Posted on 02/03/2005 9:54:12 AM PST by EternalVigilance
CONGRESSMAN STEVE KING INTRODUCES RESOLUTION TO ELIMINATE IRS
WASHINGTON - As W-2s arrive in mailboxes this week, U.S. Congressman Steve King has introduced a resolution to repeal the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, which gives Congress the authority to collect income taxes.
H.J. Res. 16 would eliminate the IRS and the means for the government to collect income taxes.
"The IRS is an out-of-date, trillion-dollar-a-year drag on our economy," said King. "Instead of continuing to band-aid our complicated, leaking tax system year after year, we can choose a permanent solution and finally rid Americans of the fat leech they feed their paychecks to."
King has been a long-time supporter of the FairTax, a national sales tax placed on goods and services, which would replace the income tax.
H.J. Res. 16 must be approved by two-thirds of both the House and Senate, and then sent to the states, where three-fourths must ratify the amendment.
For information on the FairTax, visit:
http://www.fairtax.org
U.S. Congressman Steve King
Iowa's Fifth Congressional District
1432 Longworth House Office Building · Washington, DC 20515
http://www.house.gov/steveking/
print this out and put it on the 'frig - and shoot off snail mail letters AND email to your reps in DC
They must knoe NOW that we know what's this about and we insit on it
Consider this: Our current system taxes at the level of production, such that the entire tax burden for the nation must be born, ultimately by American industry. Although it's not treated as an export tarrif (which is expressly forbidden by the constitution), it accomplishes the same thing by taxing American made goods at the production level. The constitutional prohibition on export tarrifs was put there for a reason and a good one, and our existing system is effectively a loophole around it, and puts us at a competitive disadvantage in terms of world trade.
In fact, our current system is even WORSE than an export tarrif, in that it puts the same effective tarrif on ALL American made goods, while allowing other countries to insert their products, developed outside Federal jurisdiction, into our markets to compete with own goods, without sharing the federal tax burden. This puts American made goods at a trade disadvantage ON OUR OWN SOIL!
The current system is the OPOSITE of the protectionist style of financing the goverment with import tarrifs... It is protectionist for all other countries at our own expense.
The FairTax will eliminate the burden of taxation at the production level, allowing our exports to be more competitive over seas. Also, because the tax will not be levied until the point of consumption, the tax burden born by American made goods will be partly shifted onto imports, meaning they will share the same tax burden as american made goods. This should result in American made goods being more competitive in terms of winning shelf space, as well as consumer dollars. Hopefully even reversing the trend of American Manufacturers having to compensate for market displacement by imports, by increasing prices... further making American goods more competitive.
There is more, but that should at least get you interested enough to check out the FAQ at FairTax.org.
As an instance of the problems with having a VAT, you can read this 18 page document explaining all of the requirements for a business to correctly do books and records for the British VAT. This is in strong contrast to the requirements typical for a simple, uniform retail sales tax. And here is a link to a web page on from the Philippines that I found explaining how to do their VAT -- and again, it is far more complicated and expensive to run the Philippines VAT scheme than a simple retail, uniform sales tax at the consumer level.
And remember, in the U.S. most states already collect sales taxes, so the startup and maintenance costs for retailers are going to be far lower than a VAT where every business has to literally keep a VAT record of every outside transaction, and then figure all kinds of input and output bits to finally come up with an estimated tax that has to be reconciled at the end of the year. (And, yes, I am aware that there are all kinds of theoretical "VATs" -- but we don't have to sit here and theorize, we can actually look at what has happened in other countries that gone this route.)
Same here. I am in favor of a NRST, and I am willing to accept the Fair Tax proposal for a NRST, even though I think it has some troublesome points -- which I think if they do appear can be fixed after the regime is in place.
I believe they converted from a sales tax to a VAT in Australia, and compliance went down. It may have been a different issue than the rate issue you are talking about, though...
Regardless, that's a common concept of what a VAT is, from my experience with anyone but people well read on the issue. That's why I think there's such violent resistence to it. It can best be remedied by a patient explanation, IMO.
Yes. Particularly in more competitive industries. In less competitive, more specialized industries, it would not have to be as fast.
Under the FairTax, NEW homes would be assess the sales tax, but USED homes would not.
The flat tax, sales tax and VAT are all border neutral.
As a business owner, I would hate to deal with a VAT. The less paperwork I have to do, the more productive I can be. The mechanism of collection for a NRST seems to be cleaner than a VAT. It won't take hordes of 'agents' peeking into every companies processes to make sure of compliance. And I also saw somewhere back in the thread that the VAT cost can be shown to the end user. How would that be? Would there be some kind of statement on each purchase as to the amount of VAT is in the price?
If it is common, do you know of any countries with a cascading VAT? I think that is mere misinformation originating from sales tax advocates like "Americans for Fair Taxation".
Businesses are entirely relieved of any tax burden under the FairTax. All corporate and payroll taxes are removed. I've been around a few times on this regard in terms of traditional economic principles. But that reduction of cost, in a competitive market, should result in lowered prices more than any other dynamic.
Yep. A percentage of the purchase price, just like the sales tax.
You have to calculate your income and apply a percentage to figure your social security. Use the same number you calculated for your social security and multiply by the tax rate. You're done.
Actually, while we're on social security, I think social security privatization will kill the NRST. The NRST delinks income from SS tax payments. High earners will not accept that their SS accounts should be lower than low earners.
They sure won't if no one submits it, now will they? It's at least worth a try, this year, next year and as long as it takes.
How would you go about eliminating the income tax, without going through Congress. The only other route would be for the states to call for a Constitutional Convention, and pass the amendment there. Either way it has go to the state legislatures for final ratification. A Constitutional Convention is fraught with danger. The last time one was called to amend a founding document, they ended up throwing it out and starting over. Or they could repeal some other amendments that most of us would not like to see gone.
That is my understanding as well.
Although, I'm not aware of any particular VAT plans being promoted, I would expect that it would have to credit back export credits to be salable. If you know of any, please give me a URL to info about it/them.
BUMP!!! - for later reading and ACTION!
Well, you know me. A sales tax and a flat tax are just subsets of VATs. Therefore, I would say the sales tax and flat tax are the two competing VATs. The flat tax is the best.
I think the concept is based on the "turn over" taxes used in Europe. From what I've learned in this debate (not this thread, necesaily) most of the countries which had such a tax switched over to a non-cascading tax, but I don't know if there are or are not any countries using one today.
By the way, I'm not defending the misconception, nor do I know for sure where it originated. I'm guessing based on the fact that I had the same misunderstanding before getting involved in the FairTax threads.
It "delinks" income from SS payments, however SS benefits are still based on earnings.
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