Posted on 01/14/2008 6:51:54 AM PST by K-oneTexas
COLUMN: The FairTax Promotes Economic Equality Submitted by on 01-13-08, 10:16 pm | Updated on 01-13-08, 10:35 pm |
by Thomas Davis
President John F. Kennedy once argued that our tax system “reduces the financial incentives for personal effort, investment and risk-taking.” Unfortunately, there has not been much improvement since JFK's presidency.
In fact, the tax code has become more complicated and burdensome. Since 1954, the number of words in the IRS regulations has increased by 939 percent. Just consider, how much time do you, or more likely your parents, spend preparing taxes? Or how much money do your parents spend having an accountant prepare your family's taxes? And how much time does a company spend making business decisions with respect to the tax code?
The answer is astounding: Economists estimate that we spend over $200 billion every year and about 5.8 billion hours complying with the tax code. American companies spend another $200-300 billion making business decisions based on tax implications. The average American spends twenty-seven hours preparing his or her income tax forms, and almost 45% of tax compliance costs are directly incurred by individuals.
While the current situation is complicated, the proposed solution is simple. It's called the FairTax. Some of the nation's most eminent economists and businesspeople have researched and developed a system applying a national sales tax of 23% on all goods and services at the retail level. In return, no more income tax. No more corporate income tax. No more payroll taxes, gift tax, alternative minimum tax, self-employment tax, capital gains tax…you get the picture. By the way, no more embedded tax in the goods and services you currently purchase, which averages around 22%.
Whether you realize it or not, the cost of corporate income taxes, payroll taxes and other taxes have been factored into the price of the goods and services you purchase. So when politicians try to tax what they deem to be greedy businesses by assessing higher corporate income taxes, those taxes are actually passed on to you, the consumer. By eliminating embedded taxes, the prices of what you buy after applying the 23% consumption tax would hardly change from current prices. The difference is that you bring home your entire paycheck and that tax is transparently assessed at the end, not through an onerous and bureaucratic system applied within a price tag.
And don't worry; this simplified system is revenue neutral. The government will collect as much money using the FairTax as it does under the current system, having no effect on current ability to fund government programs. Actually, economists expect economic growth to be around 10.5% for the first year, effectively increasing the government's revenue.
Under the FairTax, you would get your entire paycheck and would only pay tax on what you consume, encouraging Americans to do something we do not do well — save. In order to make the FairTax fair, all people would receive a prebate, or advanced rebate, that reimburses them for tax paid up to the poverty line. In other words, you only pay tax for living beyond your necessities.
Without a corporate tax, America will encourage companies to come back to the United States, providing new jobs for Americans. Without embedded taxes factored into the price of a product, American companies can export goods and sell them at prices lower than foreign products. While the benefits are numerous and the drawbacks are few, I encourage you to question the FairTax Act of 2007. Challenge it. Look for shortfalls. But don't forget to take the time to find credible answers. Read The FairTax Book by Neal Boortz and Congressman John Linder. Visit FairTax.org. Search the Web for scholarly criticism. You will see that the FairTax stands for innovation and equality. Do you?
Are you meaning the Democrat definition of rich - anyone making over 50K per year - or some other definition ?
Why would employees take a cut in pay ? An employee now, whether they realize it or not, is “paying” 15.2% in FICA taxes off their wages. That’s 7.6% they can see, and another 7.2% they don’t. Employees, by definition, will become 15.2% less expensive to the employer without changing the employee’s take home pay in the slightest. Then add back the % taken out for federal taxes, and the employee will actually get an increase.
How do you figure - would end up not paying FICA tax, federal withholding, and you’d be 7.2% cheaper for your employer. You would get a raise in your paycheck right off the bat.
Fair Tax ping!
Prices stable? That's the howler of the year.We aren't supposed to notice those things when there's a Republican President.
You conflate taxes and inflation ?
You, my FRiend, need to go look up the definition of inflation - that ain’t it.
Same.
Good for Hunter. I wish he’d done better.
And you have things backwards. Our current income tax system is the Marxist one. (Does that make those who cheerlead for it Marxists?) Consumption taxes were favored by our founding fathers and produced most of our free Republic’s income for much of its existence.
