Posted on 07/20/2005 12:51:23 PM PDT by Your Nightmare
Members of President Bush's advisory panel on tax reform largely agree that the individual alternative minimum tax, or AMT, should be fully repealed the committee's chairman said Wednesday.
"I think the obvious consensus was on the AMT on the individual side. We didn't end up with a consensus on the corporate side, even though I think it's fair to say that I think all panel members felt the corporate AMT was really not an effective way to tax," Chairman Connie Mack, a former Republican senator from Florida, told reporters after a public meeting of the committee.
The AMT is a parallel tax system created in 1969; it was enacted after it was revealed that a handful of extremely wealthy Americans paid no income tax. But thresholds for the AMT were never indexed for inflation. As a result, it has encompassed or threatened a growing number of middle-income taxpayers over the years. Lawmakers and administrations have responded by temporarily pushing up the threshold, but have yet to come up with a complete fix.
It's also become a substantial revenue source. Full repeal would reduce revenues by more than a trillion dollars over 10 years.
During the panel discussion, committee member Bill Frenzel said he agreed that it was time to "bite the bullet" and press for full repeal, but warned that doing so will put a "huge burden" on the panel to find a way to make up the lost revenues.
The panel's vice chairman, former Democratic Sen. John Breaux, said that while he's not a fan of the AMT, the panel must examine whether the full repeal of the system would allow some of the nation's highest earners to get away with paying no tax at all.
Mack replied that if that were the case, the committee would have to make adjustments in order to maintain roughly the same tax burden on the upper quintile of earners that is now in place.
The panel members agreed that changes to the corporate AMT would best be tackled as part of a broad corporate tax reform, Mack noted.
The committee, formally known as the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform, must present the Treasury Department with a set of tax-reform proposals in September.
Bush has set a number of ground rules for the panel, however. The proposals must be revenue-neutral. Also, future tax measures can't touch the code's most sacred cows -- mortgage interest deduction and charitable giving.
Well, if you knew anything about taxes, people might pay attention to you.
Based on their "thumbnail" (your descriptive term) which nowhere shows any adjustments in a positive (i.e., favorable to the FairTax) direction of increasing tax revenue from, for example, the underground economy. They seem to have the blinders on that only those things now inside the IT and affected by is can be looked at.
That is not only foolish, it is shortsighted - unless, of course they have intentionally favored one tax plan over another. Another example is making no allowance for prices decreasing due to the removal of the income tax portion embedded into prices - or perhaps you'd like to claim there is no such animal like the first guy to see a giraffe (he loudly proclaimed "there's no such animal")?
As I have said, as more info becomes available about their analysis even more of these "little glitches" will show up - which are hardly little at all. In fact, I saw nowhere that they decreased expenditures by the $10B yearly budget of the IRS, nor any adjustments for compliance costs no longer being taken out of the economy as nonproductive nothing. All of these things - and many others without a doubt - will come to the fore.
Anyone can see in the information they did briefly outline that there's a good bit not taken into account - enough so that it is apparent their analysis if off-base and inaccurate (now where have I heard that before?).
Would you like to claim otherwise???
And, hey - I thought you were going to favor us with a posting of your predictions of wxactly what the Panel's 9/30 reco would contain.
It's not up to the government (or at least shouldn't be) via the IRS or otherwise to decide what your necessities might be. With the FairTax it's up to you to make that decision; no one else.
What's the matter, Looey, is that too tough for you to do??? Like the nanny government we now have better??
That's porbably just more of the Brookings nonsense from Gale - already been posted and dispensed with.
Don't waste the bandwidth on it.
So - let's see, Looey - are you now saying that payroll taxes (the whole 15.3%) actually are taken out of the hide of the employee??
Walter Williams would be proud of you for that. Nightie may not since it means you're getting more FairTax-like every day.
That post makes no sense at all.
I have to reread it after I find it however. If it uses accurate data and is objective, then it would be not nonsense. If it, however, concludes that the farttax is not the best way to reform our tax system, then for the farttaxers I guess it would seem to be nonsense.
The FairTax is a broader base than the present system Looey, so there are MORE, not fewer payers. Everyone pays the same tax rate with the FairTax.
It's actually collecting more money from more taxpayers - and that includes those in the underground economy who are presently untaxed.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
You sure live up (or is that down) to your screenname, Rongie!!
