Posted on 04/16/2006 7:49:45 AM PDT by Eaglewatcher
The FairTax replaces the income tax and all other federal taxes with a national consumption tax. The FairTax is levied only once, at the point of purchase on new goods and services.
The group admits it will be difficult for legislators to face down entrenched special interest groups, but they initially proposed replacing the current system with U.S. Senate bill S. 25 and U.S. House of Representatives bill H.R. 25. The next step would be to repeal the 16th Amendment to the constitution allowing the Federal government to levy an income tax.
Signatories to the original petition include noted academic economists and practitioners who feel the current tax code cannot simply be fixed. The current regs include 54,000 pages, approximately 2.8 million words of mind-numbing rules, exceptions and special interest loopholes. This tangled web would be replaced by a simple national sales tax similar to that paid to the county, city or, in the case of our own Hawthorne TDD, the subdivision.
But what about poor people? The FairTax provides every family with a rebate of the sales tax on spending up to the federal poverty level (plus an extra amount to prevent any marriage penalty). The rebate is paid monthly in advance. It allows a family of four to spend $25,660 tax free each year. The rebate for a married couple with two children is $492 per month ($5,902 annually). Therefore, no family pays federal sales tax on essential goods and services and middle-class families are effectively exempted on a big part of their annual spending.
(Excerpt) Read more at digitalburg.com ...
Applying the Fair Tax to the "points" on a mortgage loan is different from applying the Fair Tax to interest income. Points would be a charge for mortgage origination services, even thought the charge is stated as if it were interest on the funds loaned. Thus, it is a matter of assuring that a charge for services is not masked as an interest/income payment. Thanks for your response.
Oh, if were so simple!
Please see my posts # 72 & 80. I welcome a reply to either & will likely respond to further discussion, but no use repeating myself, & besides, its late & I want my ice cream.
Happy Easter!
I respectfully disagree with your assessment of the prebate aspect of the Fair Tax. The primary line of resistance of the Left to any reform of the income tax system is that any such reform in the nature of a consumption is "regressive," meaning lower income people would spend a greater percentage of income and thus would pay a higher proportion of revenues. The prebate overcomes that objection by relieving those at or below the poverty line of any payment of the Fair Tax at all. This is accomplished without requiring any household to prove their income. Therefore, I believe the prebate is a very well conceived aspect of the Fair Tax. Without it, the Fair Tax would have less prospect of every being adopted.
C'mon. You're really trying to seem foolish aren't you? Guess what, it's working. From your post #48 I quote:
Yes, and when people tell you they do not like the details, all you have in response is ridicule.
Why don't you take Mark Twain's advice and keep it closed. Better to not be thought of that way eskimo.
Like I said: those dollars are out of pocket. Nothing "dole" about it..., at all, period.
And into someone elses.
It was merely my interpretation of the bill. I consider points to be a part of the interest on the loan since the higher the points the lower the interest normally. I mis-stated the tax direction originally because it is not paid by the mortgagor, it is paid by the borrower since he is the procurer of the services. Just as the retail buyer is the taxpayer under the FT. Regards.
Yeah, fine, whatever. Are you here to debate the fair tax or make cutesy comments? Your little one-liner did nothing to address my argument.
Your "argument" was all noise. "Prebate" entitlements are paid out regardless of the retail sales taxes paid by the recipient.
That's absolutely correct!
What sense is there in jumping from one "morass" into another?
None, but then one doesn't jump from on morass to another. One leaves a morass for a better way of operating.
Obviously you have no ideas, no vision and no desire to actually work for positive change. Just muddle along.
Have a good day, sorry for having disturbed your fog.
I think you're a envious socialist.
Pure speculation and fear on your part. Wealth is not being taxed so it's not and cannot be a redistribution of wealth.
Already, the so-called marriage penalty is a part of this legislation. Social policy manipulation! And it hasn't even passed yet!
Cite please? Marital status has nothing to do with the prebate. It's based on the number of adults and children in the household.
No huge bureaucracy? Who is gonna record & keep track of all those births, deaths, marriages, divorces, income changes. Address changes alone will keep an army busy. What about people who challenge the amount of rebate? Who do you call when "the dog ate my rebate check"?The gov't will need people & offices to respond to these things - bureaucracy.
