Why heck, I hear Ogdenville, North Haverbrook, and Brockway have a Retail Sales Tax.
Posted on 11/06/2004 10:05:20 PM PST by FairOpinion
I think this is the time to get some real grassroots efforts going to educate the American people and get Congress to make the dramatic change of eliminating the income tax and substituting it with a retail sales tax, a fair tax.
PING for FairTax
agreed that the current income tax system sucks. i would prefer a flat tax, same rate on all citizens, and eliminate all taxes on businesses. i could live with a national sales tax, but only if business taxes are eliminated.
ALL business and income taxes should be eliminated and replaces by a national sales tax.
I think W started this process by eliminating taxes on dividends- seems like a necessary first step anyway.
Mathematically speaking, a retail sales tax is equivalent to taxing all wages plus all wealth, because both are ultimately spent on goods and services. Hence, replacing the payroll tax with a sales tax is the same as (a) eliminating the payroll tax ceiling, (b) taxing wealth at the payroll tax rate, and (c) taking advantage of the expanded tax base to lower the payroll tax rate. What more could a Democrat want?
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Uh, what a Democrat wants is to tax at differential rates based on INCOME not OUTGO ... why, you ask? BECAUSE THAT'S WHERE THE MONEY IS.
I really am afraid that the sales-tax approach will be a political waterloo for Republicans that will wipe them out as a majority. doubt me? Look at Arlene Wohlgemuth and the Jim Demint races. In BOTH races tax-cutters were accussed of proposing "massive new Taxes!!" due to favoring the FAIR tax.
Arlene lost her race, and DeMint had more trouble against a liberal democrat in South Carolina than he should have.
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I have another proposal ... CUT THE PAYROLL TAX RATE. End the Cap on payroll taxes so its less 'regressive' and couple it with Bush's propsoals on social security reform so instead of 15% tax rate it's 10% and you can put the other 5% in a funded program. ... that increase on payroll taxes for the $60k and above folks can be compensated by cutting income tax rates - voila a 15% for almost everyone, and a 25% top tax (top 1%) rate on income. ( a semi-flat tax). investment income and cap gains at a flat 15%.
Cut the corporate income tax rate in kind to 15/25.
Eliminate the income tax for the bottom 60% of taxpayers.
Make up for the lost revenue with a flat 10% TAX ON IMPORTS including OIL from non-NAFTA nations. Eliminate all quotas and other forms of tarriff.
The end result will be a simpler tax code for all.
Tax reform must be comprehensive, that takes into consideration all the forms of taxation that is out there.
It must tilt more towards consumption tax, but it would be much more politically palatable to do it on imports than on sales. Taxing the 20% of consumption/GDP in America that are imported at 15% would raise 3% of GDP. right now we raise effectively only 1.5% of GDP through such taxes.
They mention the payroll tax, do they mean the income tax or the Soc Sec tax, or both? The posted part of the article is confusing.
Anyone who believes that a sales tax eliminates the income tax...merely needs to look at Europe. Government costs simply reached a point where even a 16 percent sales tax was not enough...so the income tax jumped right back into the picture. Every country in Europe has both...and they continue to climb. Germany is already discussing having a 18 percent sales tax by end of 2005. All this does is trigger folks into going the distance...either Czech or Poland, where the local sales tax is a "nice" 10 percent.
It's snake oil.
We have to excerpt Washington Post.
You can go to
http://www.bugmenot.com/view.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwashingtonpost.com
to get a login.
The payroll tax is the part of the Social Security tax paid by the employer. You pay part and your employer pays part of your Social Security tax.
I don't need to hear anything about it from the ComPost
The author proposes replacing income tax and payroll taxes with national sales tax.
Remember, this is NOT the Bush plan, this is what someone thinks is a good idea along those lines./
The part I don't like, is that she proposes the investment part of Social Security still to be handled by the government, instead of allowing individuals full power over it.
the argument used was that dividends didn't need to be double taxed. i hope you are correct and that the next step is taken. eliminate taxes on businesses implies a heavier load on individuals. this in turn means they have more skin in the game come election time and will think about the size of government. some might actually convert.
thanks for the clarification. i was not able to read the article since i do not subscribe.
Why heck, I hear Ogdenville, North Haverbrook, and Brockway have a Retail Sales Tax.
What may be the drawback is deductions like: mortgage interests, investments, charitable contributions, etc. - I am a small business owner, I work out of my home... and these deductions really help things! For me, the change would have to compensate these helpful deductions.... and for all who are paying mortgages, for the interest.
BUMP TO THAT...and lockbox Social Security by paying off everyone who's "invested" with unbreakable annuities that will include all their money+interest up to now. Better to cauterize the bleeding now.
Even God only asks for 10% of a persons wealth. So where does the Fed get off asking for 40% or more?
.... but as for the Social Security, I would really like to see something different.... TAKE CARE of our own money, to our advantage, and at our choice!
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