, if you'd like.

[not too stupid]

How so? If someone paid a painter $600 in cash under the table to paint his house, how would the FairTax catch this?

The fair tax taxes consumption not income. Any serive you buy is not taxed.

[jec41]

Income tax is the real don't, ask don't tell policy.

[biff]

Need to add a second floor to that little baby!!! LOL

[Somewhat Centrist]

Um, dude, that would exempt some 70% of the economy. The tax rate on goods would have to be astronomical to make up for that, like 300%, and then people would spend even less on services...

There is no way that would work, even if people continued to buy goods at the same rate the underground economy for goods would take off bigtime.

[biblewonk]

In a govt. 'Of the people, by the people, and for the people', we 'the people' are caesar with the govt. in the role of servant.

You must be pretty disappointed if you think that is what we have.

[newgeezer]

You and many others are taking that quote out of context. When Christ said that, he was pointing out that GOD owned czar, and that everything that czar has is GOD's. So in other words, czar has no claim to anything, GOD has claim to all.

Pay your taxes. Obey your civil authorities. If that ever applied to anyone, it applies to us. If we don't like the tax laws, we can change them.

(But, since most taxpayers seem to view tax time as a gift from Uncle Sugar -- thanks to overwithholding, the AVERAGE refund is > $2300! -- I don't expect to see any big changes anytime soon.)

[JeffAtlanta]

Um, dude, that would exempt some 70% of the economy. The tax rate on goods would have to be astronomical to make up for that, like 300%, and then people would spend even less on services...

This has already been hashed out - the plan is solid. Everyone buys something with their money eventually. There is no way that retail purchases only make up 30% of the economy.

[LibWhacker]

LOL . . . That's gotta be San Francisco!

[JoeGar]

My barber has an interesting business -- no cash register, no checks -- just a bankroll of bills in his pocket. I'm positive he reports every haircut to the IRS.