Posted on 09/15/2005 7:03:21 AM PDT by groanup
THE FAIRTAX --- STRAIGHTENING OUT SOME CONFUSION
When Congressman Linder and I were busy researching and writing The FairTax Book we knew full well that it would one day become the focal point for those opposed to this tax reform idea. We tried, therefore, to make sure that our numbers and claims were correct and consistent with the research that went into the drafting of HR 25.
On review, and after reading the critiques of opponents to the FairTax plan, we have concluded that there is one element of the FairTax that could have been present with more clarity in the book; the concept of embedded taxes and keeping 100% of your paycheck. Those who have much to lose if the FairTax were to become law will focus on these areas in an attempt to undermine support, so let's put their objections and distortions to rest by addressing those matters here and now.
We explained in the book that the FairTax plan was revenue neutral. By this we meant revenue neutral for everyone ... the government, businesses and individuals. You can't put more money in the pockets of one without taking money out of the pockets of another. The harsh reality is that politicians would not support the FairTax if it meant less revenue for the federal government; business leaders would not support the FairTax if it meant a decrease in corporate earnings and profits, and the people would most certainly not support the FairTax if it meant a decrease in their income. Taking an snapshot view of our economy, an increase in income in one of these sectors would necessarily mean a decrease in another. This is why the FairTax was designed to be absolutely revenue neutral – leaving everyone pretty much where they are in terms of income or revenue. To put it more bluntly, there is no free lunch in the FairTax plan. There is no "something-for-nothing."
This brings us to the question of embedded taxes in the cost of consumer goods and services, and your paychecks.
As explained in The FairTax Book, there are taxes embedded in everything we buy. Every entity which provides a product or service in the design, production, marketing, distribution and sale of every consumer good or service will incur some tax liability as they perform their particular function. This tax liability will be incorporated into whatever these individuals or business entitles charge for their services, and will all passed through to become a part of the final cost of the product or service.
Now here's what we didn't explain well in the book.
Every employee of any company involved in American commerce is also a provider of a service, and, as such, the employee incurs a tax liability as a result of his or her work. This tax liability is incorporated into what the employee charges the employer for their services, and is eventually incorporated into the final retail cost of the employer's product or service. Each employee is essentially a separate business entity providing a product, be it physical or mental labor, to the employer.
The extensive research behind HR 25, The FairTax Bill, shows that the average embedded taxes in every consumer product or service is about 22%. In some industries, such as leather goods, the embedded tax is smaller. In other industries, such as homebuilding and construction, the embedded tax is higher, but it averages out to somewhere between 22 and 23%. With the passage of The FairTax Bill, those embedded taxes disappear. These embedded taxes include the combined tax burdens of all entities involved in bringing those goods or services to market, and that includes you, the employee, and the taxes you incur as a result of your employment.
We write in The FairTax Book that the competitive pressures of the marketplace will force prices down when embedded taxes disappear from the cost of retail goods and services, and we cite 22% as the average amount of those embedded taxes. Does this 22% include the income and payroll taxes that are paid by employees? Yes, it does. So ... what does this mean to your paycheck after the FairTax becomes law?
When the FairTax is implemented, and when business and personal income and payroll taxes disappear, your employer is going to have to make a decision. He will either take some or the entire amount he had been withholding for federal income and payroll taxes and add it to your weekly check, or he will readjust your pay figures so that your entire paycheck will be equal to what you used to call "take home pay" before the FairTax. The employer may also decide to do a little of both. Either way, you can see that the amount of money you actually receive as pay – the amount you can put into your bank account – will not decrease, and may actually increase.
On a larger scale real wages will rise to the extent to which the nation's employers decide to return the embedded costs of their employee's income and payroll taxes to the employee. Likewise, the cost of the products or services produced by the employer will be reduced to the extent to which that employer retains all or a portion of those income and payroll taxes together with the other taxes on capital and labor eliminated by the FairTax. Once again, a zero-sum, revenue neutral game.
Now, let's elaborate on the "keep 100% of your paycheck" line that appears in The FairTax Book. It is certainly true that after the FairTax becomes law there will be no more withholding from your paycheck for any federal taxes. What you earn is what you get. This is not to say that your gross pay will equal what it was before the FairTax. This will depend on what your employer does when the embedded costs represented by the tax burden you have passed on to your employer disappear. One thing is certain: You will suffer no decrease in real or net earnings --- the amount of each paycheck you deposit into your bank account every other week. The "keep 100% of your paycheck" concept can more easily be applied to those who either change jobs or come into the labor force after the implementation of the FairTax. A new worker will negotiate a wage with an employer knowing that the amount negotiated will be the amount that worker receives every two weeks ... no deductions. Likewise, when you change employers you, too, will negotiate a wage that will not be subject to withholding, and you will get 100% of your wages in each paycheck.
