Your view is that the repeal of the income tax code would lead to repeal of the 16th amendment. I understand your argument but strongly disagree with it.
Any may disagree.
Frankly, I don't see why Congress would repeal the 16th amendment once the income tax is repealed.
Control of Congress and the Whitehouse is strong incentive, especially with the overwhealming support of the electorate behind such a repeal. But then you can certainly disagree with the potential for that as well.
They'll say, just as YOU are saying, "It isn't necessary. We ABOLISHED the income tax. We ABOLISHED the IRS. Amending the Constitution is hard! We can't get the other guys to go along with it! And we'll never get 3/4 of the states to ratify it!"
They could certainly say that, but that won't get them vote one from the electorate.
But they'll have less incentive than they have now. They'll use the same excuse you use now: It isn't necessary.
Ahh but the excuse now is the income tax is necessary to pay the bills, there is no other tax to replaced it. That has been the situation for 92 years. Besides enough of their constitutents get a free ride under it so their seats are totally safe.
However, whether I'm right or your right, NRSTers who say there is no mechanism by which it could be done are spreading falsehoods. If I were an NRSTer, I would repudiate those posters, because they make my side look bad to folks trying to find an honest debate.
Hmmm, what mechanism are you proposing to repeal the 16th with the income tax system in place that does not suffer from the fact that with the income tax in place means don't need to even let a repeal resolution out of committee.
Besides, why would Congress enact a resolution to amend the constitution when there is always the Flat Tax to be held out as a way to go, which of course needs the 16th amendment for constitutionality as it is yet another income tax, not the mention the employee side of the SS/Medicare taxes (not addressed by Flat Tax) which require the 16th in place as well.
Gee you think maybe that there will be no repeal of the 16th as long as an income tax exists? With 92+ years of political history in this nation to judge from that is not even a bet a sucker would take a position against.
Wait for 16th repeal = Keep the income tax and VAT that is coming right down the pike behind it.
One way
ECONOMY; A New Money Machine for the U.S.; The old ways can't keep up. We need a value-added tax to meet revenue demands.
August 29, 2004 Sunday
by Bruce Bartlett.
http://www.ncpa.org/abo/quarterly/20043rd/clip/20040729lat.htm
or another:
Issue: What Is the Best Way to Collect a Value Added Tax?
A value-added tax (VAT) generally is a tax imposed and collected on the value added at every stage in the production and distribution process of a good or service. Although a VAT may be computed in any of several ways, the amount of value added generally can be thought of as the difference between the value of sales and purchases of a business. (e.g. Revenues - Costs = Taxable Business Income)
***
Subtraction-Method VAT. Under the subtraction method, value added is measured as the difference between a business's taxable sales and its purchases of taxable goods and services from other businesses. At the end of the reporting period, a rate of tax is applied to this difference in order to determine the tax liability. The subtraction method is similar to the credit-invoice method in that both methods measure value added by comparing sales to purchases that have borne the tax.
***
The subtraction method differs from the credit-invoice method principally in that the tax rate is applied to a net amount of value added (sales less purchases) rather than to gross sales with credits for tax on gross purchases. A business's tax liability under the credit-invoice method relies on the business's sales records and purchase invoices, while the tax liability under the subtraction method may rely on records that the taxpayer maintains for income tax or financial accounting purposes
http://waysandmeans.house.gov/fullcomm/106cong/4-11-00/4-11kotl.htm
"Robert Hall, one of the originators of the proposal(Flat Tax), who describes his Flat Tax as, effectively, a Value Added Tax. A value added tax taxes output less investment (because firms get to deduct their investment.)"
"The Flat Tax differs from a VAT in only two respects. First, it asks workers, rather than firm managers, to mail in the check for the tax payment on that portion of output paid to them as wages. Second, it provides a subsidy to workers with low wages."
