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To: Always Right
????? What are you talking about???

I'm talking about something you CLEARLY do not understand or are unwilling to admit the existence of. I'm talking about all sorts of costs, so many as to be virtually unquantifiable, imposed by the tax system that are NOT the taxes themselves and I have REPEATEDLY said that!

Think of them as unfunded mandates.

Since you clearly don't like hearing it from me maybe you will listen to someone else on the matter but I doubt it!

Here is an excert from remarks made by The John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University, Dr. Walter E. Williams, in March of this year to a standing-room-only crowd of students, faculty, and guests at Hillsdale College's Constructive Alternatives Seminar:

"...Keep in mind that a working definition of slavery is that you work but do not have any rights to the fruit of your labor. Taxation and regulation constitute confiscation of some or all of the freedom to own and use property. This confiscation has reached unprecedented proportions. In 1902 expenditures at all levels of government totaled $1.7 billion, and the average taxpayer payed only $60 per year in taxes. In fact, from 1787 to 1920, federal expenditures never exceeded 4 percent of the Gross National Product (GNP), except in wartime. Today federal expenditures alone are $1.8 trillion - almost 30% of GNP - and state and local governments spend over a trillion more. The average taxpayer now pays more than $8,000 a year, working from January 1 to May 8 to pay federal, state, and local taxes. In addition to the out-of-pocket cost, Americans spend 5.4 billion hours each year complying with the federal tax code-roughly the equivalent of 3 million people working full time. If it were employed in productive activity, the labor now devoted to tax compliance would be worth $232 billion annually. The federal cost of hiring 93,000 IRS employees is $6 billion. If these Americans weren't fooling around with the tax code, they could produce the entire annual output of the aircraft, trucking, auto, and food processing industries combined..." Emphasis added.

And he is only talking about DIRECT costs here not intangibles such as missed opportunity costs and the like.

287 posted on 08/23/2005 7:31:44 PM PDT by Bigun (IRS sucks @getridof it.com)
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To: Bigun
I have granted there are costs of compliance, with the business share being roughly $100 billion. But what does that have to do with the mammoth lie that everyone gets to keep all their paycheck and prices come down 22 percent? Jorgenson's study absolutely did not say that, but that is what fair taxers are saying it does.
289 posted on 08/23/2005 7:40:25 PM PDT by Always Right
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To: Bigun

Bigun

You posted while I was typing.

Do you have a link to this, or his research?


290 posted on 08/23/2005 7:42:14 PM PDT by Gvl_M3
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