Posted on 08/15/2005 5:55:06 AM PDT by OESY
A major domestic battle looms this fall, when tax reform-- a centerpiece of the president's bold domestic agenda-- will finally be on the table. The President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform is expected to release its findings by the end of September. After the political shellacking the White House took on Social Security, the administration will be strongly tempted to take a conciliatory path that supports only superficial reforms, essentially preserving the status quo of our hideous income tax code.
Such a course would have perilous consequences, economically and politically. In fact, the administration has an opportunity here to boldly retake the initiative, to recover lost political support and thrust an already decent economy into high gear and, at the same time, make America better able to meet intensifying competition from China, India and others. How? By junking the entire federal income tax code and starting over with a flat tax. A growing number of countries are doing this -- and so should we.
The current system is beyond redemption, a beast whose complexity, confusion and outright unfairness have corrupted our economy and society. Americans waste more than $200 billion and over six billion hours each year filling out tax forms. They engage in all kinds of useless economic activity intended to take advantage of the code's complicated maze of deductions and to reduce taxes -- from deducting donations of old socks to making unwanted investments. The waste of brainpower -- at a time of increasing global competition -- is incalculable.
The code corrupts our system of government by encouraging the crassest political conduct and by creating a massive, intrusive federal bureaucracy. One-sixth of the private-sector employees in Washington are employed by the lobbying industry. One-half of their efforts are directed at wrangling changes in the tax code....
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
You Squirrels and your diversionary tactics ... anything to try to drag the thread off-topic no matter how outrageous or obtuse, eh?
Why post all the extraneous stuff, Looey - unless of course you're trying to scare someone with the sheer volume in the post or hope they won't read it and assume it somehow applies.It doesn't apply?
You're right, I posted all of it in hopes no one would read it....Fairtax Clown brilliance....
Actually YOU are the only one worried about what everybody else reads...I posted it to you...not to "all".
I'm sorry but that is just TOO much! The biggest clown on FR calling someone else a clown!
NO - I'm not. It is you trying to spin what Linder said as though he intended that to be the general case when what he was talking about were sales tax credit mechanisms that could be used for business conversions to personal use, etc.You are trying to spin. Linder specifically stated, "we would not ask the Home Depot to make the decision whether or not to raise the tax from them [businesses]." That doesn't jive with what you are saying.
That is very clear from the bill as is the language that describes the normal case:It's very clear from the bill that a "seller shall be relieved of the duty to collect and remit the tax imposed under section 101 on such purchase IF the seller received in good faith, and retains on file for the period set forth in section 509, a copy of a registration certificate from the purchaser." What Linder is saying is that places like Home Depot won't be accepting certificates so they will never receive it and thus will be "relieved of the duty to collect and remit the tax." They won't be asked to "make the decision whether or not to raise the tax from [businesses]."
This has been pointed oput to you before Nightie, so you cannot honestly pretend you didn't know it.I thought I knew until I read Linder's testimony. I bet he would know better than either of us.
That's right...nothing to it.Take that with having to file to get the sales taxes you paid Office Depot back and small businesses are going to love the FairTax. /sarcasm
The salient points are the description of the two lines really required - gross payment and tax collected.You are delusional if you think the monthly sales tax filings are going to be two lines. That's just silly.
And just FYI, I "am" a partner in a small business. Admittedly, I don't "do the books", but I observe the gal who "does" do them, and handling all the things you describe doesn't seem to take a huge amount of her time--she spends FAR more time and agony on income tax than on sales tax.
Now, I have to ask one question----is your accounting system computerized???
You are delusional if you think the monthly sales tax filings are going to be two lines.It's no problem.
Line one: How much is your gross for the week/month?_________
Line two: Remit 23% of it....NOW!
They make all attempts to appeal to the lowest non-thinking denominator for their strength. Anyone capable of coming to logical conclusions is their enemy.
Which are gross overestimates. These numbers quoted by fair taxers are not business compliance cost, but costs by taking the number of forms, the time the IRS estimates it takes to record keep, read the instructions, and fill out the forms, and multiplying it by $25 per hour. Most of the 'compliance costs' that are quoted is the time individuals (not businesses) spend and not actual costs and certainly not costs to businesses. Compliance costs numbers that are thrown around are an absolute joke.
Yes it is.
Here are a couple of problems I see with a National Sales tax (just as it relates to my business, I obviously can't speak for others).
1) if there are no exemptions, then what happens to wholesalers or manufacturers ? Are they going to have to pay sales tax on vendor to vendor sales or on raw materiel purchases ? Won't this drive the price of goods way up overnight ?
2) I am in a business where everybody who can, tries to pay in cash (to avoid sales taxes and to get a better deal. Adding yet another sales tax is going to encourage more people to try to use cash to avoid paying tax. (please don't tell me that people are going to change their ways just because we hope they do) Any contractor knows that folks who can, love to pay cash if they get a break on the price and just about everybody will take cash over a check, any time if only because "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush".
If the National Sales tax is as easy as you all say it is (which I still have my doubts) then that would be great but I also believe that non-compliance would be incredible since sales tax is one of the easiest taxes to avoid paying for people who choose not to (in certain fields).