That "stuff" from Gale in Brookings (an ultra left looney lib establishment) is old news as I told you. A bunch of malarkey as can be seen here:
http://www.fairtaxvolunteer.org/smart/GaleRebuttal.pdf
Get some new hitpieces!
With your arithmetic skills, Looey, it's amazing the IRS hasn't put you in the slammer. Been audited lately?
HAHAHAHAHA !!!
(Do you really think his TicTacs are a necessity? Mebbe it IS better left to gov't, eh?).
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Based on their "thumbnail" (your descriptive term) which nowhere shows any adjustments in a positive (i.e., favorable to the FairTax) direction of increasing tax revenue from, for example, the underground economy.That's because your assumption that the FairTax would collect more revenue from the underground economy is erroneous.
Another example is making no allowance for prices decreasing due to the removal of the income tax portion embedded into pricesI'm sure they realize that that can't happen without across-the-board wage cuts - which are impossible - so they made the correct assumption that prices would rise.
In fact, I saw nowhere that they decreased expenditures by the $10B yearly budget of the IRSFirst, $10B is a trivial amount. Second, the Federal government would pay about that much (0.5% of revenues) to the states and business to collect the FairTax. So, as usual, you only focus on the portion that benefits you and ignore the rest of the picture.
Anyone can see in the information they did briefly outline that there's a good bit not taken into account - enough so that it is apparent their analysis if off-base and inaccurate (now where have I heard that before?).Anyone can see by your posts that you are already grasping at straws trying to marginalize the Panel because it's becoming very obvious they won't play the AFT game. The end is nigh.
And, hey - I thought you were going to favor us with a posting of your predictions of wxactly what the Panel's 9/30 reco would contain.I don't do requests. Find it yourself.
That post makes no sense at all.It wouldn't to you.
Interrrrestinnnng! You don't know what the AFFT used, then how do you know the Panel Staff used the same thing???
Seems like you're just buying into the SQL propaganda just because they said they were using "the same thing". That doesn't mean they were, you know - it just means they SAID they were. Since you've admitted you don't know, why swallow the Staff's pronouncements hook, line, and sinker since I've described some of their obvious errors on this very thread.
Not filing income tax returns makes it less likely to be audited eh? But it's taking a big chance - as well as breaking the law.
It is against the law to evade income taxes by not filing - - isn't it lousbolts/lurkeylou/lewislynn?
My response to you on this "its-a-wash" nonsense with the underground economy and the SQ vs. the FairTax from an earlier thread ...
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"A couple of the opinions attempt the "... it's a wash ..." argument that you seem to prefer. It looks no better in their opinion that in yours and is easy enough to refute by taking, say, a $100 drug sale.
The sale is not taxed under either IT or FairTax. Under the FairTax when spent by the drug dealer, the tax revenue gained is $23. Under the IT, the ONLY revenue gained (if any) would be at most the profit on the thing sold to the drug dealer ... let's say the seller has a good margin of 25% on sales or $25 on the drug dealer's $100. Of this $25, only a small portion would ever possibly end up as tax revenue since the tax on the $25 profit would likely be something like the 15% rate - or $25 x 0.15 = $3.75. This falls far short of the $23 tax "contribution" under the FairTax so the "it's a wash" arguments are nonsense no matter who makes them."
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We've been all over the fact that in any income tax system, some component of tax cascades and becomes embedded into prices. That's why several of the Euro (and other) countries tried the VAT - to remove the tax component from prices; didn't work too well. The claim you make that wages must decline across-the-board for a price reduction is absurd as is your claim to know what the Panel did in ASSUMING that prices would rise. That's equally unfounded.
$10B is trivial??? Hmm - shows your SQL mindset - that's for sure. And with the FairTax, the paying for the businesses and the states collecting the sales tax comes out of the tax revenues, It is not an unfunded mandate as with the government putting an unfunded mandate on all taxpayers at present to comply (or attempt to) with the income tax laws. Perhaps you also believe that the many BILLIONS not now gained in income taxes from illegal aliens (that would be gained under the FairTax) is "trivial" also???
The end is nigh, all right, but not for the FairTax. It is only a question of when it will be passed into law. Your desperate pronouncements of unreality make no difference at all. If anything, the Panel Staff has marginalized itself by making such obviously-flawed analyses.
It's a shame you "don't do requests" since you do sit-down comedy so well. I guess your prognostication of the Panel's 9/30 output is worth what it costs.
Do you suppose that's why he kept changing his screenname so many times ... trying to confuse the IRS???
He always wuz kinda' smart like that.
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