Posted on 02/11/2006 8:54:52 AM PST by Eaglewatcher
Recent letters have expressed concern that the poor or middle class might be harmed by adoption of the FairTax (www.FairTax.org) based on a deep misunderstanding of both the FairTax and the current system. We cannot assess the effects of the FairTax without comparing it to the reality of our current income and payroll tax system.
One cannot buy a loaf of bread without paying the income taxes of the baker. The price of that loaf of bread contains the cost of the flour, and the income of the baker, but it also contains the taxes the baker pays. After all, the baker does not have a money tree from which to pluck dollars to pay his taxes, he must get those funds from his customers, like any other business.
Further, the price of that loaf of bread contains the taxes of the miller, the farmer, the trucker and the grocer and those of all their employees. Those income and payroll taxes cascade through the production process and eventually make up more of the cost of that loaf of bread than the profits of any of those who worked to produce that bread.
Those many layers of taxes on productive work make up the embedded tax component of the price of bread or any other goods or services we buy. On average, that embedded tax component is 22.4 percent of the price of everything we buy, from a loaf of bread to brain surgery. So, the true tax burden on the working poor is 28.4 percent, (their FICA tax of 7.65 plus plus 22.4 percent of their remaining take-home pay, which goes to pay the embedded taxes hidden in the price of everything they buy).
Even if the poor paid the entire 23 percent FairTax, they would be better off than now, but they don't. The FairTax provides a rebate of all tax paid on spending up to the federal poverty line to everybody. This cancels out all taxes for those living at or below the poverty line, $25,660 a year for a married couple and two children.
For the same family earning twice the poverty line ($51,320), half their taxes are rebated, yielding an effective rate of 11.5 percent. And even at triple the poverty level, $76,980, their effective rate is only 15.3 percent, still far better than the 28.4 percent the poorest of the poor pay now.
So, who loses? The idle rich, illegal aliens, criminals, "off-book" workers and others who escape the current system through evasion or legal loopholes. Tax lawyers and lobbyists who make their livings from the complexity of the current system will also come up short. Foreign goods sold in the U.S. will no longer get a free ride while production of American-made goods and services bear the whole tax burden.
But those of us who work for a living, or who get by on a fixed income, will be far better off.
Tabor, of Chesapeake, is co-state director for FairTax.org in Virginia.
Bingo.
Honestly, while I might of given it some thought, the "FairTax(tm)" promoters are such a bunch of blockheads that just reading the material makes me want to take a aspirin. There is no correlation between their ramblings and the truth.
Then perhaps you8've missed the point of the author's remarks in the lead-in to the thread. That is that there is a tax component embedded in everythoing you buy so that if the income tax remains, you'll continue right along the paying of these hiddeed, embedded taxes.
The FairTax does away with that and makes any tax payment visible and in addition does not tax investment or other income at all ... zero. In addition, it relieves the obligation of the taxpayer to report to and be beholden to Federal tax authorities since both the income tax and the IRS are eliminated.
How does he get the idea that people on fixed incomes, whose fixed dollars will be facing prices that are 15-20% higher for domestic goods and services, and 30% higher for foreign goods, are going to be "far better off" is beyond me.
I didn't miss the point at all. I was just offering my main objection to the fair tax, that's all. The article didn't sway me on that concern.
You'd benefit form learning from the FairTax website instead of making such ill-informed remarks.
Yes, it is an oversimplification that denies market economics and assumes that the seller can fix a price that "passes along" all costs, profits and taxes to the consumer.
It ignores that, in a competitive market, sellers are not guaranteed a profit and cannot "pass along" a tax obligation that they may not even have.
The IRS must be dismantled and a FAIR TAX put in place.
The thief comes to kill, steal and destroy, and the IRS is just another willing tool to do the dirty work.
Finally a nice simple explaination of immbeded taxes and their effect,LOL! What frauds you Fairies are.
Don't bother posting it. They know the address of the website but they are never going to accept it as a valid tax plan because then they'd have to actually start paying taxes instead of collecting what others have paid.
A lot of economic studies have shown that the FairTax will actually increase the economic benefit to the country as well as its taxpayers overall. This means that most people will benefit from the expanded economy and pay less in tax. Prices (before the FairTax) will also drop substantially and there is no "double-counting" as you claim.
A lot of economic studies have shown that the FairTax will actually increase the economic benefit to the country as well as its taxpayers overall. This means that most people will benefit from the expanded economy and pay less in tax. Prices (before the FairTax) will also drop substantially and there is no "double-counting" as you claim.
If the income tax remains, that $10,000 will have a "second bite" out of it in any event ... that's the import of the lead-in article.
Brain's still on -- but you're right, I am giddy at the thought of doing away with the complex tax system we have now. I'm giddy over the prospect of the entire unproductive tax-preparation industry going extinct.
And I'm double-giddy over the dream that Congress-critters could no longer jury-rig the tax code to "encourage" their pet projects.
With sales tax rates at only 5-6% the amount of off the book sales from mom and pop stores is very large. Up the rates to 20-30 and the level will rise tremendously. The IRS agent of old will become the sales tax agent going undercover to catch the local pizza maker and his brother liquor store owner.
Who says everyone is going to make out better? Only you say so. Why would you make this up?... so you can attempt to discredit the tax reform.
The statement so many make is "everyone who is currently a legal taxpayer will make out better". This is a blanket statement based on the fact that the tax base will be much larger under the nrst.
Just like a $90 pizza party with 18 guests. Right now, only about 10 guests are paying the whole $90 bill - each paying guest would have to pay $9. But if the method of collecting the $90 were changed to make it that 15 guests were paying, each paying guest would have to pay just $6.
So the 10 guests who used to have to pay $9 will only have to pay $6. These 10 support the change.
But the 5 guests who used to pay nothing and now must begin to pay $6 will oppose the change.
Hit kinda close to home?
Sorry, but you have it exactly backwards as many of the FairTax economic studies show. The wealthy will actually in all probability pay more in tax than they do now with all the avoidance schemes available to them in the income tax.
My rule of thumb is the longer it takes to explain something, the more likely its a lie.
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