Do you think that people do not already die or move who are on SS now? Who takes care of all of that? I would imagine that being able to update your 'profile' online will be part of the system. I don't have to have someone at the DMV change my address. I do that on line myself.
Do checks get lost now? Does the world grind to a halt? When you don't get your check, there is a process to handle it.
Quit worrying and don't let your imagination run away with you.
And since the rebate will be paid monthly, wont any changes to your "rebate status" need to be reported promptly to the new IRS, meaning many people will have to file multiple status reports every year, meaning even more bureaucrats to continuously process this never ending paperwork. Tax filing - once a month? Not for me!
See above. Online updates. More unfounded fears.
And what about people who cheat the system? Its real hard to cheat the clerk at the store - either pay for your purchases, or leave empty handed. You might think beer should be exempt as a food (I do, too), but if you don't pay the tax, you aren't taking home the beer. No room for millions of cheaters there.
Now you are drifting off into loony land and that's also why there is no exemptions for items or people. One rate. On everything. On everybody.
Much easier to cheat a system that must track numerous facts about every citizen in the US - marital status, age, # of kids, income, dependents, etc. So, we're gonna need an investigative & enforcement agency - more bureaucracy, & the WORST kind!
I don't know what plan that you are talking about so I can't respond. None of that has anything to do with the FairTax. Have you read the plan or the FAQs?
Can't you see this is the old system, in reverse? It will be just as corrupt, bureaucratic, & hated as the current system.
There won't be such a system under the FT. Again, you aren't talking about anything that resembles the FT.
I will never support a tax system where there is a direct exchange of money between the individual citizen & government. Anytime this occurs, the gov't & pols uses this to manipulate the people for political purposes, which is contrary to Lincoln's "of the people, by the people, for the people".
It sounds more like the income tax. The government's only connection to the citizen will be IF the person wants the rebate. It's not a mysterious calculation. Look at the chart that fits the 'family'. That's the rebate. No filing of tax returns. No audits by the IRS. Nothing. All that contact goes away.
Are you sure that you read about this plan? You sound like you are either making things up or repeating things that you have heard that have nothing to do with this specific plan.
If the Fair Tax ever gets into the national spotlight, most of the contention will center on the rebate, as greedy pols always gravitate to the source of money & power. Watch & see! Hopefully, that will prove the flawed rebate provision, & it will be tossed.
The prebate was the hardest thing for me to get passed too, but for an otherwise great plan, this is a necessary feature to get it approved.
As to exemptions, you confuse our current income tax exemptions, which are nothing by blatant social manipulation & wealth redistribution, with sales tax exemptions, such as food, that would be applied EQUALLY to every purchaser. Nothing could be fairer, or more democratic. From day one, a rebate will be neither.
I am not confusing anything. If food is exempted, does that mean that my caviar is also tax free or just your ground meat? Your fur coat is as tax free as my wool one? It is this type of fight that will cause problems that the prebate avoids. Everyone is taxed on everything. Everyone gets a prebate based on spending up to the poverty level. That way whatever you CHOOSE to spend your money on is tax exempt up to that amount. No bureaucrats deciding any who, whats, or hows. No proof of who makes how much. It's freedom.
Please, spend some time to look into the plan and put aside your fears and speculations that are not grounded in fact.
Your little one-liner did nothing to address my argument.
Roscoe (aka Mojave) has for years posted inane comments to the war on drugs (WOD) threads where his motive is to get the thread pushed to the Smokey Backroom where it wont show up on the Latest Posts page.
I may have misunderstood the point that you were trying to make in the post that I replied to.
For clarification, are you saying that SS is the biggest entitlement program or that the prebate will be?
If it's the prebate, is that your only objection to the FT? Is there anything that you do like about the FT? Are you for the status quo?
"Prebate" entitlements are paid out regardless of the retail sales taxes paid by the recipient.
Hi Roscoe. The prebate is not an entitlement because each person is treated uniformly/equally. 1) the prebate is available to any person that has a social security number.
Karl Marx couldn't have said your non sequitur any better.
When the income tax was first started in this country, it was sold on the basis of only affecting "the rich".
So do you want to repeat that history, with a huge Federal sales tax on top of it?
Class warfare rhetoric is class warfare rhetoric, no matter how mild. Conservatives should avoid using it.
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