The Flat Tax; Chapter 3, by Robert Hall and Alvin Rabushka
Here is the logic of our system, stripped to basics: We want to tax consumption. The public does one of two things with its income—spends it or invests it. We can measure consumption as income minus investment. A really simple tax would just have each firm pay tax on the total amount of income generated by the firm less that firm’s investment in plant and equipment. The value-added tax works just that way. But a value-added tax is unfair because it is not progressive. That’s why we break the tax in two. The firm pays tax on all the income generated at the firm except the income paid to its workers. The workers pay tax on what they earn, and the tax they pay is progressive. To measure the total amount of income generated at a business, the best approach is to take the total receipts of the firm over the year and subtract the payments the firm has made to its workers and suppliers. This approach guarantees a comprehensive tax base. The successful value-added taxes in Europe work this way. The base for the business tax is the following:
Total revenue from sales of goods and services
less
purchases of inputs from other firms
less
wages, salaries, and pensions paid to workers
less
purchases of plant and equipment
The other piece is the wage tax. Each family pays 19 percent of its wage, salary, and pension income over a family allowance (the allowance makes the system progressive). The base for the compensation tax is total wages, salaries, and retirement benefits less the total amount of family allowances.
Concerning Proposals for a Flat-Rate Consumption Tax
Before the Joint Economic Committee, Statement of Robert S. McIntyre
Director, Citizens for Tax Justice May 17, 1995
- The Hall-Rabushka flat tax, and its Armey and Specter variants, would replace the current personal and corporate income taxes with a new tax that is conceptually identical to a "subtraction-method" value-added tax, a version of a national sales tax, with two major modifications: First, imports would be exempt from the flat tax, while exports would be subject to tax. Second, to mitigate the regressivity of the VAT, cash wages, pensions received and other cash earned income would be taken out of the VAT base (i.e., deducted by businesses) and taxed directly to individuals, with exemptions. Thus, structurally, the flat tax is exactly equal to a value-added tax with an import incentive, an export disincentive and a personal rebate based on a percentage of a capped amount of cash wages, pensions and other earned income.
Dear ancient_geezer,
"Hmmm, what mechanism are you proposing to repeal the 16th with the income tax system in place that does not suffer from the fact that with the income tax in place means don't need to even let a repeal resolution out of committee."
The same mechanism that would be used to repeal the 16th amendment after the NRST is in place, which also suffers from the fact that with the NRST in place, the politicians won't need to even let a repeal resolution out of committee, as they will have their cake while eating it, too.
But whether it is politically LIKELY, it is nonetheless a falsehood to say that the mechanism doesn't exist.
The fact is, there is nothing in the Constitution or in law to prevent repeal of the 16th amendment before the NRST came into being. The NRST legislation could be written to take effect only after repeal of the 16th amendment, or a repeal amendment could provide a transition period.
If you want to argue that that's impractical, that's a matter of opinion and not a falsehood, per se. However, to say that it can't be done, is not possible, is a falsehood.
You are not, as far as I know, one of the posters guilty of this falsehood. Your argument has ever been that it's just too hard politically to get done, but that then we'll wave some fairy dust, and all of the sudden, the 40% of the population that is unalterably liberal will suddenly become conservative, and will replace Ted Kennedy and Barbara Mikulski with folks who will repeal the 16th amendment, and that then at least 8 of the blue states, with entrenched liberal legislatures, will magically go conservative and vote to ratify this repeal amendment.
Although to me your argument fails self-evidently, it's a projection of what is possible, and it is certainly within the realm of what is legally possible that your otherwise unlikely scenario could come to happen. Your argument, your projection, in my view is dead wrong, but it is not a falsehood.
On the other hand, to say that the NRST legislation can't be written with a trigger to take effect with the repeal of the 16th amendment is a falsehood.
It disapppoints me that the more reasonable voices for the NRST won't stand up and be counted to repudiate nonsense like that.
Be honest: Yes, the 16th amendment could be repealed. Yes, the NRST could be written with a trigger. But it's just too hard, we'd never get the NRST, and we want the NRST so badly that we're willing to take the risk of winding up with both the NRST and the income tax.
sitetest