"Many times" you "misspoke"??? Not so.Huh? I misspoke that once. I have stated many times that I misspoke in that post. What's the point of bringing it up continually? Have you never misspoke? Should we peruse your posts looking for inconsistency so we can discount everything you say without addressing the particular points (as you are trying to do with me)?
Any flat tax IS an income tax.No more than a NRST.
and it uses income as its basisNo more than a NRST in that it taxes the income you consume and not the income you save, just like a NRST.
(and perpetuates the IRS and the tax code pretty much as is).The tax code would be completely different and if you want to get rid of the IRS, get rid of the IRS and create a Flat Tax Bureau.
Many people (yourself included) try to warp it around to be a "consumption tax" so that it is - you THINK - more politically palatable and you are aware that the current political fad is for something called a "consumption tax".Actually, we "try to warp it around to be a 'consumption tax'" because it is a consumption tax. It taxes consumption, not income, not savings. Consumption. Ironically you are trying to warp the flat tax into an income tax because you think it would be less politically palatable.
You can't make a slik purse out of a sow's ear and you cant make an income tax into a consumption tax except in theory.I'm not trying to.
Too bad you (and a lot of economists) don't realize what a consumption tax is.Actually, it is you who are ignorant on the subject as is demonstrated by your repeated claim that a flat tax isn't a consumption tax when it most certainly is.
The FairTax is one.Yes, it is.
It taxes end-consumption at the retain level.Otherwise known as a retail sales tax.
Neither the Nightmare VAT nor the Nightmare Flat are consumption taxes except by the most convoluted definitions and and modifications and that can be seen by the actual experiences in the real world I gave you in #97.You continue to flaunt your ignorance.
In #99 you claimed:
"As I have stated many times, I misspoke in that post." when in fact you did not state that you had misspoken until you had to admit you were wrong.
Until that time you persisted in attempting to alter the meaning of what you said to be something quite different.
You're welcome to read as many of my posts as you like; I started posting about 1988 or so (or maybe I "misspoke" - maybe it was 1998; I forget:-)) so that should keep you out of mischief. But I'm sure we "misspokers" understand what we are "misspeaking" about.
Sorry, but a Nightmare (or other) Flat tax is an income tax and requires pretty much all of the supporting machinery now in existence for the present system (massive tax code replete with exceptions, exemptions, the IRS, etc.). The Fairtax does its thing without all that folderol which not only saves tax (my) money but also saves lots of aggravation in dealing with the authorities. I think most citizens do not mind paying taxes (though most think they are too high which is true) so much as putting up with the potential criminalization and general mental strain of complying with government mandated arcane paperwork and procedures eary April 15 (or so) and being guilty until you prove you're innocent. The FairTax frees us from that. Your Nightmare Flat tax does not.
If you had taken the trouble to read the links in #97 you would see that in practice the flat income taxes implemented as companions to the VAT do not remain flat at all and end up cascading and being embedded into proices - which was why most of these countries bought into the VAT or VAT/income tax idea in the first place - to eliminate the tax cascading into the prices of things. So as time goes along the flat taxes end up taxing (guess what) - INCOME - to a far greater degree than you pretend.
The Tax Code would be "completely different" ... REALLY??? How - can you offer, perhaps a few hundred (of thousand) sections to replace what we have that support that wild swing of fancy?? Just post it here on FR. I'm sure we'd all like to see it.
Actually starting out as a "flat tax" (the sow's ear you're trying to tell us is the silk purse), such a scheme rapidly becomes just what the Euro-folk have ... and which we're trying to get rid of. A tax on income is a tax on income and making exceptions and exemptions at the start is just an open invite to the pols to "have at it" - and that's exactly what has happened in the other countries that have taken that approach.
Perhaps if you could explain how your Nightmare VAT or Nightmare Flat overcomes that little set of problems we'd all be more relieved. Read the links in #97 so you can know what you must overcome to be palatable.