So... does a 30+% marginal tax rate on income mean that all of those people are currently working under the table for cash?
???? I said they won't take a pay cut, which means prices are gonna rise if you understand how 'embedded taxes' were defined. "Embedded taxes" that the fairtax study talked about included employee paid taxes. Now the fairtaxers in their press releases don't tell you that.
no I don’t.
It is not one is and the other isn’t. The Fair Tax Scam is just more explicitly marxist.
Read H.R. 25 as located at http://wwww.thomas.gov
Read the from each to each BS underpinings, read the draconian registration requiremetns to participate in ANY ecconomic kind of life legally, read the invasive record and bookkepping requirements...
it is all there is comrade black and white letters.
Your assumption is dead wrong just as both are dead wrong for the USA.
1) The Federal Reserve have no control over tax policy, period. To mention them in a tax discussion is the most crimson of red herrings.
2) If you think the Fed are principally responsible for the current price instability, you've cleared failed Econ 101, probably several times. Markets are working properly just now, seeking their clearing levels, although we probably don't much like the rapidity with which they're doing so. The Fed are players in this game only to the extent that they expand the money supply faster than commodities can be produced.
Far greater villains in the instability are the Regress and Mr. Bush, for their meddling in mkts. Ethanol as a mass-mkt motor fuel (subsidised, of course)? What a joke. Dairy price compacts with which to buy votes (mostly in blue states, what a shock). Universal tagging of livestock. Changes in long-standing mining law. Increasing restrictions on energy production. Compared to these and other idiocies, the Fed's role is comparatively benign.
3) I should look up ''ceteris paribus'', eh? Quo usque tandem abutere, InVenoVeritas, patientia nostra?
4) 'Irregardless' is a substandard form. Perhaps you meant 'irrespective'.
5) BTW, the phrase is 'In vino, veritas', from Horace.
6) To assert that, if one does not like your pet scheme, one must therefore 'like' the current tax regime. This is defined in logic as a pure non sequitur (look it up). One can easily despise the current tax structure AND find your scheme worse still.
7) All in all, just about the type of bilge I've come to expect from 'fair' taxers.
So you prefer federal witholding, which effectively hides taxes from people, and allows the gov’t to promote refunds of your own money as a windfall ?
Or you like the FICA tax - 7.2% obvious, another 7.2% paid by the employer, who undoubtedly pays you less as a result.
From my perspective as a person who sees all sides of tax transactions - if I don’t pay 15.2% in FICA taxes, then that means my effective federal tax rate comparison would only be 7.8% - a helluva lot less than I pay now.
For me, and for everyone else, just based on the numbers the Fair tax has me paying a whole lot less in taxes than I do now.
It is purely inflationary of itself regarding any contracts that tie wages or purchases to any price index. Wage agreements, I should think, would be more directly affected, but we would have to see how exactly this would play out. (C'mon mate, that should go w/o saying.)
Of course, if enough people get sick of a 'fair' tax regime, it might become somewhat deflationary, as people go outside the regime and are forced to discount prices as a condition of doing business and not getting caught.
We’ve got a constitutional amendment for the income tax, therefore, we’d have to have a constitutional amendment to change that and put the fair tax in place, right? And if you think that’d take place....well...LOL...
Your logic still does not make sense.
How will product prices go up when employers/employees stop paying FICA ?
From my perspective as a small business owner, I’d be able to give better deals to customers if I’m paying 15.2% less on employee wages.
Go look up the definition of inflation. It is a purely monetary phenomenon, as Friedman and von Mises pointed out.
Excluding Employee paid taxes, there is only 7% embedded taxes in the cost of goods. Now add a 30% sales tax on the item, and poof, prices go up roughly 20%. As far as wages, your costs are reduced 7.625% since the other 7.625% comes from the gross pay of the employee. The employer will only see half of the savings.
I trade futures options, m’friend. Have to be bloody blind not to see this price behaviour, sheesh!
Just look at what the fairtax does to rents. If you have a $1000 per month lease, when the fairtax is implemented, you will then be liable for an additional $298.70 each month. You rent just went up 29.87%. You might not call that inflation, but to the person paying it, it is.
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