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Bush's advisory panel on tax reform largely agree that the individual alternative minimum tax, or AMT, should be fully repealed the committee's chairman said Wednesday.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.
I absolutely agree with that last sentence - one of the hallmarks of the SQL crowd.
Even you in 275 realize the "bill in present form". The bill if it ever sees the light of day will not "be in present form". So sorry.
Is "faitax" some sort of intelligent, sophisticated spelling of something that exists??
If you'd like to write about "sales tax" as a different thing from the FairTax, that's fine, too, since a bill has already been introduced to Congress to impose a sales tax in addition to the income tax ... but it does not eliminate the income tax as does the FairTax. Go talk about that endlessly if you'd like, but when discussing the FairTax, at least know what you're talking about. Go read the bill first and come back to talk about it.
Talking about what you THINK it may be is pointless.
Arithmetic is a very simple subset - a branch, if you will - of mathematics my friend.
If you like misusing the word it's fine with me since your word usage has been known to be (shall we say) "peculiar".
You SQL guys don't seem to grasp arithmetic and therefore CERTAINLY don't grasp mathematics either.
It was said that way to show that it already - by design and not by accident - eliminates the IT and the IRS and requires IT record destruction.
Your continued statements that "it will be changed to be something completely different" are simply nonsense. None of the FairTax sponsors/supporters ascribe to that. The bill will pass pretty much in its present form - especially so with respect to the IT elimination.
You seem to like the word "sophisticated". Reading the FairTax bill does not require "sophistication" since it is written in very understandable English. If you'd spend some time absorbing what it says instead of jumping to unwarranted conclusions about what you'd like it so say you'd know that.
Perhaps you can read it while on vacation. Perhaps also you can learn how to spell "FairTax" since there seems to be some cognitive dissonance there on your part.
The fact that you defend the present system viciously along with the others of the SQL crowd makes you no more right than they are. The FairTax is gathering increasing support all the time and will continue to do so as you'll see. Most people realize the benefits it offers our country and taxpayers in general.
Arithmetic is a very simple subset - a branch, if you will - of mathematics my friend.You said "Oh, and it's not mathematics ... it's arithmetic." By you own admission, arithmetic is a subset of mathematics. It is impossible for something to be arithmetic and "not mathematics."
If you like misusing the word it's fine with meWho misused a word? The only one who's said anything wrong is you.
since your word usage has been known to be (shall we say) "peculiar".This is where I ask you to show an example of where my "word usage" was "peculiar" and you fail to provide it. This is getting to be a pretty pathetic tactic from the Fanboys.
You SQL guys don't seem to grasp arithmetic and therefore CERTAINLY don't grasp mathematics either.LOL! But it's not mathematics, it's arithmetic!
The FairTax proposal is a comprehensive plan to replace federal income and payroll taxes, including personal, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security/Medicare, self-employment, and corporate taxes. The FairTax proposal integrates such features as a progressive national retail sales tax, dollar-for-dollar revenue replacement, and a rebate to ensure that no American pays such federal taxes up to the poverty level. Included in the FairTax plan is the repeal of the 16th Amendment to the Constitution.
He did show an example. Seven examples have been shown on this thread alone.
This is just one more attempt to keep folks from discussing tax reform - which you reject in any form. SQL is indeed an accurate moniker for you.
Most importantly, the FairTax does not burden U.S. exports as they are with the current income tax. So the FairTax allows U.S. exports to sell overseas for prices 22 percent lower, on average, than they do now, with similar profit margins. Lower prices sharply increase demand for U.S. exports, thereby increasing job creation in U.S.manufacturing sectors. At home, imports are subject to the same FairTax rate as domestically produced goods. Not only does the FairTax put U.S. products sold here on the same tax footing as foreign imports, but the dramatic lowering of compliance costs in comparison to other countries' value-added taxes also gives U.S. products a definitive pricing advantage which foreign tax systems cannot match.
Remember - everything you spend on vacation is inflated by invisible tax costs... Why do you fight to retain hidden taxes?
Do you like it that the feds collect so much in hidden tax?
Oh, and it's not mathematics ... it's arithmetic.Whatever you want to call it Lapdog, you still can't do it.
