Posted on 06/10/2005 11:13:37 AM PDT by Always Right
but if NIPA numbers don't include any of the evasion economy, your tax base has effectively been reduced by the current tax evasion rate.
GDP, GNP, NNP none of it contains any attempt to guess at non-reported activity of teh underground economy or of illegal trade of any form.
An explaination of what the NIPA GDP data series measures can be found here:
The NIPA keyword index of what is included and where in the tables each item can be found is here:
So Prices will increase 30% while Corporations will get an increase in profits due to paying less taxes and spending less on compliance and the customers buying habits will not change because the Corps will blame it on the NRST, is this your assertion?
Americans for Fair Taxation looking for volunteers to serve at Fair Tax booth at the National Taxpayers Union's National Taxpayers Conference 2005 Friday and Saturday June 17 & 18 in Washington, DC. Visit Marilyn at the Fair Tax booth early Friday morning from 8:00 am OR contact Americans for Fair Taxation HQ this week at tel: 800.324.7829 and ask for Events Person.
info on NTU Taxpayer Conference 2005
http://www.ntu.org/main/page.php?PageID=65
Your possible assistance will be very much appreciated. Look forward to seeing any of you there.
Sandbagging me?
No, but as I said, its not acceptable as various tax systems are converted to tax inclusive rates of a common denominator for analysis purposes. so they can be readily allocated to disparate income groups in calculations and fair comparisons made between the various tax systems as they impact directly and indirectly on the household.
What is it?
Effective tax rates as a percentage of CBO's pre-tax comprehensive household income measure.
Two thirds of all economic activity results from consumer spending. Therefore, I do not like the national sales tax due to the potential negative effect on consumer spending and would prefer a simplified tax system based on the flat tax.
The flat INCOME tax does little to solve the problems we have with the tax code. Very little. In fact, it only does one thing: flattens the rate.
Does nothing to solve the problems of fairness, simplicity, transparency, privacy or efficiency.
Nada.
Tinfoil? get real; the current maze of the taxcode wasn't in the legislation either, it was written by IRS staff and foisted upon us as 'implementation' of the act that congress passed. The same will happen with any other act that congress passes. I agree that the current mess was 'communist inspired' but that isn't a reason to stick our necks in a bigger noose. Any sales tax (or VAT) will have to be permanently capped to be acceptable, otherwise it must be recognized as the foot in the door that it is.
Two thirds of all economic activity results from consumer spending. Therefore, I do not like the national sales tax due to the potential negative effect on consumer spending
Then removing taxes from income before you can make use of it has no negative effect on how much a family has to spend for saving/investment for retirement or a down payment on a home, or the purchase of goods and service?
Do you figure that taxing business has no effect in raising prices, lowering wages or lowering returns on retirement and investment plans?
The other point is that it is unrealistic to expect Leviathan to simply roll over.
Any sales tax (or VAT) will have to be permanently capped to be acceptable, otherwise it must be recognized as the foot in the door that it is.
Seeing a VAT taxes through purchases by business, and a retail sales tax is collected from end consumers only.
I fail to see how you figure a retail sales tax is a foot in the door to a VAT.
As it is the corporate income tax is much closer to a VAT than a retail sales tax is.
Make some small changes by setting a single flat rate, changing how capital assets are treated by expensing them instead of depreciating them and exempting investment income from taxation would turn a Corporate income tax into a subtraction method VAT right now.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/foundationmessage03-00.html
"Under the WTO definition of the term, a sales tax is an indirect tax, as is an European-style VAT. The economic equivalence of an European-style VAT and a subtraction-method VAT is well-established. A subtraction-method VAT is essentially identical to a business income tax except that all purchases of plant and equipment may be expensed, rather than depreciated as under current U.S. law."
Next step from there would be to change accounting around a bit, and morph into a full fledged credit/voucher system VAT as exists in the EU and is recommend by some to make our corporate tax system boarder adjustable under WTO rules.
In fact, I think we're still a long way off from attaining the massive outcry from the American people that will be required to end the income tax.
But we must continue on, educating one person at a time, til that day comes.
Because if it doesn't come, we won't succeed in restoring this free republic.
The income tax is the death grip of the socialists.
I still however believe that a 29.870129% sales tax will lead to more evasion especially in the service sector.
I suspect you would have a hard time establishing that seeing as the dominant portion of the tax evasion today is in that same service sector among small business & self-employed types.
The studies I have seen at even high rates of taxation in the EU, the dominant reason for small buisinesses and single-propriators dropping out into black market operations and cash economy is more a function of complexity of the tax system acting as a barrier to entry and plain disgust with it more than rate of tax levied. Among countries with the same sale tax rates in the 15-20% range there is a wide variation in evasion rates directly related to the amount of regulatory burden imposed with the business tax system/s in existence.
