Stimulus Package - The FairTax Revealed

No Compromises ^ | January 30, 2008 | ThoughtRogue

[Jefferson Paine]

What the heck is the FairTax plan?

In light of all the recent Congressional support for a phony fiscal “stimulus” plan to ostensibly rescue the American economy from falling into the proverbial abyss, let’s take an honest look at an incredible, infinitely better plan - one that we hear a lot about these days. Were it to be implemented, economists project it would spark an unprecedented period of economic expansion in the United States, not to mention worldwide.

It has been gaining a huge grass-roots base in recent years and is steadily gaining support in Congress, but it is also garnering new levels of distortion and outright lies by its detractors who have a vested interest in keeping the Internal Revenue Code monstrosity just as it is, with its plethora of loopholes, of special favoritisms and punishments, incredibly wasteful complexity, and its merry band of enforcers - Big Bubba’s army of IRS agents. Rest assured, when you hear the FairTax plan demagogued and maligned with scary propaganda, these people either want to desperately hang on to their entrenched power at all costs, or they have never actually learned the FairTax’s specifics in their entirety, and thus, simply repeat someone else’s lies and distortions.

[cowboyway]

(just keep up the insults and attacks - I’ve got a million of ‘um...)

We all know that. That's all you post. But as GW said, bring it on, sonnyboy.

Are you gonna tell us how you "engineered the largest tax-free family business transfer ever" or not, Wesley?

Also, I challenged you earlier to a public showdown. Are you willing to accept the challenge or not, excamel jockey?

[xcamel]

Like I said..

Things to be pitied, for $200, Alex..

[cowboyway]

Things to be pitied, for $200, Alex..

That's Okay, sonnyboy. We're all used to you dodging questions.

Of course, since you're obviously out of touch with reality..............

[cowboyway]

BTW, xcamel has ZERO credibility on FairTax threads because he is heavily vested in maintaining the status quo.

[Smokin' Joe]

No tax is good, IMHO, but a voluntary tax is a helluva lot better that a federally mandated income tax that is backed up by armed enforcement agents, property seizure, wage garnishments, frozen bank accounts, etc.

If you don't want to pay taxes, don't make so much. Seems 'voluntary' to me. Stop when you hit the max you want to pay, and take the rest of the year off.

Any tax is going to be backed by armed enforcement agents. The Cigarette tax (BATFE and states), the liquor tax (same outfits), property taxes, etc. All have a coercive element, or no one would pay them. No tax is going to be any different. There will be an enforcement division, otherwise no one would pay.

Some things, the "prebate" things are necessary. Food, energy, housing, medical care. What is more coercive than to require tax on life sustaining pharmaceuticals be paid on top of the cost?--or sorry, bud, you gotta pay it or you don't get it. Without it you die.

Or food?

Or heat?

Will they seize your property if you can't prove that you spent enough on retail goods to equate to 23% of your income?

Ask yourself this, because you still have not answered any of MY questions.

How are you going to prove you paid the tax on the stuff you have? Are you going to keep all those receipts? Because if someone narcs you off as your car being a little too new or shiny, even if you got it used, you are going to have to.

Do you think for a second all those jack-booted accountants are going away? Oh no, FRiend, they will find a way to keep their jobs, and to justify their budgets, and using the same standard for siezing money and/or property already applied in the WOD (suspicion), they'll take it and the burden of proof lies on you.

Of course, you'll have to pay the 23-30% tax on the lawyer fees when you sue to get your stuff back.

So why the prebate check?

To scam the multitude into thinking they are getting a freebie?

Why not just not tax the essentials: food, health care, primary housing, and energy, and forget the prebate?

[groanup]

You keep that dixie flag up to prove you’re a racist bigot? (talk about a hater...)

There is nothing racist about that flag other than what racist government school teachers in New York have put into ignorant heads.

[Smokin' Joe]

Remember, either way, million dollar yacht or 10K skiff, you can always buy used and pay NO taxes.

I can only think of one market off hand where you have to buy used. That, because if you are not a LEO, active duty military, or government agent, or a dealer, you cannot get a class three firearm new.

