Posted on 09/11/2006 2:38:16 PM PDT by witchypooy
FAIRTAX CALCULATOR
www.fairtaxcalculator.org
Do you have questions on what FairTax will cost your family? Have doubts about it's progressiveness? Worried it will place an unfair burden on the poor, the middle class, the young or the seniors?
Time to put the hype aside and stop listening to all the spin. Why not just find out exactly what FairTax will mean to your own personal bottom line? It's easy. Just go to the FairTax Calculator, input your gross income. Approximate your 8 "fair tax deductions" which represent your yearly tax free spending. Give your family size to determine your "monthly prebate". In 10 easy lines the fairtax calculator will calculate for you just what you would pay annually in FairTax considering your spending habits and number of dependents. The calculator will show your net effect annual FairTax percentage rate, the dollar amount of fairtax you would pay on your income, and the amount of your family's monthly fairtax prebate under HR 25.
No one will pay 23% net effective annual rate because of the prebate factor. Actually, many will pay well under 15%, while MOST will see a reduction in taxes over what they pay today for income tax plus 7.65% social security taxes. More importantly, by personally controlling one's own spending/savings habits, ALL will have more control over the amount of sales tax they pay, effecting what their own bottom line FairTax rate will be. ALL will see the IRS out of their personal life, and freedom and privacy restored!
Exact figures are not needed. Approximations will give you a very good picture of the Fair "sales" Tax system's effect on your personal tax burden. Then, just take these FairTax figures and compare them to your current income tax bill to the IRS, using your pay stubs showing current withholding, or last year's Income tax figures (income tax + Social Security FICA withholding). Then if you like, you can also figure a FLAT 24.65% on your annual income to determine what you would pay in tax under any of the current Flat Tax Proposals (17% income tax + 7.65% FICA social security). Isn't FairTax less complicated than the current IRS income tax? Wouldn't FairTax be less costly to you than any proposed "Flat Tax"?
Young, old, retired, unemployed, self employed, student. No matter who you are or what situation you are in, there is a good chance that your bottom line under FairTax will be smaller. How? By broadening the tax base and taxing ALL those spending money in the U.S., including legal and non legal residents, the underground economy, those earning a living through criminal activities, those currently evading taxes, those using loopholes to avoid taxes, those tourists using our services. When all pay, the burden for each of us is lowered. That's the "fair" in FairTax.
Put your doubts aside. Take the time to check out the FairTax Calculator. It's easy, it's fast, and it's totally anonymous! All hype aside, the numbers show the true story so you be the judge.
Check it out!
Marlene
fairtaxsupportpa@aol.com
Pittsburgh
The FairTax studies - many of which have been posted and quoted on these threads perhaps even before you started - are publicly available and make for good reading and they all analyze the FairTax bill AS WRITTEN rather than some version published in a think tank Shangri-La. And these studies were not done from the public trogh of tax money.
Do you really think that Brookings Institute and the Treasury Department staff are not some sort of special interest group??? Really??? Apparently you not only have not read the bill, but have not investigated the FairTax website, either.
Whether taxes are paid or not is not part of the prebate equation. And it's no "handout".
Also as has been shown before several times there are very few who spend below the poverty level.
You know very well that the receipt required shows the price of the thing itself, the amount of tax charged and the total of those two things. In other words, it shows the tax inclusive price ... and that is the purchase price paid at the cash register meaning that the purchase price is tax inclusive.You said "prices are tax inclusive," they aren't. What you are discribing is functionally no different that state sales taxes are today - you pay a total cost that includes sales taxes - but that doesn't mean prices include sales tax. They don't.
That's your misstatement of what was said by AFFT since what was actually said (FAQ #3) which, in speaking about the taxpayer, says he will:The AFT says a lot of stuff, don't they. The quotes in my previous post are directly from the AFT's website.
"... receive a monthly rebate equivalent to the FairTax paid on essential goods and services, also known as the poverty level expenditures ..."
That's quite different from your claim of: "... a family at the poverty level can't buy the poverty level worth of goods and services taxfree ..."But my "claim" isn't at all different from the AFT's statement that "the rebate ensures each family unit can consume tax free up to the poverty level."
""... The rebate ensures each family unit can consume tax free up to the poverty level ..." " ... exactly what was stated in FAQ#3 (just above) referring to the tax paid on essential goods and services as "the poverty level".It depends on whether you are including taxes in the poverty level expenditures. The first AFT quote ("can consume tax free up to the poverty level") indicates that they aren't. The second ("equivalent to the FairTax paid on essential goods and services") isn't clear on this. But the bill clearly does NOT require the poverty level to include the FairTax.
Do you wish to weigh them and see who's heavier, perhaps???Not sure yet, I just need their names for now. You do have the names, don't you?
"In other words, the tax isn't part of the purchase. That kinda blows your claims out of the water, doesn't it."