Arithmetic is a part of mathematics. So it is obvious to all that you are merely trying again to keep the topic away from tax reformMe?!? I'm not the one who said "Oh, and it's not mathematics ... it's arithmetic" and continues to contest the obviously stupid statement. So maybe pigdog, realizing that the 29.87% FairTax rate has been shown to be a fantasy (it would be 34% without replacing payroll taxes), is trying to keep the topic away from tax reform.
which you abhorLOL! Abhorring the FairTax is not abhoring tax reform.
Agreed. But you abhor any tax reform that has a chance.
He did show an example. Seven examples have been shown on this thread alone.Seven examples have been shown in this thread where my "word usage" was "peculiar"? That's just a blatant lie.
This is just one more attempt to keep folks from discussing tax reform - which you reject in any form. SQL is indeed an accurate moniker for you.Once again, it was pigdog who brought it up, so he must be the one attempting to "keep folks from discussing tax reform."
So today, the rate is too high? Or are you going with the rate is too low today again? Just curious what to expect today.
Oh - and is it a flat tax on income, a VAT tax, or something else that you'll say you prefer today?
Yep. This is where you deny it and say it didn't happen cuz I won't take my time to post links and to deflect the thread from tax reform- which you oppose in any form.
Today, the IRS will admit to 25 percent non-compliance with the code. FairTax.org will be generous and simply take the position that this is likely a conservative estimate of the underground economy.
However, this does not take into account the criminal/drug/porn economy, which equally conservative estimates put at one trillion dollars of untaxed activity.
The FairTax will tax this - criminals love to flash that cash at retail - while continuing to provide the federal penalties so effective in bringing such miscreants to justice.
The substantial decrease in points of compliance - from every wage earner, investor, and retiree, down to only retailers - also allows enforcement to concentrate on following the money to criminal activity, rather than making potential criminals out of every taxpayer struggling to decipher the current code.
Yep. This is where you deny it and say it didn't happenI do deny it because it never happened.
cuz I won't take my time to post linksLOL! What a shock!!! [Do y'all all have a Fanboy playbook?]
deflect the thread from tax reform- which you oppose in any form.Except for the Flat Tax, a VAT, a consumed income tax, etc...
Which are all DOA. None will happen - the only reform which has a chance (other than just more tinkering) is the nrst. That's why you oppose it - it may actually reform the tax system. It is obvious that you oppose any reform.
You only support changes that increase the power of feds to tax.
To ensure no American pays tax on necessities, the FairTax plan provides a prepaid, monthly rebate (prebate) for every registered household to cover the consumption tax spent on necessities up to the federal poverty level.
This, along with several other features, is how the FairTax completely untaxes the poor, lowers the tax burden on most, while making the overall rate progressive.
However, the FairTax is progressive based on lifestyle/spending choices, rather than simply punishing those taxpayers who are successful. Do you see how much freer life is with the FairTax instead of the income tax?
"Knucklehead, arithmetic is mathematics."
As I said in a post a bit later arithmetic is not mathematics ... it is a subset of mathematics and not mathematics which is a far more inclusive and esoteric discipline dealing more with theory and abstractions while arithmetic, typically, deals with real numbers and their manipulation by My Dear Aunt Sally (Multiplication, Division, Addition, and Subtraction).
Your statement in #276 that arithmetic IS mathematics is incorrect ... had you said arithmetic is part of (or a subset of or a branch of or perhaps - as a stretch - even makes use of) mathematics that would have been correct. As it is you have used a specific low level speciality (arithmetic) by trying to define it to be a much higher-level speciality (mathematics) - which it is not.
That qualifies as misuse of the word despite your intended slurs.
YOU MISUSED THE WORD!!!
Well, Looey, at least one of us know what it IS ... and that one ain't you.
Your inimitable skill in Looey-rithmetic (a very specialized subset of arithmetic which is, in turn, a subset of mathematics) has been demonstrated many times on these threads along with that of some of the other SQL guys.
Seems that you and Nightie are locked in a battle for inaccuracy champion but - hate to tell you this, Looey - a few threads back he actually beat your 400% error figure by a few percentage points. Of course he has never owned up to HIS error either. At least yours was on a problem that you composed.
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