Posted on 05/27/2005 10:53:33 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist
President Bush is calling for a complete overhaul of the broken U.S. tax code, and his Advisory Panel is holding hearings to make recommendations for reform. As I testified to the Panel earlier this month, instituting the flat tax is the right answer.
Our current income tax system is a catalog of favors for special interests and a chamber of horrors for the rest of America. As a country, we spend more time filing taxes than we spend building every car, truck, and van produced in the United States. To put this in perspective, it takes the average taxpayer over 26 hours to file a standard 1040, which has caused over 60 percent of Americans to pay a professional to complete their taxes. Simply complying with the complex tax code costs $194 billion each year, or about $650 for every man, woman, and child in America.
Aside from the tax system’s complexity and unfairness, it also inhibits saving, investment, and job creation; it imposes a heavy burden on working families; and it undermines the integrity of the democratic process. The U.S. tax system cannot be repaired by tinkering or fine-tuning. It must be completely replaced with a simple and more efficient alternative. Of the many proposed reform measures, the flat tax best meets the goal of collecting revenue in the simplest, fairest, and most transparent manner possible.
The flat tax will replace the current tax code with a flat-rate income tax that treats all Americans equally. All income is taxed only once and at one rate. There are no breaks for special interests and no loopholes for powerful lobbies, just a simple tax system that treats every American the same.
Individuals and businesses will simply complete a tax return the size of a postcard. All deductions and credits would be eliminated, while the only income not subject to tax would be a generous personal exemption for every American. For example, a family of four could be exempt from the first $40,000 of income. This personal deduction would be indexed to inflation and the flat tax rate could be calculated to be revenue neutral, so as to not increase the deficit in the process of enacting this important reform. Additionally, according to a study by the former chief economist for Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation, national income would be 5.7 percent larger after five year under the flat tax than under the current system. That means over $500 billion in increased output or more than $3,000 in additional income for a typical family of four.
One competing idea-- the national sales tax-- exhibits the perception of efficiency, but we cannot introduce such a powerful new tax collecting regime unless the 16th Amendment to the Constitution is repealed (a highly unlikely event). Otherwise, we risk the harmful reality of having to pay both a national sales tax and a federal income tax. Therefore, those in favor of modernizing the current code should work towards enacting the flat tax. It solves the problem and it is politically achievable.
Every American will benefit under a flat tax system. An increase in national income will increase charitable giving, lower interest rates will more than offset the loss of the mortgage deduction in the current system, the income exemption will continue the tax code's progressive precedent, saving for your retirement or children’s education will be easier, the marriage penalty will be eliminated, the deduction for dependent children will double, and every taxpayer will see their tax rates reduced.
For the sake of fairness, simplicity, and an improved economy, I strongly urge the President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform to recommend the flat tax.
Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey currently serves as co-chairman of FreedomWorks, a national grassroots organization fighting for lower taxes, less government, and more freedom.
and they'll be reminded of that at every purchase and on every receipt.I thought prices would be reduced...where's the reminder?....
Oh I know, the same ones who never look at their check stubs will somehow find it necessary to look at the their receipts just before they throw them away in the bags they carried them home in.
Do you know how much you paid in sales tax last year?
Since the NRST will be 'revenue neutral', the same amount of tax will be paid.LOL!...Nothing warms the heart like knowing you're paying less (for now) ON more.But the base will be larger.
I have ordered my life to take advantage of the current silly tax system. Now, you want to change ALL the rule after I have committed to a 30 year mortgage?
Screw that!
With a flat tax, you still have to define INCOME. Thus, you still have an IRS and, at least half of the current 40,000 pages of regulations. No THANKS!
Of course this is an anonymous internet board. How could I know such?If it's so anonymous why are you afraid of coming out with your unfounded accusations?....Why don't you just come out with whatever it is you think you're accusing me of?
I have nothing to hide, do it coward.
How's that? COGS reduces 20-25%. Labor costs no longer include paying employer "contribution" payroll tax.
You find yourself calling names, again, only to be the moron yourself.
A standard deduction reduces tax liability for everyone who chooses to take it.
The rebate (or prebate if you wish) reduces tax liability for everyone who wishes to take it.
If someone grows his own food, generates his own electricity, and somehow consumes nothing for retail consumption he will then have no tax liability to offset that month.
Moron, knucklehead, dufus... what would you call someone who based an entire argument on the "fact" that 100-22=88?
