Posted on 12/11/2005 6:50:49 PM PST by Your Nightmare
And why do you believe that the "fair tax" wouldn't be added to the things you now claim are exempt?
I can go on and on....why haven't you thought of these queries before? :-)
Do you really believe that the 'FairTax' won't be tinkered with?
You're telling my that new products, bought by companies, are exempt from the VAT/"fair tax"?
Anything included in the production of a product.
WHY?
Every penny a company spends or is taxed it puts into its products or reduces the wages of its employees. Businesses can only act as tax collectors for government, they cannot pay a tax without first aquiring the revenues to do so from the consumer/employee. All that accomplishes is to hide the real tax burden from the citizen who pays the butcher's bill and to home government must be accountable.
Shouldn't they be paying their FAIR TAX too? If not, then how is it "fair"?
A business is a tool, not a human being or citizen. It cannot pay a tax it can only collect and remit taxes from real people and hand them to government out of sight of the person who always bears the ultimate burden, the individual citizen.
The citizen should always be aware of the full burden impressed upon him by governement, hiding taxation behind a corporate veil in higher prices and lower wages, is merely playing a very cynical shell game of hide the tax from the voter.
Businesses are not citizens that can vote. Individuals only, hold that power. Only citizens can be said to be able to hold the government accountable through a knowledgible exercise of his voting francise. Businesses have no such capacity or responsibility to hold government in check.
To tax a business is to tax a citizen in his character as a wage earner and consumer. Thus business level taxes are really nothing more than a shell game to avoid the glare of the real costs of government from ever being realized by the majority of citizens who ultimately pay the real bill.
The individual income tax return that captures everyone's attention each April, is nothing more an accounting sheet the government cons individuals, held at ransom, into filling out. It puts a blinder on the eyes of the voter, and totally distorts their perceptions as to the real impact of taxation in their lives.
| "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." |
To remove perception of the tax burdens of the individual, is to remove the goad which assures accountability of government to the electorate. Federal tax rates are high and government grows ever larger because a majority of the electorate do not perceive proportionately the burden their demand for largesse imposes on the minority of citizens.
The siren call for representation without taxation is the formula that got us where we are at today. The ability to hide or disguise taxation from the view of large sectors of the electorate allows the Congress to get away with the creation of the evergrowing monster that it fosters.
A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
-George Bernard Shaw
Liberty and freedom have a price, responsibility. If the perception of burden laid by government is interfered with or avoided there are no brakes on the growth of government, the ultimate result is the end of freedom through creeping socialism.
Right now the bottom 60% perceive little to no "Individual Income Tax" burden,(in many cases even a handout) and 70% of the voting public clamor for more from government looking for the top 40% of income earners/producers to foot the bill. That perception continues to grow ever stronger by eliminating even more participants from the Federal Individual Income Tax rolls as proposed in the tax reduction proposals through changes in personal exemption limits and other mechanisms such as the EITC.
Bush touts relief as tax day looms
Another 3.9 million Americans will have their income tax liability completely eliminated, officials said.
That's 3.9 million Americans more added to the spending constituency of 70% of the public clamoring for more from government, figuring someone else foots the bill.
And why do you believe that the "fair tax" wouldn't be added to the things you now claim are exempt?
What is exempt? the tax is being collected on the end product of all production. Established that way under the legislation proposed, I suggest you read it.
Once business is free of the tax burdens and costs and requirements of reporting income related data to govenment you figure they will quietly submit to being taxed again in the manner they are today. Think again.
I can go on and on....why haven't you thought of these queries before? :-)
I'm sure you could, fortunately your queries have already been vetted repeatedly over the last decade in addressing these issues from others. Now why are you just spouting old queries that have been dealt with in extreme detail literally hundreds of times in the past?
Can't you at least come up with something original?
Why aren't screws taxed? They are a finished product. If a person bought screws for a home project, the screws would be subjected to the "fair tax". Are you telling me that a manufacturer wouldn't be taxed when the company bought screws? And you think that that's "FAIR"?
Likewise, if you are correct and the company won't have to pay a tax on the screws, then WHY should anyone have to?
