Replies

" I proposed a simple method of dealing with the double taxation issue. I see no reason why it can't be adopted by the Fair Tax advocates."

Sorry, I meant to address this. I think this would be workable, since I think the national income numbers support the revenue needed without including the spending of already-taxed money. But in the interest of fairness, what if price-drop anticipators are right ? Wouldn't the PTS accounts be getting favorable treatment in that event ? Should the FairTax exemption for PTS money be reduced by the benefit of any price drop ? How would you account for that ? If milk drop from $3/gal to $2.50/gal, surely the PTS moeny shouldn't completely exclude the FairTax amount ?

First of all, I would like to thank you for bringing the issue back to reality. The elimination of corporate taxes has the potential of reducing prices but it certainly will NOT reduce prices to the point where the price decrease offsets the Fair Tax to make the whole matter a wash when the issue is using saved money that has already been taxed under the income tax system.

Whether we are talking about the 23% tax that I first assumed or the 28% that others have claimed is an irrelevant distraction. The bottom line is that prices are not going to drop either 23% nor 28%.

The backbone of the American economy is not the giant corporations but the millions of small business owners with Sole Proprietorships and S Corporations that pay no corporate taxes.

The keyboard that I am typing on says "Made in China" on the back as does the screen I am now looking at. The elimination of whatever corporate tax DELL paid to be the middleman will not cancel out a 23% or 28% sales tax to make it a wash if I buy them with already taxed money.

"In the interests of fairness" is the key issue.

The basic principle is that a citizen's money not be UNFAIRLY taxed.

If money has been taxed once as income tax and is saved, prices fall, say, 5% under the Fair Tax and the money is then taxed as 23% or 28% ( or whatever it really is) as a sales tax, then that is a definite injustice.

That is unfair double taxation pure and simple.

Do I assert that the once-taxed money is sacred and must never be taxed again?

No, not all all.

All you have to do is treat the issue with common sense instead of treating it like religious dogma.

IF the price-drop anticipators are correct to some extent, then, since I proposed using a special PTS Debit Card, it is a very simple thing to program the PTS Debit Card computers to charge whatever percentage of tax has been mathematically determined by the Government bean-counters to ensure that the entire process is zero sum for both the Government and the citizen.

It's as simple as that.

If the price-drop anticipators are correct in their predictions, then I pay the exact amount of extra tax (as determined by the bean-counters in charge of the PTS Debit Card computers) to ensure that I have paid my fair share of taxes.

If the price-drop anticipators are not correct, then my life savings are not ravaged by unfair double taxation.

It may be that different businesses have different tax rates programmed in to the PTS Debit Card computers just as different businesses now pay different State Excise Tax rates on their gross. If a high volume, low profit margin retailer paid the same excise tax rate on their gross that I pay on my service business gross, they would be bankrupt in two months. That is why State Excise Tax forms have so many different excise tax rates asigned by each type of business.

In the age of computers and electronic finances, we have no need to risk devastating peoples savings in a crap shoot based on opinions and claims and counter-claims.

With modern technology, we have the ability to define our core value.......no citizen's post-tax savings buying power will be hurt or enriched by the system change.......and the Government bean-counters and the computer geeks can take it from there and proceed to adjust the PTS Debit Card computers as required each moth to achieve that goal.