Humor me.
Let's say we convert to a national sales tax. Rather than reporting income taxes paid by classes of individuals or corporations, we'll have the capability to monitor taxes paid by market sectors. Let's take a loaded example (pun intended) like gun shops.
If we're engaging in social engineering based on income now, what kind of politics can we expect with statistics like: Americans spend more on guns than they do on antacids! Horrors! They must be taxed more!
I don't trust Congress any farther than I can throw the capital.
We already have "luxury taxes" and "vice taxes". What would make anyone think such things wouldn't come about over and above a national sales tax? And we pay, and pay, and pay. And do you ever hear anyone seriously suggesting that it's just a crime for the government to impose such sector a taxes and be effective in getting rid of them?
The answer is NO. The money is too easily had.
"We already have 'luxury taxes' and 'vice taxes'. What would make anyone think such things wouldn't come about over and above a national sales tax? And we pay, and pay, and pay. And do you ever hear anyone seriously suggesting that it's just a crime for the government to impose such sector a taxes and be effective in getting rid of them?
The answer is NO. The money is too easily had."
"It is a signal advantage of taxes on articles of consumption, that they contain in their own nature a security against excess. They prescribe their own limit; which cannot be exceeded without defeating the end proposed, that is, an extension of the revenue. When applied to this object, the saying is as just as it is witty, that, 'in political arithmetic, two and two do not always make four.' If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so great as when they are confined within proper and moderate bounds. This forms a complete barrier against any material oppression of the citizens by taxes of this class, and is itself a natural limitation of the power of imposing them."
Alexander Hamilton in Federalist #21
If we're engaging in social engineering based on income now, what kind of politics can we expect with statistics like: Americans spend more on guns than they do on antacids! Horrors! They must be taxed more!
I don't trust Congress any farther than I can throw the capital.
Nothing at all stopping them from doing that right now with standard excise taxes except voter displeasure with such an action.
As far as monitoring by sector. A National Sales Tax provides nothing that they don't already have through the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and Bureau of Labor Statistics.
We already have "luxury taxes" and "vice taxes". What would make anyone think such things wouldn't come about over and above a national sales tax?.
Excise taxes will always be there, just as they are there now. A NRST is an excise.
As always it is up to the American people to constrain their representation in govenment. Always has been, always will be. There is nothing about an NRST that is going to encourage the activities that you describe any more than they are engaged in today. In fact with tax visible and at the rate it must be, additional taxation on products are discourged more than aided, as every voter is affected by any increase in a retail tax system.
And do you ever hear anyone seriously suggesting that it's just a crime for the government to impose such sector a taxes and be effective in getting rid of them?
That could be be because such taxes are Consitutional,
Constitution for the United States of America:
- Article VI: "This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."
- Article I Section 8: "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises,
to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States;
but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; "
- Article I Section 8: "To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof."
and the primary means by which government was envisioned to be funded by the founders?
- "A nation cannot long exist without revenues. Destitute of this essential support, it must resign its independence, and sink into the degraded condition of a province. This is an extremity to which no government will of choice accede. Revenue, therefore, must be had at all events. In this country, if the principal part be not drawn from commerce, it must fall with oppressive weight upon land."
- "The ability of a country to pay taxes must always be proportioned, in a great degree, to the quantity of money in circulation, and to the celerity with which it circulates. Commerce, contributing to both these objects, must of necessity render the payment of taxes easier, and facilitate the requisite supplies to the treasury."
"Imposts, excises, and, in general, all duties upon articles of consumption, may be compared to a fluid, which will, in time, find its level with the means of paying them. The amount to be contributed by each citizen will in a degree be at his own option, and can be regulated by an attention to his resources. The rich may be extravagant, the poor can be frugal; and private oppression may always be avoided by a judicious selection of objects proper for such impositions. "
"It is a signal advantage of taxes on articles of consumption that they contain in their own nature a security against excess.
They prescribe their own limit, which cannot be exceeded without defeating the end proposed - that is, an extension of the revenue."
When applied to this object, the saying is as just as it is witty that, "in political arithmetic, two and two do not always make four."
If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so great as when they are confined within proper and moderate bounds.
This forms a complete barrier against any material oppression of the citizens by taxes of this class, and is itself a natural limitation of the power of imposing them.
The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787
(Farrand's Records)
James Mchenry before the Maryland House of Delegates.
Maryland Novr. 29th 1787--
Appendix A, CXLVIa, page 149, S9."Convention have also provided against any direct or Capitation Tax but according to an equal proportion among the respective States: This was thought a necessary precaution though it was the idea of every one that government would seldom have recourse to direct Taxation, and that the objects of Commerce would be more than Sufficient to answer the common exigencies of State and should further supplies be necessary, the power of Congress would not be exercised while the respective States would raise those supplies in any other manner more suitable to their own inclinations --"
The answer is NO. The money is too easily had.
The answer is Yes because every other means is too susceptible to hiding the mechanisms by which the tax system operates and is more easily used to manipulate the voting public to maintain politicians in office. Whenever you have a tax system in which only a fraction of the electorate visibly participate in a significant way:
"the top 50 percent ($36,000 and over) paid 96 percent of income taxes. Guess what the bottom 50 percent of income earners paid?"
--- Walter Williams.
An electorate is ripe for manipulation:
| "As a matter of fact, what the income tax does — and this is the debate that I think we always try to get into in order to let you and him fight, see — and the people of this country are led down a path where the actual control of their resources, which in the end is the control over their will, is handed off to the government." . . . "The government then manipulates that will in order to destroy the freedom of our electoral system through the income tax structure, and we call the resulting slavery a free system." "In point of fact, it is not as the founders understood, and the only way to restore real freedom is to give people back control over the income that they earn so that they won‘t, at the voting booth and in other phony issues, be subject to that manipulation." |
| I discussed the importance of abolishing the income tax because of its tendency to form a habit of servility in the souls of a people that accepts it. Servility of soul is bad not only in itself, it is also an open door through which will soon walk the abuses of ambitious government power. Leaders who find themselves with governmental power over a servile people will be quick to conclude that such a people exist to serve them. |
I see you've received several responses. I'd just like to add that the FairTax bill has no provisions at all for collecting any information that would lead to the sort od discrimination of different sectors as you envisions.
One of the cornerstones of the FairTax is a lot of freedom from government intrusion - and not just in collecting taxes.