Posted on 10/13/2011 2:31:28 PM PDT by La Enchiladita
Be my guest. NYSlimes material.
There are good reasons to oppose a national sales tax, Bartletts crying about getting thr 47% without skin in the game in the game ain’t one of them.
The article is wrong.
Cain’s plan is clearly on RETAIL sales only.
A third party getting facts wrong in an article is not persuasive.
Yeah, but Bartlett says Perry is an idiot.
That should please a bunch of folks.
I much prefer Perry to Bartlett.
Yeah, me too.
I just read the article from the link you furnished. At the end of the article is this "update":
Update: Kevin Seifert, a spokesman for Ryan, clarified late Thursday that the budget committee chairman was not endorsing Cain or the specifics of the 9-9-9 plan, but rather that he loved that it was becoming “a starting point for a larger conversation on tax reform.”
On the contrary, it will take a lot fewer IRS employees. Right now, everybody who makes a living has to file. With my proposal, only those wanting a rebate would file. That's obviously a smaller number. Plus the paperwork will be a lot easier.
So it simplifies the process immensely directly. And nobody will have to pay accountants to hide assets (except people filing fraudulent rebate forms). Most important, it makes filing a return voluntary. You want a rebate? File a tax return. You don't want a rebate, or know you won't qualify? You don't have to file anything.
Hard to imagine a simpler system than that. It DEFINITELY requires smaller bureaucracy than what the IRS is now.
Plus it's more politically feasible, because it would be acceptable to those who believe the poorest among should pay less taxes than those who are better off.
And it could be filed annually, just like the tax returns are now. Or maybe people could file quarterly in exchange for a slightly smaller rebate.
And oh yeah, I almost forgot. There's no withholding tax, so that means people are no longer giving the government an interest free loan like they do now.
Didn't I read somewhere that Laffer voted for Bill Clinton TWICE?
He hopes 9-9-9 will be well received, and make the Fair Tax easily understood and accepted.
I don’t post. I just comment.
“there is no payroll tax for Social Security and Meidcare.”
Then how will those two programs be paid for?
Out of the “general revenues”?
Regardless of whether SS and Medicare are solvent in the future (of course we know that they will not be), their respective payroll taxes provide a direct source of funding for them.
If anything, we have seen the revenues raised from SS “raided” from it’s (so-called) trust fund and used for other (general) purposes.
If the payroll tax (on both workers and employers) is ended, it’s going to take nearly all of the proposed 9% national sales tax to pay for SS and Medicare. Hmmm... on second thought, not only will SS/Medicare consume all of the 9%, it _still_ won’t be enough.
Retired folks aren’t going to like this, and they aren’t going to vote for it. The elimination of the payroll tax does nothing for them, AND, they’ll be saddled with a totally new tax of (at least) 9% on all their expenditures. And may even see their SS benefits cut on top of that (which may be likely no matter what happens).
Our side does not win votes with “plans” like this.
Whatever happened to G.H.W. Bush’s simple pledge:
“No new taxes!” ??
What has happened to “conservatism”?
Here on FR we revel in taunting others for “drinking the Kool Aid”. But seems like there’s pitchers upon pitchers of it, right here for the drinkin’!
Mr. Cain had better re-think his ideas.
Just sayin’....
9-9-9 is a BAD idea.
As soon as the Democats got the House and Senate again, what is to stop them from making that 18-12-6.
You see, right now we have a heavy handed income tax. I don’t care how low you drop the income tax rate, but when you add the Federal sales tax, you have now given the US Central government an entirely new tax to abuse. What starts out as a 9% income tax and 9% sales tax, can be voted any day to a 30% income tax and a 12% sales tax.
No thank you. The only way I would accept a 9-9-9 plan is by a Constitutional Amendment which codifies that 9% rate in the amendment, with NO provision allowed for the increase of any of those rates, only their decrease.
Please don’t let the government add a sales tax to an income tax. They will eventually ream us between the two of them.
9-9-9 is a BAD idea.
As soon as the Democats got the House and Senate again, what is to stop them from making that 18-12-6.
You see, right now we have a heavy handed income tax. I don’t care how low you drop the income tax rate, but when you add the Federal sales tax, you have now given the US Central government an entirely new tax to abuse. What starts out as a 9% income tax and 9% sales tax, can be voted any day to a 30% income tax and a 12% sales tax.
No thank you. The only way I would accept a 9-9-9 plan is by a Constitutional Amendment which codifies that 9% rate in the amendment, with NO provision allowed for the increase of any of those rates, only their decrease.
Please don’t let the government add a sales tax to an income tax. They will eventually ream us between the two of them.
“there is no payroll tax for Social Security and Meidcare. “
So which part of Cain’s plan of 9/9/9 pays for S.S. and Medicare (at least for folks over 55)?
“When you buy a good or service, what hidden factors are incorporated into the retail price outside transit cost and vendor markup?”
Like our phone bills!
That pretty much covers food, shelter, and the doctor, and that's most of what you need to live.
Beyond that, 9% isn't so bad.
A constitutional amendment is a good idea to keep all three rates the same (no individual rate can be raised or lowered without raising or lowering the other rates), however I disagree on your premise that the rate can only go down, not up. (While we are at it we might as well throw in a balanced budget amendment too.)
First of all, the 9-9-9 plan, according to Cain, is a middle step to a pure ‘Fairtax’ plan that eliminates all taxes except a consumption tax. This just gets people used to the idea because it’s a radical departure from the thievery we are used to now. With that said, being able to raise or lower the rate is CRUCIAL to controlling how fast the economy moves as the rate (under this tax scheme) is directly proportional to economic growth. If economy is moving too fast and inflation is feared, the rate can be raised to slow the economy down. Likewise, if the economy growth is too slow, the rate can be lowered to speed things up.
Second, the tax rate (since it is completely transparent) now becomes effectively a feedback inhibition loop...meaning that it is effectively ‘self-limiting’. Not only would higher taxes be instantly felt by everyone but raising them too high would grind the economy to a halt (political suicide). The overall goal quickly becomes economic homeostasis, which is the rate settled upon that grows economy at a fair rate while not too fast where inflation becomes a problem.
“Like our phone bills!”
Exactly! Under the 9-9-9 plan Prices of everything would quickly drop perhaps 15% or more because companies would no longer need to incorporate their taxes and cost of compliance into the price of their goods or services. Under a pure Fairtax plan, this % would be even greater.
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