Some of you reading this amplification of the principle's of the FairTax may have come to a rather interesting and accurate conclusion. The reality is that in America we're already operating our federal government off a consumption tax. A convoluted and impossible to understand consumption tax, but consumption tax nonetheless. We say this because ultimately all taxes paid by businesses or individuals eventually make their way through our economic system until they are embedded in the cost of some consumer item or service. In other words, taxes, like that other stuff you've heard about, roll down hill. At the bottom of that hill we find the retail sale and you, the ultimate consumer.
As we said in the book, and as we repeat here, the FairTax is not a "something for nothing" scheme. It was designed to be and, in fact, is revenue neutral. Having said that; the non-government economists who studied the FairTax play are nearly unanimous in their agreement that the implementation of the FairTax will lead to unprecedented economic growth in the United States. We will see economic growth in our economy of such magnitude that it will, sooner rather than later, lift all boats ---- including yours.
Well, with you NRSTers, the insults are pretty common, and pretty much expected.
That's actually very ironic, because if you look back it was my posts which were deleted first because of the fair taxers run to the moderator. A couple of the fair taxers can't post without name-calling and when I respond with 'fairy taxers' and calling them lying SOB's they run to the moderator.
Every single one of those things were completely debunked long ago.
The poster never seemed to have recovered from the shock and has been speaking in tongues ever since.
Why, thank-you. But I still can't hold a candle to you, pigdog and geezer (and all the rest for that matter).
If the share of taxes paid by the rich declines significantly (and it will under the NRST), and the poor continue to pay, effectively, no tax,....to stay revenue neutral, the middle class, especially the upper middle class, will pay more of the tax burden.
You never mention the burden of FICA taxes that the middle and lower classes have. Working poor people may not pay income tax but they do pay FICA, no matter what. As a percentage of income, middle and lower classes pay a much smaller percentage of income tax but they do pay a flat 15% (or 7.65% if you believe the employer match is a cost to the employer) of their income for FICA taxes up to the income cap. FICA taxes as a percentage of income for the top 1%(or even 10%) are miniscule.
A single taxpayer making $90,000 (gross pay not including employer matching) would pay almost $18,000 in income tax and nearly $7, 000 in FICA. That is 27% of his gross pay. A 23% NST rate would lower his burden not even figuring the pre-bate. This also assumes that this taxpayer spends 100% of income. How is that shifting the tax burden to the middle class?
What is not said in those figures, and what will make the difference in the transition, is that only about 50% of all of us pay taxes at all. That certainly includes me, I get an undeserved earned income credit, and possibly you.
This is exactly what I said. Perhaps I could have been clearer that I was talking about the 50% who did not pay taxes but even with that, the construction of the sentence is clear. The sentence says, "That includes me and possible you." The "...I get an undeserved earned income credit..." is parenthetical as indicated by the commas. Anyone with an understnading of basic grammar and sentence construct knows that.
I am completely insulted that you would think I said anything else. It is embarrassingly degrading that you accuse me of suggesting that you may be taking the EITC. I think this should be brought to the attention of the moderator.
Now, that is my best imitation of you. Go suck a lemon.
I pinged your buds so you won't have to. Did you forget lewislynn?
It was still a confusing statement, even with an understanding of basic grammar.
Well, this is a revelation. Please favor us with this wisdom once again. Some of us missed it the first time.
Folks in really big corporations don't usually go to jail for tax evasion. They most assuredly go to jail for violation of securities laws.
They have resources that most of us don't have. They also have very informed choices that they can make. Tell me, site( )test, does the average person go to jail more often for tax evasion or for violation of securities laws? Well, we all know the answer to that. Wouldn't it be nice if there were no IRS? If the average person couldn't go to jail for a misinterpretation or for a conscious interpretation that can only be determined in court? The code is ridiculous and comparing the violations in large corporations is surely a most moot point.
Well, with you NRSTers, the insults are pretty common, and pretty much expected.
The insults are ubiquitous on both sides. The difference is that the fair taxers have a website with FAQ's, research, economists' endorsements, hundreds of thousands of supporters, rebuttals, etc. The SQL's, otoh, appear on these threads with insulting phrases and subtle jabs but no such back-up. Some aren't so subtle but are merely insulting and childish. It would be nice if all these discussions could be more civil. Here's a bet: which side has had more posts removed by the mods? LOL. I would hope neither, but we know the answer.
I would like to commend everyone on this thread for keeping it civil. Congrats to you all.
Thanks for the inclusion.
BTW, I freepmailed you for inclusion on your ping list. The deal that really gets to me is the constant accusations that the fair taxers are insulters. That is a flat out lie and I would ask the SQL's to please link these insults anytime they accuse us.
