Posted on 12/11/2005 6:50:49 PM PST by Your Nightmare
The part I love is how the bill is referenced as though it is holy scripture, a stone handed down on Mt. Zion that will be accepted intact by the Congress and passed in its present form.
The fair tax is going to do away with income tax AND Social Security/FICA taxes? REALLY? And it's going to catch drug pushers and thieves and shop lifters and illegal aliens and everyone in the underground community and well, just EVERYONE, BAR NONE in its web too? ROTFLMSO
I already told you a few ways to get around the fair tax. :-)
To: Laurence M. Vance;
Research and write your own book in response.
Since the higher percent of 30, is probably what will be used, that also would make people in lower tax brackets ( forget about that prebate, it isn't enough to offset the FT's final cost!), they would automatically be bumped into a higher tax bracket and things such as bus, train, and taxi fares would rise. So would the cost of gasoline, for those who drive.
Most people don't raise all of their food. Immediately their grocery bills will skyrocket.
Yes, there will be a prebate, no prices won't come down, and people always holler when any price is raised; remember what happened with the price of gas? And just because they won't be paying an income tax, it's the price shock, when buying something, that they'll look at!
"Sometimes", "not always", lots of hyperbole, and guessing.
Many museums have costume collections. No, that term doesn't have anything at all to do with Halloween costumes or things worn on a play of movie. It isn't only famous people whose clothes are in museums. Places such as the Met in Manhattan and The Chicago Historical Society gladly accept clothes from not so famous people. And there are also museums around the world, whose collections are just on designer or another. Ergo, buying designers clothes and not just the haute couture, is therefor an "investment".
I pulled no "trick"; just talked about a lifestyle you know less than nothing whatsoever about.
If something is an investment, then perforce, according to the fair tax "rules", it is untaxable.
Did you know that some people collect barbed wire? Some collect beer cans. You'd be quite surprised what these things fetch, I bet. Almost ANYTHING can be called an "investment", because someone collects it !
YES!
The FairTax is certainly not a VAT - not even close. You seem to believe that calling it a VAT makes it a VAT. And you HAVE had that pointed out to you before yet still persist in that bit of misinformation. Nor will sellers collecting the tax "replace the IRS" - not even close. The sellers have none of the legal powers of enforcement as do the IRS nor are the taxpayers under the FairTax considered guilty until they prove themselves innocent as with the IRS.
How is it you "know" than "many of them" (the sellers) will cheat??? Are you foolish enough to believe that the state sales tax offices do not have the ability to "audit around" a sellers claims to determine fraud??? They do in states that I am familiar with - and they are practiced at it. Furthermore a seller doing this is putting himself in a good deal of jeopardy since he would not only be liable for the sales tax but penalties and interest and even criminal charges as well - unless, perhaps, you thinks that overt tax crimes such as that defalcation should go unpunished.
Please point me to the statement where you were "... told that anything bought as an "investment", new or used, wouldn't be taxed ...". I take it you've never read the bill itself nor researched the FairTax website wither since you seem to be (how to say it?) "quite ill-informed" on the topic. You, the taxpayer, do not get to "qualify" the items you buy as being for "investment" or not nor does the seller selling them.
Investments are normally things such as stocks and bonds and/or interest bearing deposits and perhaps some things as already-valued old books, existing art, etc Trying to warp that definition into covering a vast range of personal purchases isn't likely to be successful since your designer jewelry, clothing, etc. are items for personal wearing items rather than what would commonly be considered "investments" by most people, except perhaps yourself. I could consider my Fruit of The Loom underwear as an "investment" under that sort of presumption - or could anyone else.
And bartering goes on every day presently whether you're aware of it or not. Just ask the IRS if they don't think it is a fact of life right now. And you certainly implied that it had fallen off considerably - which is what I took your meaning to be since I did not say you claimed it had stopped.
PSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSST!! From #138, you said "So you're telling me that the preback is to be on a poverty level?" which sounds very much to me like you're in the mode of believing that "the poor" are the prebate receptors and you believe that a poster was telling you this. I wished to set that notion straight if that's what you believed since it is not the case.
