Fair Tax vs. Flat Tax

Neal's Nuze ^ | 06/10/05 | Neal Boortz

[Sprite518]

AND WHAT ABOUT THE FLAT TAX?

Yes, I know. Some of the people that we would love to have supporting the FairTax have weighed in in support of a flat tax instead. So ... here's some flat tax vs. FairTax issues some of you may want to consider.

[Bigun]

Click on any or all of the links at the bottom of post #12.

[dread78645]

Is earned income taxed from all sources including wages, pensions, interest, dividends, capital gains, whatever? In other words no tax free income of any kind.

Huh? Income is not taxed at all!

[RockinRight]

He touched on this yesterday. He leans towards flat tax, but says either would be great. He then went to make the (accurate) point that it is a pipedream because Congress would never pass a law like the above ideas that takes away most of their single greatest power-taxation.

[NonValueAdded]

Whyever would that be so????

Just look at what is happening in Florida right at this very minute. Specific items are exempt from taxation for a certain period of time. This week it is Hurricane supplies. Right before school starts it is clothing. Noble things for a benevolent state to do, right? Well, look closer at the list of things and you will see the complexity involved of "this item good (exempt)" "that item bad (non-exempt)." But that is a non-tax, you say. Sure, but look at the infrastructure at every cash register necessary to implement it. Can't you see how easy it would be for a group to decide that if you can exempt an item, you can also impose a variable rate? Piece of cake! The idea of classifying commodities for tax purposes isn't new at all. It only takes the will to implement guberment policy to start deciding how to use the tax code to influence individual behavior. Right now it is a pretty blunt instrument but the "fair tax" will turn it into a laser scalpel in comparison.

[Realism]

Congress would never pass a law like the above.

Then we need to put some jobs on the line and find a Congress that will.

[squirt-gun]

I like a wealth tax where the wealthy as well as the poor and everyone else are taxed at a low fixed percent on the value of what they own each year. Any kind of income tax will be unfair in one way or another.

In this fashion, Senator Kennedy, for example, would be motivated to approve things to help balance the budget rather than "give-away" things to motivate the drones of America to vote for him.

A flat tax or the current Islamic like tax code leaves Kennedy and his socialistic clones free to promote more socialism which necessitates more follow on tax increases for the peons like me that he does not share in any way, shape or form.

[CSM]

What prevents the Feds from adding a sales tax today? What prevents the states from having different rates of sales tax?

[CSM]

Actually, he didn't touch on this at all yesterday. The caller asked him what he thought of the NRST, and RL said something like, oh, the flat tax.....well...it is a pipe dream......

[SpinyNorman]

No matter what tax system you use, automatic witholding must be eliminated. Nothing will bring uncontrolled taxes to the forefront faster than having to write a quarterly or yearly check to the IRS!

Do like we do in MA: make them take any tax overrides to the voters. Let them make their case and let us decide.

[nosofar]

With the FairTax in place the government will no longer need to know even so much as anyone's name in order to collect their taxes!

While government will not need the name to *collect* taxes, they will still need names. I just went over to www.fairtax.org. They state: "Everyone pays their fair share of taxes, and with the FairTax rebate, spending up to the poverty level is tax free." Government will have to know the names and incomes of anyone applying for this rebate.

[mc5cents]

Is earned income taxed from all sources including wages, pensions, interest, dividends, capital gains, whatever?

Only when you spend it.

[Tatze]

...a wealth tax where the wealthy as well as the poor and everyone else are taxed at a low fixed percent on the value of what they own each year. Any kind of income tax will be unfair in one way or another.

This is a terrible idea. You would be taxed year after year again on the same wealth.

The FairTax is a tax on consumption, not income. The rich will buy more, and therefore will pay more. The huge underground economy of drug dealers, and other criminal activities would be taxed, foriegn visitors would be taxed, illegal aliens would be taxed.

Plus with no corporate taxes, the US would become the largest corporate tax haven in the world and all the companies moving thier headquarters off shore would be fighting to get back here the fastest. Foriegn companies would re-locate their headquarters here.

This should be a no-brainer!