What I see are individuals who have an apparent agenda (I am saying apparent, not definite) in maintaining the status quo and would greatly suffer if the fair tax were implemted. The only one of the SQL's that has any legitimacy, IMHO, is Always Right. He is a home builder and he sees the price of his (very expensive) product going up by 30%. He has a very legitimate debate.
We should address such things that AR raises and ignore people like site( )test and YN and especially LL (who is..., well I won't say it because I haven't pinged him).
I recommend we raise this debate to a higher level than we are currently in because most of these anti's are not legitimate conservatives or they are saddled with an agenda that makes their arguments nothing more than puffballs of self indulgence.
I will admit to finally succumbing to insults but only after great forbearance. Some seem to wear their feelings on their sleeves and are just looking for something to be insulted about. (I am reminded of Hillary screeching that they are called unpatriotic just because they criticize the administration. We know how phony that is.)
I also disagree with you about AR. Some of his post are the most inane of all and show an amazing lack of knowledge for someone who claims to be a homebuilder.
I consider most of them, perhaps all of them, to be disrupter's rather than seekers of knowledge or legitimate debaters. They don't offer alternate plans, hence the label Status Quo Lovers, they just disrupt and accuse (insult). Sounds alot like the Democrats to me.
I am already no longer responding to two of them so I will include the rest to my list.
I thank you for trying to be a peace maker but you are similar to the Republicans trying to be nice to the Dems; good intentions with no chance of success. If you notice, except for those few, the discussions are always pleasant and informative. If they would return to DU we could have all our threads that way.
Again, thank you for your effort and for your good intentions.
I appreciate your indulgence, but you and I know that I don't need it. I am not an idiot and neither are you. The enemy here are the SQL's who have an agenda and are neither friends of conservatives nor logical opposition. We are indulged vs. a strange minority of lackadaisical people who don't share our resolve in removing the IRS. They are the "soft opposition of limited expectations". Some of them claim that they are opposed because the plan cannot ever be passed, some of them claim that the plan cannot work in its form. Some of them claim that the plan is flawed.
Well, fine. Please show us what we should do. Please give us an alternative. Please be forthright and give us an alternative. We're all ears!!!!!!!!
To begin with the whole 'SQL' crap is insultive. As soon as I see the term Squirrels or Rongie or whatever in a thread, its all fair game for me to start using 'fairy taxers'. Nobody here thinks the IRS is not too big and intrusive and takes too much money and is too complex. We just don't agree that the proposed alternatative is really much better and is some ways may even be worse. There are some legitimate advantage, but there is a tendancy by the fair tax organization to grossly exagerate them, and there are some claimed advantages that are flatout false.
Yes it is only a 'claim'. You have only been insinuating I have been lying about this for 6 years. I am a pretty good 'liar' as I have stuck with the claim since 1998. I have accumulated about 40,000 posts on this forum with a small minority on these 'fair tax' threads. These are the only threads I get accused of being some DUer or Marxist. These are the only threads I get called ignorant or 'most inane'. Of course you consider my pointing out the flaw in the embedded tax arguement for 6 years was inane until fair taxers have finally admitted my point was correct, but now is only some nit to the tune of a trillion bucks. The only other group I ever have run ins with are the anti-christian libertarians who seem to have no problems with the schools promoting gay right and passing out condoms, but throw a hissy fit if God is meantioned in schools. You know it is all a cover so I can be a troll on these threads. Anybody who dares disagrees with this plan that will bring about world peace is a troll.
If the fair tax is such a 'conservative' principle, why haven't many top conservatives embraced the idea? Linder, Boortz, Keyes hardly are considered the icons of the conservative movement. I can go back through old fair tax threads and pull out the names of hundreds of freepers who don't like the idea and are no enemy of conservatives. Many have privately e-mailed and thanked me for fighting you guys. Most don't want to put up with the condescending insultive nature of fair taxer posters. The conservative answer to this problem is not coming up with a supportively more efficient way for the government to collect taxes. THE conservative answer is to cut spending and reduce the amount of taxes that need to be collective. The idea that a 30% sales tax is a pillar of conservative thinking is not only arrogance on your part, it is simply wrong. Our founding fathers would roll over in their graves if our country started adding a 30% tax to things like rents and services. There is absolutely nothing conservative about that. And there is nothing conservative about using misleading arguments to promote your cause. That my friend is a 100% liberal tactic, and I am glad to see Boortz has at least stopped one of the most aggrieves misrepresentation.
Of course this is just the 'inane' rantings of a 'Squirrel' who is the 'enemy of conservatives'.
Defined by what, whom? Taxing the creation of wealth is conservative? Wrapping a ball and chain around our necks as we toil? I thought conservative meant to unleash the power of the market place and let the rising tide lift all boats. How in the world is it NOT conservative to tax one's wealth once it is made instead of stifling the making of it?