If the tax weren't part of the purchase then you wouldn't have to pay tax ... but it is part of the purchase and so started on the required receipt.
Your original claim is still bogus and that was never claimed by any FairTax supporter I know. You're welcome to think as you like but as I showed you the AFFT FAQ #3 clearly says otherwise as do the examples of the prebate.
The wording in the bill is merely to define the method of calculating the prebate and has nothing to do with the use of it by the taxpayer. I find no place in the bill or website that definitely supports you're quaint and convoluted interpretation. What I see doesn't support that at all.
If the tax weren't part of the purchase then you wouldn't have to pay taxMaybe you should look up the word "purchase" and then come and tell us how someone could purchase a sales tax.
but it is part of the purchase and so started on the required receipt.It is not part of the purchase and, again, the bill specifically states "For each purchase of taxable property or services for which a tax is imposed by section 101, the seller shall charge the tax imposed by section 101 separately from the purchase."
Your original claim is still bogus and that was never claimed by any FairTax supporter I know.Except the AFT. I guess you don't know them.
The wording in the bill is merely to define the method of calculating the prebate and has nothing to do with the use of it by the taxpayer. I find no place in the bill or website that definitely supports you're quaint and convoluted interpretation.What interpretation? I'm just asking for someone to show me (and I'll put it in the AFT's own words) how a "family unit can consume tax free up to the poverty level." No one has been able to show that to me.
I can't see that such a sideshow has anything at all to do with the FairTax - but you're welcome to think so. We'll just have a difference of opinion ... our first???It has as much to do with the FairTax as your repeated claim that economist(s) said this or that about the FairTax but then can never seem to produce the names of those economists. You're funny that way.
The meaning has been shown of receiving the "... rebate equivalent to the FairTax paid on essential goods and services, also known as the poverty level expenditures ..." several times. I even posted AFFT's FAQ #3 which used that terminology.
It's hard to understand how one can purchase something that is tax inclusive without paying the tax.The payment is tax inclusive, not the purchase. This is the language of the bill, not your tortured language that has been stretched to fit your needs.
The meaning has been shown of receiving the "... rebate equivalent to the FairTax paid on essential goods and services, also known as the poverty level expenditures ..." several times. I even posted AFFT's FAQ #3 which used that terminology.The AFT's FAQ #3 is wrong. The "prebate" does not cover the FairTax "paid on essential goods and services, also known as the poverty level expenditures." Poverty level expenditures are exclusive of the FairTax but the bill uses the inclusive rate to determine the "prebate." This is in notable contrast to how the bill handles the increase in Social Security benefits. The bill states that if the CPI includes the FairTax, use the inclusive rate - if it exludes the FairTax, use the exclusive rate.
I read AFFT's FAQ#3 to say that it is the tax paid on poverty level expenditures that is replaced by the prebate and not the untaxed price of the things themselves. Perhaps not but that seems to be what their examples show.
I'm sure they'd be greatly appreciative if you send them a quick email explaining how they are wrong (since you're the one who understands this). That way we could stop wasting bandwidth.
Gee, and here I though that "purchase" meant "to buy". What is the mechanism you believe that allows anyone to buy a tax inclusive item without paying the tax?The items AREN'T TAX INCLUSIVE - the payment is. You purchase the items, you make a payment for the purchase and the FairTax.
I'm sure they'd be greatly appreciative if you send them a quick email explaining how they are wrong (since you're the one who understands this). That way we could stop wasting bandwidth.You assume they don't know they are wrong. I don't.
I don't assume the are "wrong" at all - that's you making that assumption. I merely inspect the evidence and don't see what you claim to.
Then it would more properly be termed a family allowance because it has nothing to do with tax paid, or about to be paid, but is solely determined by family size.
The NST that was studied by Kotlikoff is not the FairTax. The paper by David R. Burton and Dan R. Mastromarco suggests a 15% NST while maintaining SS payroll taxes, so that doesn't sound like the FairTax either. The study by Jorgenson cited by the FairTax organization is unpublished.
I'm sure you're right and I'm just too dumb to find the FairTax studies you refer to so perhaps you could provide a link to a specific study.
One may pay for an item or service and pay a tax. When an item is purchased, ownership changes; when one purchases a service, a service is rendered; one can not purchase and own a tax, nor is a service rendered to the taxpayer when a tax is paid.
The paper by David R. Burton and Dan R. Mastromarco suggests a 15% NST while maintaining SS payroll taxes, so that doesn't sound like the FairTax either.Actually they're the authors of the Fairtax.
a rebate or a Family Consumption Allowance. No matter the name, it is not an entitlementRight, nobody in their right mind would ever think a monthly family consumption allowance could be an entitlement.
A rebate for the ones who've actually paid taxes and a "consumption allowance" for the ones who haven't.
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