Posted on 11/03/2004 10:42:24 AM PST by tgusa
"I'm not exactly sure how big the national sales tax is going to have to be, but it's kind of an interesting idea that we ought to explore seriously," the president said. The next day administration officials said Bush was not considering such a reform.
John Kerry's campaign quickly condemned a national sales tax, and Bush for potentially supporting it.
“If [Bush] has his way, every trip to the supermarket will feel like a visit to H&R Block and every day will be April 15. And now that this plan has been exposed, George W. Bush is trying to mislead the public into thinking it was just an off-the-cuff comment," Kerry spokesman Phil Singer said in an Aug. 12 statement.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
You will still be assessed social security, medicaid and FICA taxes on your income.
All of which will be eliminated. Not by the NRST. But by the aftermath.
The goverment will ALWAYS be aware of your gross income.
Wrong. The pendulum is swinging toward honesty. The momentum cannot be stopped. Except by terrorism run amok with WMD's. If terrorists win we all die. The end of technology. If we eliminate terrorism we live forever. Technology never stops and advances continually increase to benefit human life.
Correction: If not by the NRST, by the aftermath.
If the libs were really into the Tax the rich...they would be all for it...except John Kerry only had to pay 12% on his income...while the rest of us foots most of the bill. If it's a sales tax, the rich will pay more because they consumer more and as I understand it basic commodities like milk and food will not be taxed.
If Americans get all of their money they earn and then can make decisions on what they buy, then they decide how much tax they are willing to pay. I think more americans would like this idea if they realized how much money they were actually sending to the government and reign in spending at every turn.
Until them, we have no idea what those people actually said.
Ahh, the old "we" collectivist mantra -- bane of the individual. Or just trying to drum up support?
Also, there's the obvious. The "little guy": Wow! by eliminating the IRS I've done so much better and so has everybody I know. Lets eliminate some more alphabet agencies. And lower the NRST to boot!
No, that's not right, Myrddin.
Individuals will pay for their benefits via sales tax payments, not by having their incomes taxed.
Benefits are determined by their employer reporting their wages.
Individuals pay tax (including FICA) via a sales tax, not an income tax.
Please, basic info including FAQ.
Sources have been posted dozens of times at minimum.
Every time a source is posted, your next step is to call them wrong. And we're all supposed to discount the published professional research papers of PhDs in economics and LLMs in taxation cuz you say so? Not.
You seem to be the only one unable to locate sources everyone else can find. Hmmmmmmm....
Necessities Prebate - check it out.
Are you sure you fools want to gamble the entire US economy one man's unsubstantiated guess?
LOL, hardly one man's guess was involved in the analysis and authorship of HR25. Furthermore, assessment of economic and political benefits to the individual are easily apparent to anyone willing to look at it without a predisposed bias or agenda against it.You see Jorgenson so often, only because his early foundational works, prior to and independant of his contributrions to the FairTax legislation, can be found on the internet for easy reference. The Jorgenson papers referenced here are the studies out of which the initial choice of direction to go was made. Unfortunately his specific contributions to AFFT in creation of the legislation is not available on the internet for review.Are you sure you fools want to gamble the entire US economy one man's unsubstantiated guess?
Just a sampling of the founding research participants for the FairTax as implemented in HR25 can be found below.
http://www.harvard.edu/
http://www.heritage.org/
http://www.mit.edu/
http://www.nber.org/
http://www.stanford.edu/
http://www.bu.edu/
http://www.cato.org/
So, does that mean benefits will be granted or withheld based on reported wages? Can you say means testing? The current payroll tax collects FICA according to income level and returns benefits according the amounts paid into the system. There is an auditable record of social security payments made by an individual taxpayer. NRST has no guarantee that sufficient sales tax will be collected to cover claims. A frugal person with an exceptional income could easily show large earnings and still make minimal contributions.
If a tracking system (national id card, SSN or standardized driver's licenses) is devised to identify actual contributions by a given taxpayer, the same infrastructure might be abused by imposition of unequal taxation. Unless the legislation explicitly prohibits unequal taxation, the politicians will interpret that as tacit permission to "enhance" the NRST as they see fit. I think the HR 25 proposal has more holes than Swiss cheese.
So, does that mean benefits will be granted or withheld based on reported wages?
That happens to be how Social Security is currently set up. If you don't like it I highly suggest that you seek to change the law that makes it that way.
There is an auditable record of social security payments made by an individual taxpayer. NRST has no guarantee that sufficient sales tax will be collected to cover claims.
The current system does not guarantee that now. In fact benefit has little to do with the SS or Medicare tax per-se. Both are paid into general revenues with no earmarking of any kind. Only the record of your wage income sets benefit, not the payment of the tax.
A frugal person with an exceptional income could easily show large earnings and still make minimal contributions.
Yep, sounds like an excellant reason for getting rid of the system to me, not to mention its fraudulent basis that is little more than a ponzi scheme.
HELVERING v. DAVIS, 301 U.S. 619 (1937)
- Title VIII(Social Security Act), as we have said, lays two different types of tax, an 'income tax on employees,' and 'an excise tax on employers.' The income tax on employees is measured by wages paid during the calendar year. Section 801 [26 USC 3101]. The excise tax on the employer [26 USC 3111] is to be paid 'with respect to having individuals in his employ,' and, like the tax on employees, is measured by wages.
- . The proceeds of both taxes are to be paid into the Treasury like internal revenue taxes generally, and are not ear-marked in any way. Section 807(a)[26 USC 3501]. There are penalties for nonpayment. Section 807(c), [26 USC 7203].