Taxing ones wealth is no more conservative than taxing ones income. And in realty, I would argue that taxing one's spending is even more stifling to our economy than taxing one's income. If one is on the fence about buying something discretionary which would add to our economic growth, that 30% added tax is going to stifle a lot of people.
Dear groanup,
"'But these households have nearly $200 billion annually in income.'
"Once again you're confusing income with wealth."
No, I'm not. This approximates the total annual INCOME of the top 1% of households. It's a rough number, I know, and it varies more than when you're looking at folks closer to the median, but it's good enough for my current purposes.
The WEALTH of the top 1%, I imagine, is in some trillions of dollars. Remember, this is the top 1% of households, which is around 1.3 million households. This is a class that INCLUDES, obviously, the very rich, but just as obviously includes a lot of folks who some might call merely mass affluent. Heck, old Bill Gates all by himself probably has over $60 billion in wealth. Add in Warren Buffett, some Waltons, and a few others, and we'd get to $200 billion in wealth in no time.
"LOL. Misunderstanding? 1973-1974, stock market cut in half. Millions of retirees have to return to work or defer retirement altogether. 1987 stock market loses 20% in one day. 2000-2002 stock market cut in half, millions of retirees have to return to work or defer retirement. Nah, there's no risk there. Hell, just hold on for the ride, buy and hold, you'll get your money back. LOL. Buy low sell high. That's the ticket, that's what the smart money does right?"
As we're talking about the wealthy, even the very wealthy, now it is you that are confusing wealth with income.
"Only if that investor is a hedge fund or a speculator. It's a dreaded thing for investors and a necessary thing for traders."
For folks who are still in the midst of investing years, and who are disciplined investors, volatility is their friend.
For folks who will actively manage their investments, even once retired, volatility is also a useful tool.
"LOL. Inflation risk is the LEAST risky factor in a muni bond portfolio."
Well, in a period of low to modest inflation, unless one expects to reinvest most or all of one's interest, one will see one's principal eroded over time by inflation. For the long haul, inflation is a serious risk for any type of fixed income asset.
"Back in the days of Paul Volcker I knew of a bank that kept buying long term munis as interest rates went up. Before long the losses in those munis were greater than the bank's capital. Fortunately, in those days, banks didn't have to mark to market. LOL."
Ironic in that you demonstrate the point for me. Thank you.
In this case, the bank's accumulation of bonds as interest rates went up meant that as time went on, each set of bonds purchased lost value. As you point out, if the bank had had to mark their value to market, the bank would have been insolvent. That makes my point nicely, if a little overdone.
For individual investors, of course, they can hold the bonds to maturity, and still live on the interest. The problem is that whether inflation is high or low, when they receive back their principal, it will be worth less than when they invested. With relatively low inflation, the effect is low. With higher inflation, the effect can be greater.
Of course, if inflation is higher, interest rates go up, and the investor can set aside some of the interest to counter the effect of inflation. And, sometimes, rates may exceed the rate of inflation by enough that the investor can actually stay even with inflation and derive a decent current income, as well.
However, more often, rates don't provide that margin.
"And after 27 years in the securities business I can say for certain that your attitude, which seems to be that all the axioms (lies) you have been told by Wall Street all these years are gospel, is not conducive to getting the best deal from the financial advice crowd. Why would anyone believe any investment guru? If the investment guru knew what was going up and what was going down he would just manage his own money from his yacht."
Well, that's a pretty cynical attitude. Sorry to see that you've become as bitter as this suggests. That gives me further insight into your support for this half-baked NRST scheme.
As for me, these "lies" have served me well for 20 years, including through the collapse in 1987, and the recent bear market.
Anyway, I have a question. Then, is it your advice for a 60 year old man with, say, $25 million to invest (he just sold his rather successful business) to buy $25 million of tax-free bonds exempt from the AMT?
Thanks,
sitetest
Dear groanup,
"The insults are ubiquitous on both sides."
I don't see it that way. I see the folks who aren't sold on the NRST as usually trying to engage in a civil conversation, until the NRSTers start calling us "SQLers" or "Squirrels," or worse. Then some respond in kind.
And of course, we evil SQLers stand in contrast to who? To the "FairTaxers"!!! LOL! Oh yes, that's so rhetorically considerate of you. ;-) WE're Status Quo Lovers, and you're in favor of the "Fair Tax."
ROTFLMAO!! Whatever could be wrong with us!!??!!
Your whole way of addressing the subject, groanup, is little more than propaganda.
The folks who oppose the currently-proposed NRST each oppose it for a different set of reasons. We are not lovers of the status quo. When you call it the "Fair Tax," you beg the question, as you assume a premise not proven to the satisfaction of all, that this is, indeed, a fair tax.
The very terms you use to address the argument are inherently derogatory of those who oppose the NRST.
You folks have little but insults. Oh, and fatally-flawed misunderstandings of the works of at least some academics. LOL.
sitetest
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