Posted on 11/07/2004 2:07:53 AM PST by FairOpinion
An official says all provisions will be examined by a reform panel. Many experts think Bush will favor a piecemeal approach.
As the White House prepares to name a blue-ribbon panel on tax reform, the labyrinthine U.S. revenue code could face the first top-to-bottom rewrite since President Reagan closed loopholes and slashed income tax rates on a historic scale in 1986.
"This is a fundamental look at the entire code, every component of the code," a senior administration official said late last week. "Nothing is off the table."
"Simplification would be the goal," Bush said Thursday during his first postelection news conference. "The main thing is that it would be viewed as fair … that it wouldn't be complicated."
"They'll be looking at the whole thing with three principles in mind: The fundamental reform should be more fair, more simple and more growth-oriented," the official said. "That's their marching orders."
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
So please explain to us where you loose this "small benefit too"?
Good! Bring on the NRST! I'm tired of trying to figure out how much of each pay raise I'm going to be able to keep.
Oh boy! I can only hope.
Now, if they would let me help write it! ;)
"No tax for food, medicine, toilet paper and cute shoes."
Pay and bonuses received in a combat zone is paid without any income tax. The soldier is then allowed to spend it free of sales tax at a PX/BX/Commissary. Under your proposal, he would not be able to purchase items free of sales tax. So that small benefit is no longer available to him.
Pay and bonuses received in a combat zone is paid without any income tax. The soldier is then allowed to spend it free of sales tax at a PX/BX/Commissary. Under your proposal, he would not be able to purchase items free of sales tax. So that small benefit is no longer available to him.
You missed the point. You are free only of individual income tax. Any made make in the PX/BX/Commissary still includes the cummulative cost of federal taxation embedded in the price of a goods and service, no matter where you buy them. That amounts of 20-25% of current product prices.
As far a combat zones, the NRST is collected only within the United States. There is no provision in the bill to tax products sold and consumed overseas. As far as paying duty/NRST on bringing something back from a combat zone or foreign base the same rules apply with a $400 NRST exemption on any items carried back.
If you are concerned about making a provision for a federal exception or credit for purchases out of combat pay specifically for purchases within the US I suggest you contact Congressman Linder's office and bring the issue up.
Personally, as a Veteran, I figure having to report my and my families expenditures out of combat pay to the government to get an extra credit under the circumstances in not something I find very attractive.
Both as a citizen and a veteran. I certainly don't find the current income/payroll tax system worth keeping compared to of being taxed on expenditures out of combat pay under an NRST.
| "As a matter of fact, what the income tax does — and this is the debate that I think we always try to get into in order to let you and him fight, see — and the people of this country are led down a path where the actual control of their resources, which in the end is the control over their will, is handed off to the government." . . . "The government then manipulates that will in order to destroy the freedom of our electoral system through the income tax structure, and we call the resulting slavery a free system." "In point of fact, it is not as the founders understood, and the only way to restore real freedom is to give people back control over the income that they earn so that they won‘t, at the voting booth and in other phony issues, be subject to that manipulation." |
I figure it would be better to receive a raise in combat pay, which they really deserve, instead of worrying over taxes paid in a commissary. A raise in pay would provide even more options to the military family.
I don't find your arguments for more dependancy on government handouts to military families through the commissary or any other mechanism to be very persuasive.
I know as a former military person, that I would have much rather have the pay and the options that go with more pay, over being dependant upon base facilities and the whim of the service or Congress handouting bennies, therein lay the trap of dependancy as opposed to freedom and responsibility to make my own way in pride.
Provide our military personnel with a solid income for living on, they are worthy of the pay, not bennies and handouts that make them dependant children.
Well, its kinda hard to see the uniform from here.
You're exempt already, although the new system may remove all exemptions, but I wouldn't advocate denying the military anything.
Good job playing devil's advocate though.
And thank you for your service.
Semper Fi
"They would never agree to a system that would remove their ability to pander to their supporters in ways like that. There may be something passed under the guise of tax reform or tax simplification, but it will only make it worse and more complex."
