I'm sorry but I have heard too many reservations from the conservative side of the economic aisle to get hyped up about this scheme. Why not stick with the flat tax? Unlike this national sales tax it actually has a long, successful track record in numerous countries.
Bingo - flat tax (10% maximum) is the only way to go - with absolutely no deductions for anything. And everyone has to pay - no "ceiling." Because whether you make a million a year or a hundred a year you benefit from living in this country. And things you get for free are just not as precious as those for which you have to pay.
"Why not stick with the flat tax? Unlike this national sales tax it actually has a long, successful track record in numerous countries."
For starters, the current system started as a flat tax. The monstrosity that we have now is a flat tax on steroids. When you tax income, you always have the problem of defining what "taxable income" is. In the 90+ years we have been attempting to do that, we have never been able to do it in a manner that is understandable even to the so-called experts.
In addition, when you tax corporate income and payroll at each level of the supply chain, you imbed the cost of your tax system into your domestic production. Then our products compete with VAT countries which either
(1) remove their VATs from their goods when they ship them to us, or
(2) add their VATs onto our products when we ship them outside the USA.
Is it any wonder that we have a huge and growing trade deficit?
In addition, Social Security and Medicare have major solvency problems tied to demographics. As long as we raise those revenues from a payroll tax, those problems will get worse and worse.
That should do for starters.
BTW, if you like a flat tax, you should love the AMT.
Moreover, though I am a conservative, I don't trust Washington one bit with this. My fear is seeing this AND a small remaining income tax that can balloon at DC's money-lust will. Here in TN, we pay almost 10% sales tax (no state income tax); this would make our tax burden 1/3 of the cost of a purchase, and more once the politicians manipulate it. It sounds good in theory, but I don't think it is practical to think that the theory will translate into good legislation.
How about getting rid of the Federal Income Tax and that's it! I dont see where it says in the Constitution where the Federal Government has any right to tax its population. Actually, the Fed's only constitutional source of income would be from trade tariffs but since everyone in DC is pretty much all for the free trading i dont know how that would work nowadays. My thoughts are, that if the federal govt cant support itself on less than 15% of all the working american's earnings (assuming there are no tax law changes) then it is too big and needs to diet. I say let the states levy taxes and return the fed to its constitutional roots.
As long as we leave the income tax in place we leave ourselves open to the same thing we have now. We don't need an income tax of any kind. Sales taxes work better than income taxes and we don't make criminals of our citizens with it the way we do with an income tax.
I have been praying for the people of this country to come to their senses in regards to an income tax since I was a young man( a ways back) and now we are finally getting somewhere but too many people can't seem to give up the apron strings of an income tax.
As far as the people who say that the real amount of the tax is 30 percent, so what? We pay that and more now with the income tax. We will pay what we pay now except for one big difference: You don't have to buy goods if you don't want.
"Why not stick with the flat tax? Unlike this national sales tax it actually has a long, successful track record in numerous countries."
Another point about that assertion: I am not aware of any countries that have BOTH a long AND a successful history with a flat tax. The USA has a long history, but when one considers the monster that its originally flat tax has morphed into over its 90 year history, as well as the degree to which the economy is negatively impacted, one could hardly use the term "successful" with respect to its experience.
You could point to some of the eastern European countries which have instituted a flat tax, but that experience is relatively recent.
Therefore, it is more accurate to say that there are countries that have had a successful experience with a flat tax (so far) and those that have had a long experience with one, but I am at a loss to identify a country which has had both a long and successful experience.
Even if that weren't the case, what right does the federal government have to compel you to disclose every detail of your financial life once a year?
A flat tax was instituted in the 1980s. It's since morphed into the monster it was designed to replace. The Fair Tax abolishes the IRS (and gets their abuses out of our lives) and replaces more than a million pages of tax code with 130 pages.