Posted on 08/02/2004 5:57:43 AM PDT by downtoliberalism
When one or another politico starts yapping about a VAT, run, do not walk, to the nearest voting booth and vote this moron into retirement. Behave like a Chicago Demonrat -- vote SEVERAL times.
Hey, if its a fight to the death they want... I'm game. Liberals don't like guns so this should be a quick fight. We needed to do some weeding in that end of the gene pool in any case.
"Unfortunately this will go nowhere."
That's true, it won't go anywhere in the next few years. But bringing up the subject and getting the discussion going is the first step. Sure it will take years, maybe decades even, but it's worth getting the journey started.
After all, when you look at it in perspective, the IRS hasn't been around that long. It's not like it's a permanent fixture of the Republic.
OK, so maybe I will vote instead of getting drunk this election day. If this is for real then the GOP just got me back on board.
The only way you can pull this off is to exempt food and energy.
Without actually repealing the 16th amendment, I suspect that eventually we will end up with both a national VAT and income tax.
Title: To promote freedom, fairness, and economic opportunity by repealing the income tax and other taxes, abolishing the Internal Revenue Service, and enacting a national sales tax to be administered primarily by the States.
The problem with any income tax is that the cost of government is enbedded into the product/service. This adds a significant increase to the cost of goods and services products in the USA making our products more expensive. At sales tax eliminates that.
This is not so. VAT on inputs ( puchases of materials and services but not labor) to a business entity can be offset against VAT liablity on outputs( Sales). This works all the way through the production chain until the tax falls on the final consumer. The net effect is almost exactly the same as a sales tax.
Incidentally no system of taxation is going to do away with the IRS or something similar.Once you have a tax you will need an enforcement organisation no matter what.
The flat tax rate can be increased just as easily as a sales tax. My preference is for a National Sales Tax or VAT because they reward the more efficient organisations. A tax on profits is a penalty on the most efficient organisations. Another advantage of a NST or VAT is that it puts US manufacturers on the same footing as foreign producers in our domestic markets.
That assumes that companies will roll that embedded tax out of their goods and services if the tax is eliminated. I personally don't believe they will. Prices will remain where they are and in addition we'll get hit with a sales tax.
And competition will cut their prices to capture market share. Free market will balance out.
A Value Added Tax is a hidden tax that you will pay without knowing about.
I want people to be aware of the taxes they are paying, so they rebel against them.
People can't rebel against invisible taxes that are not itemized on their purchase receipts.
A national sales tax would show up as an itemized expense on your receipt.
As I said before, a national sales tax is okay, but not a VAT.
At least when you pay taxes through the IRS they are very visible to you.
I'll admit I haven't studied this as deeply as many others but this logic doesn't make total sense to me. We already have this form of taxation in such things as excise taxes and fuel taxes. I don't see these as "growing the economy". Changing the form of tax without changing the amount of dollars collected would do little to free up the economy to grow. It's bait and switch at the highest level.
A can of soup that costs $1 at the store will now cost $1.30. I'm still paying taxes just in smaller increments many more times. Other than not paying $125 to get my taxes done at the end of the year, what has the average consumer saved?
How much does the IRS cost to operate? How much would a new NRST "compliance" agency cost to operate? The difference, if any, would be the only reduction in government spending. How much would this "difference" save on the cost of a product or service? These are the only "savings" we could see from a NSRT.
We will always have cheaters and scammers, but a flat tax does nothing but encourage people to mis-report income, or not report income at all....The self employed would have a field day - and we'd still need a powerful IRS to catch a small percentage of them....and still have the need to file tax information which should not be the governments business anyway....no, a NST may be the best option...much harder to buy clothes, groceries, cars, etc without paying tax - at least I haven't figured out how to tell Mr. Albertson that I'm not paying the tax.
Competition in this country drives the pricing. If a business can get more sales by offering a cheaper product they will...it's just a normal course of action.
Just think, if corporations, businesses can eliminate the huge cost of doing business from payroll taxes (to some degree), if they don't have to pay the huge corporate taxes (less lawyers employed to figure out the fine print), if things were simplified and allowed them to do what they do best, everyone benefits. More research and development, faster inovation, more people employed, higher income, more disposable income, more consumption, more taxes collected. Yeah, sounds like trickle down economics, Reaganomics...but it works.
The whole system of income tax as it sits today is geared to punish achievement by business people. Remove the punishment, and everyone will benefit. Remove the victim mentality, empower people to succeed and the economy would know no bounds.
This to a greater or lessor degree is a supply and demand economy.
We have huge comsumption in the USA and falling production. That needs to change and taxing consumption is a fine start. It also will tends to spread the pain of paying for government to people the people that drive up the cost of government but NEVER paid for government (non-producers) so I think it is fairer that an income tax.
You can construct a VAT to work in either fashion, tax-on-tax or input-only. US gov'ts at all levels are thoroughly addicted to the present-day tax-on-tax schemes in place throughout the nation, and there is no plausible reason to suppose that the greedy hands of the Regress will design anything other than a tax-on-tax VAT scheme.
If the 16th Ammendment is not repealed that is what we will all get, ANOTHER TAX!
Proofreading is our friend (sigh).
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