Or, are you telling me that every piece of something that goes into an end product will be tabulated and taxed at the end, when the consumer buys it? If that is the case, then the consumer is still paying the same taxes today,than he /she is today, with the hidden taxes; perhaps more.
Income taxes only account for about 35% of federal revenues. They rake in over $1,300,000,000,000 (trillion with a T) without income taxes. I think they can get by on that.
If that is the case, then the consumer is still paying the same taxes today,than he /she is today, with the hidden taxes; perhaps more.It would be more. More for one because the Fairtax has a new entitlement they call a (gag!)"prebate". Their own graph shows more people paying not less, but NO, as in a negative tax rate, as in profiting from taxes, under their plan.
Well more than that. Personal Income tax accounts for roughly $1 Trillion, Payroll taxes account for another $720 Billion, and Corporate Income taxes add another $230 Billion. All other forms of federal taxation combine add up to less than $100 Billion.
This so-called "fair tax" is far worse than what we have now and that's saying quite a lot.
Here are the figures for Source of Federal Income:
2004
Income Taxes 809 billion (43%)
Payroll Taxes (SS/Medicare) 733 billion (39%)
Corporate Taxes 189 billion (10%)
Other Taxes 148 billion (8%)
Total 1.88 trillion
So, income and payroll taxes were 82% of the revenue for the US government in 2004.
2005 est
Income Taxes 927 billion (43%)
Payroll Taxes (SS/Medicare) 794 billion (37%)
Corporate Taxes 269 billion (12.5%)
Other Taxes 153 billion (7%)
Total 2.142 trillion
Payroll plus income taxes still are 80% of the revenue.
LOL...Nothing could be further from the truth.
Not if the American people will take responsibility for their own government, it won't.
The "fair tax" is neither fair, nor workable. Neither is it a panacea.
A nice foundationless statement with no referent.
Fairness is rooted in treatment of the individual under a tax system. You apparently figure the current system is fair as compared to the FairTax legislation?
To measure fairness, one must have a standard, I take mine from a historical view, and you?
"A government ought to contain in itself every power requisite to the full accomplishment of the objects committed to its care, and to the complete execution of the trusts for which it is responsible, free from every other control but a regard to the public good and to the sense of the people."
"As revenue is the essential engine by which the means of answering the national exigencies must be procured, the power of procuring that article in its full extent must necessarily be comprehended in that of providing for those exigencies."
"As theory and practice conspire to prove that the power of procuring revenue is unavailing when exercised over the States in their collective capacities, the federal government must of necessity be invested with an unqualified power of taxation in the ordinary modes. "
"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. "
Whether they be in the form of tariffs, duties, or excises. All authorized under Article I Section 8 Clause 1 of the Constitution.
People should pay taxes in accordance with "what they actually take out of the common pot, not what they leave in." (Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan)
"[T]he Equity of Imposition, consisteth rather in the Equality of that which is consumed, than of the riches of the persons that consume the same. For what reason is there, that he which laboureth much, and sparing the fruits of his labor, consumeth little, should be more charged, than he that living idlely, getteth little, and spendeth all he gets; seeing the one hath no more protection from the Common-wealth, than the other? "
Why aren't screws taxed? They are a finished product. If a person bought screws for a home project, the screws would be subjected to the "fair tax".
They are if you are buying them retail as an individual doing household projects or a hobby.
Are you telling me that a manufacturer wouldn't be taxed when the company bought screws?
Absolutely as the company incorporates them into a product to be ultimately sold to a final consumer, who pays not only the inherent cost of that screw but an tax collected on they way to his final use as well as the product moves down the production pipeline into that final consumer's hot little hand.
And you think that that's "FAIR"?
YES!!
No company ever can pay a tax, the most they can do, and remain viable, is collect tax to be remitted to govenment out of sales revenues from a final customer.
You the citizen bares all the costs of govenment burdens imposed whether they derive from the tax system or regulatory burdens in general all such burdens pass on to the real live consumer and citizen by necessity. The fairness of any tax system can only consist in that the one who bears the ultimate burden of it be apprized of the cost of it to him.
One of the primary failures of a VAT, or any corporate tax income or otherwise, is that they hide the cost of government from the view of those who ultimate bear all costs of government imposed requirements. The American Citizen.