Title 26 US Code Subtitle C Sec. 3101. Rate of tax
Title 26 US Code Subtitle C Sec. 3501. Collection and payment of taxes
Nothing has changed todate inspite of all the political rhertoric about "lock boxes" and "Trust Funds" for SS/Medicare funds, the tax that is supposed to be levied for SS/Medicare is indistinguishable in operation from what we normally refer to as the Income Tax, and is paid into general revenues in just the same manner.
THE SOCIAL SECURITY TRUST FUND FRAUD
CRS Report for Congress (98-422 EPW)
Social Security: and the Federal Budget:
"Its taxes like all other federal funds flow into the U.S. Treasury and its benefit payments flow out of the U.S. Treasury. The Treasury Department issues federal securities to the Social Security trust funds to reflect receipt of these taxes, and redeems securities from the trust funds to reflect Social Security expenditures, but the money itself flows to and from the Treasury."
"Taking the Social Security trust funds "off budget" has not changed how Social Security funds are handled. They are treated the same way today as they were in 1937 when Social Security taxes were first levied -- the tax receipts flow into the U.S. Treasury and benefit payments flow out of the U.S. Treasury. The Treasury Department issues federal securities to the Social Security trust funds to reflect the receipt of these taxes, and redeems securities from the trust funds to reflect Social Security expenditures, but the money itself flows to and from the Treasury. "
"While the trust funds have an important role in monitoring the finances of the program and maintaining its fiscal discipline, they are basically accounting devices. The federal securities they hold are not assets for the government. When an individual buys a government bond, he or she has established a claim against the government. When the government issues a bond to one of its own accounts, it hasn't purchased anything or established a claim against some other entity or person. It is simply creating a form of IOU from one of its accounts to another. It certainly establishes legal claims against the government for the Social Security system (i.e., it is a legal form of indebtedness of the government and does count as part of the federal debt; see Table 3 on the next page), but the system is part of the government. Those claims are not resources the government has at its disposal to pay for future Social Security claims. Simply put, the trust funds do not reflect an independent store of money for the program or the government, and taking Social Security "off budget" did not change this. "
What Social Security Trust Fund
"The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Fleming v. Nestor (1960), 363 US 603; that there is no Constitutional right to Social Security benefits. Social Security benefits can legally be cut or eliminated at any time, and beneficiaries have no recourse. The Court held that, "To engraft upon the Social Security System a concept of 'accrued property rights' would deprive it of the flexibility and boldness in adjustments to ever changing conditions which it demands."
"All I'm proposing is some way for people to shelter money that has already been taxed so they don't have to pay the sales tax on products purchased with that money."
"The 'prices will be lower' bit is a red herring. Everybody will be benefiting equally from the lower prices so this can be eliminated as a variable. The fact of the matter is that some people will pay twice the tax as others."
I just have to jump in here, since the concern over retirement savings seems to have dominated this thread. First of all, as others pointed out, you will be paying about what you would have paid under the old system for your consumption TO THE EXTENT THAT YOU CONSUME U.S. PRODUCED GOODS. To the extent that you voluntarily purchase imports, you will be paying more than you would have under a continuation of the current system. In addition, to the extent that you purchase (U. S. produced)essentials up to the poverty level for your family, you will see a net 15 - 30% increase in your purchasing power because of the net effect of
(1) the imposition of the sales tax at the register,
(2) the offsetting effect of the prebate relative to #1, and
(3) the reduction in the pre-tax prices of U. S. produced goods because of the removal of the current system.
However, there is another benefit which dwarfs all of that. Several nationally known money managers have told the bill's primary sponsor that they expect the Dow Jones to double within 24 months of passing the FairTax. If you were to invest that $500K in Dow Jones stocks and at the end of two years, it was worth $1MM, that gain would, in all likelihood, dwarf the tax differential that you would pay on your consumption as a result of your personal consumption decisions.
"How can you call this tax 'voluntary' vs. the income tax? Is buying food more voluntary than having a job?"
To the extent that your purchase food up to the poverty level, those purchases are exempted from tax by the rebate. To the extent that you CHOOSE to consume at levels above poverty, you will pay taxes on that consumption. Sounds pretty voluntary to me, at least as close as any system will come.
"The national sales tax won't do away with social security, medicare and other similar taxes. That will still be taken from your paycheck on an ever upward spiral."
There are two sales tax proposals in congress. One, the Tauzin bill, sets the rate at 15% and does not replace social security, medicare and other payroll taxes. The one gaining momentum is HR25 - the Fairtax bill. Its rate is 23% (tax-inclusive) and it does replace all payroll taxes.
That personal ID card idea is not in either bill, nor is it supported by any significant number of tax reform proponents.
"But they would be filing 12x more often.
So .1 x 110 million x 12 = 132 million returns."
Irrelevent. It is the number of collection/enforcement points that is a more accurate variable in determinig the resources necessary to police the system than is the raw number of returns filed. You can audit 12 returns filed from a single business much, much, much quicker and more efficiently than 12 returns filed by 12 different businesses.
Nice try, though, YN.
"Show me the papers."
Why don't you tell us what you support and show us the economic research to back up your alternative?
Are you sure you fools want to gamble the entire US economy one man's unsubstantiated guess?
Five words in and you've rendered yourself worthless--obsolete. You telegraph your immaturity and irrationality by slinging indiscriminant insults at people. Basically announcing to people that you're a clown that no one need pay attention to you.
http://www.harvard.edu/And how many of these organization have done studies that confirm Jorgenson 22% drop in producer prices? Can you show me any other study that confirms it?
http://www.heritage.org/
http://www.mit.edu/
http://www.nber.org/
http://www.stanford.edu/
http://www.bu.edu/
http://www.cato.org/
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