You are right and wrong at the same time. Yes, the tax code is a source of political power which elected officials love to wield by granting favors to friends and punishing enemies. However, there is one source of political pwer which trumps the tax code - the ballot box. When enough Americans understand what an enormous drag our tax system is on our economy and how much simpler and more efficient a system is available in the FairTax, they will demand that elected officials enact it.
"In law school I took a class on Federal Tax. One of our books consisted of the entire tax code. The thing is a monstrosity and weighs a ton (even in paperback). Even putting aside the size of the code, anyone who has ever tried to make sense of the different provisions and how they work together knows that this is an example of bureaucracy run amok. Scrap the entire thing and start over. Piecemeal mending won't solve the problem."
Great point. I was talking to someone the other day about the FairTax. His background was in the software industry. He said that there are cases in which a piece of software has been modified so many times that the logic literally becomes impossible to follow. At that point, it is often better to scrap that software and start all over with something new. I thought that was a great analogy. We have been "band-aiding" our tax system for almost 90 years now. Any time we make a change to one area of the code, it has a ripple effect and creates problems in other areas. We are well beyond the point where it makes more sense to throw out the whole thing and start again with something simple and fair - like the FairTax.
"It's going to be pretty tough with tariffs off the table."
The FairTax would work like a tariff, at least relative to the current system. By that I mean that imports, unlike US produced goods, would not decrease in (pre-tax) price due to the removal of the old system. Therefore, imports would increase in total after-tax price and US produced goods would stay about the same as now. This will shift consumer preference toward US produced goods. However, unlike a tariff, we can point out that we would be taxing imports exactly the same way we are taxing our own goods.
We would not be introducing a bias into our tax system in favor of US produced goods; we would be eliminating one that exists now in favor of imports.
Jeez, that kind of sounds like the amnesty plan that is not an amnesty plan.
Your argument is rather poor.
As far as visibility goes, I get a pay stub with all my taxes on it. No secrets there, I even have it on a spread sheet. If Bush really had any balls, he would get rid of mandatory withholding. I believe he could do that with an executive order, so what are we waiting for?
Sure beats the hell out of the doubletalk claptrap that a federal sales tax isn't regressive.
If NRST goes through, won't someone be complaining that those taxes are really embedded in everything else.
What is everything else when the incident tax is always on the citizen?
Retail consumption is the ultimate result of economic activity, that is why GDP only counts transaction involved in final use or sale to prevent double counting of production.
As far as visibility goes, I get a pay stub with all my taxes on it. No secrets there, I even have it on a spread sheet.
Really? how much do you pay out through the purchases of goods and services (you know those business taxes embedded in the price of everything you buy.)
If Bush really had any balls, he would get rid of mandatory withholding. I believe he could do that with an executive order, so what are we waiting for?
Why do you insist on being required to report you financial condition of your family to government and being held in legal jeopardy for any inaccuracy of your annual reports? Waht business is it of government what your family income or expenditure is, it certainly is not something necessary to the collection of tax revenues for government.
| I discussed the importance of abolishing the income tax because of its tendency to form a habit of servility in the souls of a people that accepts it. Servility of soul is bad not only in itself, it is also an open door through which will soon walk the abuses of ambitious government power. Leaders who find themselves with governmental power over a servile people will be quick to conclude that such a people exist to serve them. |
Sure beats the hell out of the doubletalk claptrap that a federal sales tax isn't regressive.
Hmmm, Under the provisions of the Nation Retail Sales Tax described in H.R.25, a family of four, could spend $24,980 per year free of tax because they will have received over the course of the year a demogrant totaling $5,745. $5,745 is the amount of sales tax paid on $24,980 in expenditures.
To illustrate examine the tax burden that a family of four will have at various annual expenditure levels as compared to that same family under the current system:
Actually it's better.American corporations and their employees pay NO Taxes under the Fair Tax,I mean NONE.No SS,NO FICA,No Medicare taxes.Which means products made here will be cheaper than stuff made oversea.
You have that backwards -- under an NRST, all interest will approach the current tax-free (lower) rates, because all interest income will be tax-free.
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