How has that worked? Well, the AK 47 that the average Iraqi can own worth about $300 on the world market costs thousands to obtain legally here, if you can find one.

Now while everyone is waiting for the really rich folks to buy new because the best used items have been used up ("rich folks" do not particularly care for taxes either), would someone explain to me how the guy who builds new things no one wants (because they cost more and there are plenty of good used ones around) is going to make a living?

And where are you going to go to get a new one in five years when that guy has gone broke and left town?

And what makes anyone think he is going to build new ones at anywhere near the price he did, if he still does? He is going to make his money on margin or volume.

Now consider the effect, overall of a five year purchasing hiatus on domestic manufacturing.

This looks like a ticket to second or third world status for our economy to me. But I am sure all the ecowhackos would be creaming their jeans at the prospect of shutting down so much industry.

[Turret Gunner A20]

<I just like asking questions no one will give me a decent answer to. You'd think they just wanted to sell the book, for Pete's sake. No one has ever shown me how the 'prebate' is more fair than not taxing necessities (because it can not be). How would you go about determining exactly what “necessities” means for each and every person in the country? For some examples: Space heaters, electric fans, electric shavers, support hose, dishwashers, radios, telephones, bicycles, trusses, athletic supporters, brassieres, bottled water, more than one suit, dress or pair of shoes -- the list is endless.

No one has shown me how it is going to make government smaller (It won't).

It’s not supposed to, that’s not what it is designed for -- it is not a bill to redesign the whole government ; it is designed to replace a monstrous, incomprehensible tax code with a system tht is easily understood and complied with.

No one has shown me how that new, shiny, more friendly check issuing bureaucracy is going to be any cheaper (Can't happen). Are you honestly saying that you believe that it will cost as much to issue the prebatge checks each month as it costs to run the IRS, with its armies of auditors, Gestapo-type armed agents, lawyers, tax courts, etc., etc, etc?

Nor has anyone adequately explained to me how this is fair to people who have paid the taxes on the income they have saved and will now pay them again as they spend it.

Are you saying that when they withdraw their savings they will be taxed on said withdrawal -- they will not be. Or are you saying that they are not paying the taxes that are already embedded in the cost of goods at the present time. -- whereas they will be paying taxes on those items under the fair tax that they are not paying now?

I do see a lot of starry-eyed musing about how everything is going to get cheaper as the embedded taxes all magically evaporate, and how we are all going to get our 'full' paycheck, and how no one in corporate positions anywhere is going to fulfil their responsibilities to their stockholders or investors and not shave a few percent of the taxes that people did not know they were paying into the corporate profit margin.

If you do see that, it’s not coming from anyone here who knows anything about the Fair Tax proposal. You are either totally screwed up on what has been said, or you are making up this crap totry to make a point.

Nor did anyone explain to me how we would know if they did, but you can bet the Dems would blame the greedy corporations anyway (how marxist).

Of course competition in the market place couldn’t possibly have an effect on whether or not they would succeed, could it?

I have not seen anyone explain to me how this is fair to the same people who paid their taxes on that income they saved for retirement, now that their health care costs have increased, to tax them on healthcare they receive.

Those taxes are already there? What’s going to change?

In fact the whole scheme reeks of class warfare, and a new way to "tax the rich", as if the "rich" do not pay taxes now, to issue checks to the 'poor'.

I thought you were all for exempting “necessities” from taxation. What do you think the prebate is for?

[Turret Gunner A20]

...excamel jockey?

'jockie; ???? Are you sure?

[groanup]

When I want your opinion, I’ll scrape it off my shoes..

Then shut up. I can guarantee you that no one here wants your opinion and especially not your on going insults and third grade snipes.

[Smokin' Joe]

Well, FYI, I am a geologist. I do not have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, and I do not like the present system, either. I just do not want to jump from the frying pan into the fire, and no one has adequately answered my repeatedly posed questions.

Applying the same standard I would to any transaction involving my money, namely that of expecting straightforward and forthright answers to my questions, or not doing the deal, I think this is a damned scam.