Of course there will always be some who evade taxation, but some types of taxation are more difficult than others to evade, and any income-based tax in particular is especially easy to evade. Witness the hug amounts of illegal aliens who do not pay income taxes (a recent study showed 20 million illegals were presently in the US evading many, many billions in tax revenue). There are also drug dealers (and other types in the illegal economy as well) who pay nothing in the way of tax revenue. The pittance they pay in state sales tax does nothing to obtain Federal revenue where the FairTax will - every time they purchase things at retail they will pay 23 cents of every dollar as tax revenue. That will eventually help us to lower the tax burden on most taxpayers.
Evading the sales tax will be much more problematic that evading the income tax for those in the illegal economy and they will be among the losers in switching to the FairTax - and that's as it should be.
And when you say:
"Companies would still have to pay taxes on such things as oil and gasoline and electricity and building cleaners and cleaning products and pencils and pens and paper and computer stuff, etc.; wouldn't they?"
... the answer is most probably NO since these things probably are used by the companies in producing/providing goods or services to other businesses - and those sorts of things are not taxed. Only end consumer sales of taxable items are taxed ... and not everything is taxed even then.
As little as is humanly possible.
Thomas Sowell is NOT a politician.
President Bush the younger isn't a RINO. It really doesn't help you and your ilk to keep misusing that term.
History will treat President Bush quite well. I hope that you'll still be alive to see it. ;^)
And I, unlike you, can and would take advantage of as much as possible, to get out of paying any taxes; legally, of course, and without any shame at all. :-)
The FT is a VAT. You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig.
Bortz is a loud mouthed slug. He had no economic nor accounting training or education. I wouldn't read his book if you paid me to.
The post you were replying to was #204 and nowhere do I see any of the meaning you say is in the second paragraph.
Perhaps you were referring to some other post number or perhaps you'd post the quote in question that you attack? I'm not about to guess at which one you might mean.
Having asked you for which specific post/paragraph you were referring to, I'd note that indeed the FairTax does away with S/S & M/C taxes funding them instead from the FairTax revenue. There is no more withhoklding from the payroll for either income tax or the entitlement.
Whoever said that the FairTax was "... going to catch drug pushers and thieves and shop lifters and illegal aliens and everyone in the underground community and well, just EVERYONE, BAR NONE in its web too? ROTFLMSO"?
What was said was not that they would be "caught" at all (or that there was any "web") but that they would pay the FairTax on taxable items when they bought things at retail. And that, you see, is quite true, whereas most of those in the illegal economy pay very little or nothing in the was of tax revenue.
Are you arguing that those in the illegal economy now DO pay lots of tax revenue??? Perhaps it is you who need to read what you post before posting it as quite a few of the things you post don't seem well thought out.
You specified some notions that you CLAIMED would "get around" the FairTax but I've yet to see one that will in fact do that without landing you or your seller (or both) is a lot of difficulty.
Go reread ALL of my posts and then get someone to explain them to you. ;^)
You're daydreaming as well as poorly informed.
There is no "23% or 30% tax on everything". Only end consumers are taxed and only on taxable items (not everything is taxed). Many tupes of transactions are not taxed at all (busines-to-business sales, typically, for things used in making or providing taxable items).
Actually there is plenty to prevent the rate r=from "being upped" - even some of the founders of this country knew that and said do. In addition, there is the fact that "upping" the rate raises taxes on everyone and not just the select subset that paaay taxes as at present. A similar comment applies to trying to make other things taxable. The bill is very specific about what types of things are taxed.
You also seem to misunderstand that there not two tax rates; there is only one. It is 23% tax inclusive or 29.87% tax exclusive. The bill specifies tax inclusive since that is the way income taxes are sopecified. You'd do well to research the bill and the FairTax website.
And you're making the completely unwarranted assumption that prices before the FairTax was applied would remain the same as they are now. That isn't the case at all. Most economists realize that some portion of business income taxes are embedded into prices as a hidden tax and that this will be removed when income taxes go away. Your belief in prices "skyrocketing" is either caused by your own lack of knowledge or by your wish to stampede others by scaremongering.
My choice would be the flat tax. From what I understand it's working great in Russia. Armey and Forbes(?) are for it. Who are the big guns behind the 'fair tax'?
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