If you get one, the business has record of it. IMO they won't care if you got one, just that the business issued one. That's what makes sense from a compliance standpoint.
That is not to say simply knowing the amount is what is most important - it is not. The difference maker is that consumers will have to pull green money out of their pockets everday to feed the government beast... and they'll be reminded of that at every purchase and on every receipt.
Numbskull.
What unfounded accusations?
Why don't you just come out with whatever it is you think you're accusing me of?
What are you talking about? You should reread the post, carefully.
I don't buy the claim that goods and services costs will drop 20-25%. Corporate America is always slow to pass savings to the consumer and quick to raise prices as a hedge against increased costs. That behavior is observable every day in the price of oil and gasoline. There is no reason to believe that behavior will suddenly change overnight.
My original post observed the current behavior of the marketplace in response to increases in minimum wage. Such labor costs are still built into the cost of goods and services. Whatever the motivation for increasing minimum wage, the effect is always a cascade of increased costs for goods and services across the board.
"I have ordered my life to take advantage of the current silly tax system. Now, you want to change ALL the rule after I have committed to a 30 year mortgage?"
Not me, I've only advocated the abolishing of witholding. I doubt that would affect your mortgage.
Unless you have sufficient pull at the ballot box, such reminders do nothing at all. I was reminded daily of the asinine anti-gun laws in California. I could do nothing about it at the ballot box. The state is filled with sheep who vote for anti-gun socialists. All I had left was voting with my feet. I left for Idaho.
Looking at the number of card carrying socialists in the House of Representatives and a few hard core commies in the Senate, I see a country that lacks the resolve to turn idiots out of office. The sheep won't object at the ballot box.
You should reread the post, carefully.
The post? How about all the posts you've posted with your underhanded unfounded accusations, moron?
"If you get one, the business has record of it. IMO they won't care if you got one, just that the business issued one. That's what makes sense from a compliance standpoint."
Now that does make me wonder. The law says the business has to issue me a receipt. Why should the government care if a receipt was issued? The business needs to keep a record of the sale, but how does giving me a receipt further that requirement?
No - you were caught once again in attempting to defend the present system by posing some unrelated nonsense that did nothing of the sort. It had no meaning to the subject at hand except as a defense of the present system.
You're now trying to weasel your way out of that.
No. You miss the point that prices will decline due to the embedded taxes removed from them (IT, P/R, etc.) by something like 20- 25% and then the Fairtax will be applied to that lowered price. That will result is about what you now pay but the tax has now been paid in that price whereas you previously bought it with income that was already taxed (in addition to the inflated price due to embedded taxes).
It is nothing like the "Free Lunch" your TXT mentions. It's just the operation of economics combined with a horribly inefficient and expensive present tax system. And the FairTax is not embedded but out in the open for all to see.
You really need to spend some time on some of the links given so that you have a better understanding of what is involved. As it is you're missing a lot of the benefits that will actually occur.
Whether you realize it or not, you are defending the status quo by arguing for the retention of any form of income tax. Retaining even a flat tax will only morph right back into what we now have. How can you not realize that since you make a point of that sort about the FairTax which actually eliminates the IRS and the income tax both.
With the FairTax we are offered an entirely different tax medium with which to view what government is costing and a mechanism to pretest the excess spending. You merely think the taxpayer is powerless - conditioned by too many years of the income tax control.
Why is it - do you think - that the FairTax calls for the repeal of the 16th amendment... and no, that cannot be done before passing the FairTax since the government would they have no tax law.
Any NRST has a built-in mechanism on holding down tax rates and, in fact, once such rates rise to a certain level trying to raist them more actually reduces the tax revenue.
So please spend a bit of time studying the information on the FairTax website. You'll be glad you did.
You can certainly find that out by spending some time on the FairTax website.
I would think that the primary reason for requiring that the buyer receive a receipt containing specific information is so that should there ever be a legal need by the state sales tax authority to review a particular seller that he could be required to produce those records,
I doubt the state sales tax folks care very much if you have the receipt or not and certainly there would have to be much more that just a vague suspicion of you for them to g o to court to get after you. If you're paranoid (as some on the thread claim to be), then throw all your receipts in a shoe box and hang onto them for a while.
If you've read the bill you should already know that.
They will clearly be lower due to the removal of embedded taxes if not for any other reasons.
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