I am very confident your numbers can only work if employees take a pay cut.
Which numbers, the tax rate calculations or figuring the lower producer pricing in a taxfree manufacturing environment.
No, I have fully understood for a long time. You, however seem not to understand at all.
You brought up cars and tried to compare a low end vehicle to a luxury automobile. 50 cent hot dogs and filet mignon served at the finest restaurant are both foods, but they might as well be on different planets because of the market they appeal to.
There is a perceived value in that luxury automobile for those who buy them -- it's worth it. But the Hyundai buyer will merely acknowledge or assume a greater value, but will not spend the money because it isn't worth it to HIM.
When tax costs are legally removed, if the retailer tries to retain them to make a higher profit, he will only be successful to those limited few who percieve that value. For those who don't, there will be plenty of retailers who will have dropped their prices.
It seems that your fears and the projection of that fear is guiding you, not reason, facts, and experience.
You don't begrudge anyone anything as long as you get to determine what 'earning it' means.
If anyone leaves their heirs a billion dollars or even fifty thousand, are you saying that they haven't earned it and it should be confiscated? I just want to be sure that i understand you correctly. Is that what you are saying?
Don't try to change the subject.
You made the assertion that a monthly NRST report would be a burden on retailer in comparison to today's quarterly return(s) which also includes payment of estimated income tax due in addition to the sales tax collected.
Now you are trying to compare it to the original return for income tax. That's just one reason why we want to move from an income tax and its compliance burdens to the simplicity of a consumption tax.
You make the assumption that the retailer who is currently selling a product for $100, will be happy to only get to keep $70. This is illogical. The retailer will continue to want to receive the same amount of money for his product, and, in order to do so, will raise the price so that after the tax, he still makes his $100.
Well he would now wouldn't he.
How is the tax system immoral?
You've been here for about 10 days. Welcome to FR. Now, take a well deserved vacation from posting and read the bill, the FAQs, and any of the hundreds of threads and tens of thousands of posts explaining all of the things that you raise that are totally irrelevant to this discussion. You are going so far afield of the subject that I'm beginning to think that you are here to disrupt and misinform other readers.
In case I am wrong on that assessment, you will not find any of the supporters of the FairTax who want to cede any more power to the Feds. We, like you, believe that the government is grossly overextended in power and scope.
Just look at this thread as a microcosm of the whole debate on the size of government and the possibility of doing something about it. If we can't agree on even the necessity of EXPOSING the cost of government with a transparent tax like the FairTax, how in world are we going to convince the rest of America that starting next January 1, that 90% of the federal government is going to just go away.
I think that you argued earlier that implementation of this plan would disrupt too many people because the tax collectors and tax practicitioners would be displaced from their jobs. If that's true, what do you think what would happen if 90% of all Federal employees were unemployed and how do you think that America would react to letting that happen?
See, the problem is that most people do not realize that the government doesn't have money trees where they harvest their money. The don't realize that they themselves are paying for the bloated bureaucracies because those costs are hidden from them -- buried in the price of the goods and services OR that someone other than them is paying for their goodies. Why would they care about the size of government if they don't know that they are paying? And for those who only live off the government's teat and just stand with their hand outstretched waiting for more goodies why would they care at all?
Right now, so many people are exempted out of the I.T. system or have gone underground that we will soon be at a tipping point where we will soon be outvoted in any attempt to fix anything. The non-payers will outnumber the payers and they will continue to vote only for those who promise more goodies out of your paycheck.
This may NOT be the perfect plan. It's just light years ahead of anything else that's been proposed and the ONLY plan talked about that has support in congress and massive grassroots support across the country. This IS a great first step in getting back to the position that you and I both want. We didn't get here overnight. We're not going to get back overnight either, but we can turn the train around and start heading back in the right direction with this plan.
Please take some time to do what I asked (and asked not too nicely -- sorry) and read through the plan. Every intellectually honest person that looks at it see that it does more to restore individual liberty than any other tax plan and restores the relationship between a free people and their government. When you're done, please join us in devolving power from the government.
Thanks.
Actually, I think that this is one of the great benefits and opportunities of the bill -- that some states will wise up and tell the feds to go to hell. Rather than sending the money to DC where they'll take their cut and redistribute it, they'll keep it in state.
It will be more of 'leave us alone' than it will be 'make everyone do what we want'.
Freedom is a good thing even it is messy. Now, please, you are really beginning to make your screen name an oxymoron.
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