Posted on 10/31/2011 6:40:27 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Person A buys $100 worth of goods and pays $5 in taxes.
Person B buys $100 worth of goods and pays $5 in taxes.
That’s flat. This really isn’t a hard concept. What they make is irrelevant. Sales tax has *absolutely nothing* to do with wealth. You’re making the claim that that $5 represents significantly more to one person than the other. It does, but so does *any* $5 that belongs to that person. The tax is not determined by their income or their wealth. It’s determined based on the price of the goods they buy.
Are you also arguing that all goods and services are priced regressively? You necessarily must. If Person A buys a car for $10,000 and makes $30,000 and Person B buys a car for $10,000 and makes $60,000, will you go whine that the price of cars is regressive?
“Imagine taking home ALL the income you earn.”
Nice to imagine it but then paying a 25% tax on anything I buy surely would dampen that. From what I’ve heard that’s the tax it’ll take on consumption to replace the income tax.
“Secondly, the truly rich can today, under the income tax, order their lives in such a way that they can live like kings consuming like crazy while paying very little if any “income” tax.”
They do that because of all the loopholes in the current system. Part of the flat tax is to eliminate loopholes.
I saw it asked only once on FR, and never answered.
What is the constitutionality of a national sales or consumption tax?
How can the federal government tax intra-state transactions?
The Constitution already prohibits taxing goods that move between states.
Article I Section 9No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.
So, how can they tax purchases made within a state when the jurisdiction of the federal government is between states and between the United States and foreign countries?
-PJ
If they don’t have “income” how will you tax it?
If they don’t have ‘income’ now how are they taxed?
With the income tax, ANY income tax, the entire problem surrounds the definition of “Income” and who get’s to make the determination as to what it is, or is not.
An income tax is unworthy of any people who would call themselves free!
That’s a straw man argument you presented, the definition of what is income has already been dealt with and is already in place.
Its the deductions and other loop holes that are the problem.
Everyone needs to pay something - keeps citizens on the same side - the side of keeping government small and efficient.
Yours is that straw man since the definition of "income" in the tax code changes with GREAT regularity and though it is defined one way today does not mean that it cannot be something else entirely under the next legislature!
That something is difficult to do does not equal being the wrong thing to do.
The right thing to do is frequently difficult. We got here because we keep repeating the same “political expedient” mistake over and over and over.
Give the pariolous state of our, and the worlds, fiscal house, we cannot keep kicking the can down the road any longer
"... lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States."
You are misquoting the Constitution. The article you site prohibits tariffs being imposed by individual states on goods traded between the several states. It does not prevent taxes equally imposed by the Fed on all states.
Actually they don't.
Because of the exemptions written into the Flat Tax the same problem in the current code exists with a Flat Tax
It still divides Americans into tax payers and tax spenders.
The Consumption tax eliminates that divide by making everyone have skin in the game.
Currently tax hikes are hidden inside the thousands of changes in the Tax code made every year. They are passed off as "a business tax" or "making the rich pay"
You cannot hide those tax hikes with a consumption tax. Since everyone pays, everyone knows any tax hike effects them personally
Maybe, maybe not.
I have been using this website as my source for the Constitution. They label Article I Section 9 as "Limits on Congress." They label Article I Section 10 as "Powers Prohibited Of States."
Unless their sub-headings are wrong, they think that Section 9 restricts Congress, not the States.
But the source could be wrong, or over-simplified, I'll give you that. But if they are right, then I'd say that you have it backwards, that it prevents the Feds from taxing goods between the states, not the states themselves. Section 10 clause 2 prohibits the states from taxing imports. or exports.
-PJ
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
I guess we will have to wait to see which way the Courts rule on it since it not clear cut either way.
“Yours is that straw man”
How in the world is that?? My argument is based on current code which is a fact, yours is based on speculation of the future and is anything BUT a fact.
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