3) is every person who has a garage sale, or sells a car or boat, etc. or who gets a table at the local flea market, going to have to collect national sales tax ? I just don't see that happening.
Dear Mind-numbed Robot,
"Thanks you for the reply."
You're welcome.
"You and I will never agree because you are one of those mnaking money off the system and I am trying to get rid of the system so that everyone can make money unimpeded by the system."
That's a grossly unfair characterization of what I do. I play by the rules. That's what I do. You don't like the rules? Well, I don't always like them, either. But no one asked my opinion, and the rules aren't necessarily the rules I would pick.
Except for issues of compliance (my compliance costs would likely go up), I don't think I'd personally get hurt much, if at all. I'm probably about break-even.
But I have no desire to see the rules overturned in a way that badly hurts large numbers of folks, and this proposal would do that. Lots of folks have ordered their lives according to the rules, and have prospered accordingly. Yanking the rug out from under these folks now isn't fair or right.
"There are transition accommodations for such things."
I've gone over the transition accommodations in previous threads. For this particular example, I haven't heard any. It isn't like the govt is going to give me back part of the cost I expended on the property, and in fixing it, to compensate me for getting screwed by the fact that I won't derive any additional income through tax savings, while the rest of my personal expenditure costs rise by the average sales tax I will have to pay.
By the way, talking about transition accommodations and complexity. Quite frankly, I've been involved with threads where some of the key NSRTers here at FR just couldn't explain the transition rules coherently. Not because these folks are dumb, but because the rules get very, very complicated. Ugh. The current tax code's a piece o' cake in comparison.
"Intended or not that is an insult from someone who abhors such interaction."
Whether someone abhors the current system or not, it isn't rocket science. I pay my accountant less than a thousand dollars per year to do my federal and state income taxes (and the company's as well). I spend more complying with state and local company property taxes, and issues regarding unemployment insurance.
However, don't worry, very little of this compliance stuff will go away under an NSRT. In thinking about this, I can find very few pieces of information that I will no longer have to report to the government, and very few pieces of information for which I will no longer have to maintain documentation.
sitetest
Dear pigdog,
"If they pay little or nothing now, big guy,..."
If you don't want to treat me with respect and civility when you post to me, then don't post to me, got it?
sitetest
Dear XRdsRev,
"If the state thinks you are withholding sales tax, you are in deep sh*t and you will likely have every transaction audited for the period in question, so you better have every receipt, every voucher, every i dotted and t crossed."
Yikes. That's my big concern. Especially if they're not talking about 5% of sales, anymore, but now (in Maryland), THIRTY-FIVE percent of sales.
I only sell services, so the state sales and use tax folks don't go over my books too hard when they audit me.
But under the NSRT, because I mostly sell only to businesses, I'll be reporting seven figures of revenues, and a couple of hundred bucks of collected sales tax. They're going to scratch their heads and wonder about the other six or seven figures I'm not paying.
I gotta figure I'm gonna have a big ol' bullseye on my back for the first few years.
I may just sell the business. Just too damned ugly to think about.
sitetest
I thought I knew until I read Linder's testimony. I bet he would know better than either of us.Better than one of you for sure but don't put money on it. He didn't know there was a 30% sales tax in HIS bill ON "any government" wages, salaries and benefits
And if you look at his Rube Goldberg operation of states collecting and remitting federal taxes and the federal government collecting and remitting state taxes, one doesn't have to wonder too hard about the low intellect level of Linder.
Dear Man50D,
"Moreover, concurrent with the repeal of the income tax, a constitutional amendment repealing the 16th Amendment and prohibiting an income tax will be pushed through Congress for ratification by the states."
Nope, as things are currently configured, it's likely that the NSRT would pass and the repeal amendment wouldn't even get out of Congress.
The NSRT legislation needs only a simple majority.
The constitutional amendment requires 2/3 majorities in each house.
And then ratification by 3/4 of the states.
Color me a little skeptical that that's going to happen.
Especially AFTER we give the politicians a big fat juicy sales tax, WITHOUT first taking away their authority to levy an income tax.
Why are they going to go back and give away that authority by repealing the 16th amendment??
"We'll never use it, we promise. Well, only in a real emergency. Like a major war. Or something. Like, maybe if the deficit was too large. Or Social Security was about to fail. Or if we really, really needed to nationalize healthcare. Or if we really, really need to tax all those ugly old rich folks to subsidize food purchases for poor hungry starving deserving children."
No, thanks.
sitetest
If, as you probably hope, they don't really read it but just peek at the size of the text, they might be scared away by what might appear to be convoluted and involved procedures.
As I said the salient parts that relate to the two line report required are those that specify the gross payments and the tax collected. The other requirements do nothing to define the basic content required of the report. There's clearly no other sense in posting all the other stuff.
No, it's quite clear that the registration certificate would be the requirement for most retailers. Many of them operate in this fashion right now. Present your certificate and claim the non-taxed status.
The credit that may be cleimed by the procedure mentioned is for conversion of a business purchase to a personal purchase and for other excep[tions. It is not the normal method of claiming "no tax". That would make it into something like a credit invoice VAT which it is not. Most stores such as Home Depot accept such certificates right now.
And YOU are the one always whining about us "putting words in someone else's mouth" when you're trying to insert you own interpretation into his statement.
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