The bait is there: Namely prebate checks. Namely the idea that prices will drop (I'm not convinved, no way), the paycheck will stay the same, and the net cost increase to the consumer will be zero...but wait there's more! There's the prebate check!

Does it also sharpen knives?

The sales technique is an old one, (I'm not cutting Ron Popeil down), but it can be used by the unscrupulous as well.

When you consdier how much of this economy does rely on new stuff, when you consider the commuting masses who will run out of used vehicles in a few years, you are talking not changing the tax system, but an economic upheaval which bodes ill and reeks of social engineering.

The destruction of manufacturing we do have left, the massive shifts in property values from commuter areas to inner city, the movement of people out of "outlying" areas which will happen due to transportation cost changes, all sound like an Agenda 21 fantasy. You guys would make it happen.

[groanup]

would someone explain to me how the guy who builds new things no one wants (because they cost more and there are plenty of good used ones around) is going to make a living?

I can't. Nor can I explain the same situation now under the income tax.

[xcamel]

"Agenda 21 fantasy"

Hadn't thought of that, but indeed it's a pretty good comparison overall... Right along side 911/truthers, and the ron paul revolution...

[Smokin' Joe]

Nice job of ignoring where I said "The necessities: food, energy, primary housing, and medical care." If a special type of garment is required as a medical necessity, so be it. I suppose you would issue that one-size-fits all prebate to cover the taxes on an artificial limb, a pacemaker, or antirejection drugs? Or would the replacement kidney (used, of course) not get taxed?

Are you honestly saying that you believe that it will cost as much to issue the prebatge checks each month as it costs to run the IRS, with its armies of auditors, Gestapo-type armed agents, lawyers, tax courts, etc., etc, etc?

No. I am honestly saying I expect it will cost a lot more. You will still have the armies of auditors, there will still be enforcement agents, there will still be lawyers and courts, all that will change is the law. What is to stop the car dealer from selling a lot full of 'used' demos, with 5 miles on the colck to be more competitive than the guy down the road selling 'new' cars? Enforcement, that's who. They will still be there. There will still be confiscations, and you will still have to pay a lawyer to get your stuff back, just pay the tax on that too.

Are you saying that when they withdraw their savings they will be taxed on said withdrawal -- they will not be.

They will be taxed again on that money the second they spend a dime of it. THey were taxed o n it when they made it and they will get it when they spend it, at the same (alleged) revenue neutral rate (or more!) as they got taxed on it when they made it. Last time I checked, 1+1=2. Taxed twice.

I do not like the present system, but I see some serious problems with this scheme, too.

[Taxman]

I know the difference between 23% and 30%.

I know the difference between tax inclusive and tax exclusive.

I know the difference between a sales tax and an income tax.

And I know that when one compares the income tax to a sales tax, one has to use appropriate tax rate definitions.

Most of the FReepers who lurk or participate in these tax threads know these differences, also. You really are wasting your time by continuously bringing the subject up.

It is you nattering nabobs of negativism who are using bogus “tax rate” arguments to obfuscate the issue and try to confuse folks.

If you were truly committed to the truth, you’d admit that, concede the point, and move on to more meaningful discussions.

[Smokin' Joe]

Now, the only disincentive to buy new items is the price. In fact, under the current tax system, there is an incentive to buy new things when they can be depreciated as a business expense.

If that cost increases, (I know, everyone seems to think the embedded taxes would go away, the price would, with 'fair' tax, stay the same), and makes the purchase of good used items the economic favorite, that will only last as long as there are good used items.

Otherwise, the guy making things is going to have to take a pay cut to stay in business.

Try that for a few years, say five or so, and see how many people are going to be making things.

We will end up with a depleted manufacturing base and a lot of worn-out stuff.

[Turret Gunner A20]

Just want to let you know 2 things -- 1. you didn't read what I said very carefully; and 2. I won't bother you any more if you aren't going to read. I've had about enough of that foolishness from the camel and his crown.

Have a good day.