[NonValueAdded]

and learn a little more about what you are talking about

Oh, nice liberal debating style there, bucko. Attack the speaker, imply they don't know what they are talking about and simply provide a link to further imply that the speaker is a doofus and "if you only read the link," clouds would part, the sun would shine, and Congress wouldn't try to use the tax code to do social engineering. Sweet.

I am talking about the potential damage that will come from placing the tax code in the individual transaction stream. I don't give a hoot what a web site or even the text of the legislation or amendment might say right now. All I need to point to is Wickard v. Filburn to know that if we put the government in the position the "fair tax" suggests, it will be game over. The enabler isn't the legislation, it is the infrastructure. Once you marry the UPC with the accounting system with the tax code you will have Washington DC micromanaging our behavior to an extent even Orwell didn't imagine (some products are more equal than others, for those in Rio Linda).

The Founding Fathers had it right when they wrote Article I, Section 9. We screwed it up with the 14th Amendment and it was all downhill from there.

[Eagle of Liberty]

And from Barnes & Noble website:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?cds2Pid=5576&isbn=0060875410

The FairTax Book

FROM THE PUBLISHER The first book on the radical new FairTax proposal that's catching fire in America's heartland. Wouldn't you love to abolish the IRS . . . Keep all the money in your paycheck . . . Pay taxes on what you spend, not what you earn . . . And eliminate all the fraud, hassle, and waste of our current system?

Then the FairTax is for you. In the face of the outlandish American tax burden, talk-radio firebrand Neal Boortz and Congressman John Linder are leading the charge to phase out our current, unfair system and enact the FairTax Plan replacing the federal income tax and withholding system with a simple 23 percent retail sales tax on new goods and services. This dramatic revision of the current system, which would eliminate the reviled IRS, has already caught fire in the American heartland, with more than 600,000 taxpayers signing on in support of it.

As Boortz and Linder reveal in this first book on the FairTax, this radical but eminently sensible plan would end the annual national nightmare of filing income tax returns, while at the same time enlarging the federal tax base by collecting sales tax from every retail consumer in the country. The FairTax, they argue, would transform the fearsome bureaucracy of the IRS into a more transparent, accountable, and equitable tax collection system. Among other benefits, it will:

·Make America's tax code truly voluntary, without reducing revenue

·Replace today's indecipherable tax code with one simple sales tax

·Protect lower-income Americans by covering tax on basic necessities

·Eliminate billions of dollars in embedded taxes we don't even know we're paying

·Bring offshore corporate dollars back into the U.S. economy

Endorsed by scores of leading economists and supported by a huge and growing grassroots movement, the FairTax Plan could revolutionize the way America pays for itself. In this straight-talking book, Neal Boortz and John Linder show you how it would work-and how you can help make it happen.

[taxesareforever]

There will never be income tax modification. Our government officials use the tax system in order to drum up votes by pitting the classes of income against each other. Under a flat tax or fair tax they would have to use other means to drum up votes and they don't have anything else to use. So, everyone, forget ever seeing income tax modification. It's just another opportunity for your congressmen and senators to make you think they are working towards your best interest. It's all a bunch of hogwash.

[jla]

I'd prefer the flat tax, 10%, over the other options. Though it would need to be accompanied by a U.S. constitutional amendment or two so it couldn't be raised. And a proviso limiting the tax to primary income only.

[NonValueAdded]

mea culpa, 16th Amendment.

[spetznaz]

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the 'fair tax' the same thing as a VAT (value-added tax)? At least it seems to be the same thing to me. Anyways, with that said either of them (fair/vat and/or flat tax) would work better than the current system. But it will be some years before enough people are sufficiently hurt by the AMT for them to really push for change (although that shouldn't take long since more and more and more people are finding themselves squirming due to the AMT).

[SunnyD1182]

1. In 1986 the Congress reformed our tax code to essentially give us a flat tax ... a flat tax with two rates. Fifteen and twenty-eight percent. Most deductions were eliminated. Today's tax code is the result of that effort.

That's not a flat tax, then.

[jla]

...and ALL taxes of property ("land") rescinded for eternity.
This would definitely have to be adopted into our constitution to eradicate state and local property taxes too.