Likewise, if you are correct and the company won't have to pay a tax on the screws, then WHY should anyone have to?
Because under the Constitution, taxes are the chosen means by which our government is financed. The citizen ultimately bears the burden of every imposition of government and must be aware of the full and true cost being imposed upon him to knowledgibly exercise his voting franchize to hold govenment accountable for fiscal excess.
Or, are you telling me that every piece of something that goes into an end product will be tabulated and taxed at the end, when the consumer buys it?
Yep its called final retail price of a product, a price that any viable company must collect from its goods and services to remain in business as opposed to going bankrupt.
If that is the case, then the consumer is still paying the same taxes today,than he /she is today, with the hidden taxes; perhaps more.
That is what revenue neutral means my freind, Tax reform is about the method of taxation not the amount. As far as more, decrease a tax rate and we are told that total revenues to government increases, so perhaps with growth of the economy that is expected yes the American people may actually cough up more dollars to government as a lower percentage rate than they do now. They will however know what is being extracted from them, and can make a knowing choice of representation in Congress based on that knowledge.
Are you getting full value from government for your tax dollar now? How do you or anyone know when a significant portion of taxation is hidden from view. In fact for a large portion of the electorate, anything they get appears to be a freebee. No wonder demand for government by a majority of citizens continues as it has for the last 100 years.
"It's like me in the restaurant: What do I care about extravagance if you're footing the bill? "
--- Walter Williams
Bush touts relief as tax day looms
Another 3.9 million Americans will have their income tax liability completely eliminated, officials said.
That's 3.9 million Americans more added to the spending constituency of 70% of the public clamoring for more from government, figuring someone else foots the bill.
Yep, I believe you are correct! The US government and the states need to reign in spending and forget about raising taxes!
What I said isn't "foundationless"; you just can't answer my questions and neither can any proponent of the FT. All you do is post reams of CCPed gobbledegook.
With tons of prebacks, there won't be any less numbers of people not paying anything and getting other people's money and I can see all kinds of ways to get around the FT, without 1/2 trying to. Just imagine what someone with lots of time and larceny in his heart can do!
If you're for this, it MUST be utter garbage!
I'm certainly not surprised you're against it.
And you're showing your usual degree of confusion on the subject in your posts.
I don't like your answer to the tax problem and it isn't selling to the majority of the populace, either.
I'm sure it doesn't sit well with those that don't perceive they are paying taxes now.
| "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." |
What I said isn't "foundationless";
What foundation have you offered other than pure personal opinion? I seem to have missed it somewhere along the line.
you just can't answer my questions and neither can any proponent of the FT.
Each question was answered in turn, whether or not you personally get a warm fuzzy from the the information provided is irrelevant. The knowledge should be unsettling to your obvious preconception of how the world operates.
All you do is post reams of CCPed gobbledegook.
I see, referenced and cited material that provides underlying understanding and knowledge is "gobbledegook". An interesting characterization but rather worthless in debate or explaining much of anything.
With tons of prebacks, there won't be any less numbers of people not paying anything and getting other people's money and I can see all kinds of ways to get around the FT, without 1/2 trying to.
Then you won't need to worry about paying it then.
If you want to "get around" a retail sales tax, it's simple enough. Invest and save your money and don't buy new stuff. Just grow your own. Sounds like a good plan to me.
- "The income tax in effect makes us vassals to the government – the politicians decide how much income we can keep. No mere “reform” of this slave tax, such as flattening the rate, can correct its fundamental denial of control over our own money. Only the abolition of the income tax itself will restore the basic American principle that our income is both our own money and our own private business - not the government's."
- "Replacing the income tax with a national sales tax would rejuvenate independence and responsibility in our citizens. True economic liberty and moral revival go hand in hand."
- "A national sales tax would also put the American citizen back in control of national fiscal policy. The best way to curtail government spending is to cut taxes, because they can’t spend what they don’t get. But with a sales tax, we could deny funds to a spendthrift government – and give ourselves a tax cut – whenever we make the private choice to alter our spending and saving habits."
Your problem with placing the basis of income back into the hands and control of the American citizen who is to pay a federal tax is?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.