This plan covers that and also allows for it. People considered poor by some standard have to pay the tax on every purchase just like the rest of us. That way they see and feel what the government is doing to them. Then, if you are below the poverty level, you get a monthly check from the govt. for what is considered the tax you have paid on necessities. The amount of the check is based on your income, how many people in your family and the cost of living.
The beauty of this plan is that it makes the IRS useless. It would be cut back to a large accounting department to keep track of the money. No longer will it have to employ all the data processors, files, computers, form printers, forms, rules and BS.
Not really. How are you going to compute where somebody is on the poverty scale without an IRS? Somebody has to track if you have income and what it is. The IRS might be smaller, and only interested in the poor and near-poor, but would be that much more onerous because if it. You'll still have a lot of politics involved in setting the rules for meeting the poverty limit.
If the state of New Jersey were to write the rules, there would be location adjustment, and the poverty limit would be 80,000 in Hoboken, and 10,000 in Holmdel. Guess which party rules in each town. The national democrats would do the same thing, but would be more slick about it.
The only way to make this fair is to set the rate, and maybe exempt food & medicine. I really don't care if the rich get a cut on caviar to balance the general lower cost of milk. There's not enough caviar sold to be worry about.
Rebates are just another way for politicians to curry votes by robbing Peter to pay Paul. Let everybody pay, and then should you want to hand out government money, rather than calling it a 'rebate', call it charity, as that is what it is.
Actually everyone (both rich and poor) gets a check for the taxes paid up to the poverty level. The government doesn't get to know how much you make - only the number of people who live in your household. Consider this to be similar to the standard deduction on the income tax.
Actually, every household would get the rebate check. Noone pays taxes on necessities up to the poverty level, except illegals and tourists and others who aren't in the system to receive a rebate check. So not only would illegals get taxed, they would get taxed MORE.