Posted on 04/19/2006 11:45:52 AM PDT by pigdog
The IRS gives April 15 special meaning, but a bill pending in Congress could make it just another beautiful spring day. The Fair Tax Act would repeal all federal income taxes, payroll taxes and estate/gift taxes, replacing them with a sales tax effective January 1, 2007.
The Fair Tax would be paid on all purchases within the United States of any new goods or services for final consumption. The tax would be 23 cents of each dollar spent. That rate is calculated to be "revenue neutral" on a static basis to assure it will raise the same amount of funds for the federal government as the taxes repealed.
Why bother reforming federal taxes if the government winds up collecting the same amount? Turns out there are very good reasons. Starting with the surprise that the Fair Tax is designed to be more progressive than the present system.
The Fair Tax would pay a "prebate" to every household equal to the total taxes payable on purchases up to the poverty line. No one would have to prove poverty to get the prebate, so everyone's finances could remain private. The prebate would enable every household to earn money and buy necessities before paying federal taxes, unlike the present system that withholds taxes from the first dollar of earnings.
The Fair Tax reform would have dynamic economic effects. The economy would grow more than 10 percent in the first year after adoption. Since interest would not be taxed, interest rates would decline towards tax-exempt rates, which are about
(Excerpt) Read more at pasadenastarnews.com ...
The Fair Tax would be great for everyone, except Congress.
Congress would loose the power to reward and punish through the tax code. Therefore, they will never pass it.
(There aint no such thing as a FairTax)
Double digit taxation for single digit IQ's
*pinglist*
Freepmail me to get on or off.
Hey, what happened to my promised 10% rate!?!
"Hey, what happened to my promised 10% rate!?!"
If 10% is good enought for the Lord, it should be good enought for the Gov't.
10% sales tax on goods and services over $100 (indexed for inflation as the years go by). All food would be exempt. That would be the simplest and best.
I like everything about the Fair Tax except the prebate idea. It sounds like government cheese to me.
bump
That'd probably your effective FairTax rate even though spending twice the poverty level.
Naw ... it's actually a refund of tax paid; not cheese and not an entitlement.
Home mortgage interest is now deductible by income taxpayers who itemize deductions. But the Fair Tax is much more favorable, because it would allow all homeowners to pay both principal and interest with "before tax" dollars. Presently, married couples who sell a home after residing in it two years presently are permitted to exclude $500,000 from income taxes on capital gains. But the Fair Tax would not tax sale of used homes at all. For many homeowners today, the Fair Tax is a tremendous advantage.
This implies that new construction homes would be taxed at a 23% rate. That would simultaneously kill the new construction industry and set off a firestorm of a housing bubble as pre-existing homes would instantly become much more desirable than new homes.
Idiots.
You've obviously not done any real looking into the FairTax.
Try reading the bill (HR25) and spending some educational time on the FairTax website. It would expand your brain that you show in the picture to fill the entire empty space.
Come back then and let's talk.
Here in North Carolina, we just started our "Education Lottery" last month. Yesterday the lottery commission anounced that illegal aliens will not be able to collect winnings in excess of $600 because they will require an drivers licence and social security card to collect.
Why would you have a fool's tax and not allow people that aren't paying any taxes at all to play?
If anyone would like to be added to this ping list let me know.
John Linder in the House(HR25) & Saxby Chambliss Senate(S25) offer a comprehensive bill to kill all income and SS/Medicare payroll taxes outright and replace them with with a national retail sales tax administered by the states.
H.R.25,S.25
A bill to promote freedom, fairness, and economic opportunity by repealing the income tax and other taxes, abolishing the Internal Revenue Service, and enacting a national retail sales tax to be administered primarily by the States.Refer for additional information:
You're making some unjustified assump[tions by saying things of that sort. We have used homes right now and they certainly don't "kill" the new construction industry.
It sounds as though you're in the "new construction industry and trying to protest what you think is your vested interest. there's at least one other poster on these threads that admits to that very thing and he comes up with some genuinely outrageous posts in opposing the FairTax.
Why don't you spend a bit of time on the FairTax website and find out how housing - new and old - (and many other things) benefits from the FairTax.
No matter what we do,and we have to do something, there will be a ripple effect through the ecconomy that will take at least 5 years to get straightened out. If we don't do anything, we tax payers will be outnumbered by those that live off of taxes in less than 10 years. Once that happens, we won't be able to pass anything that has to do with tax collection.
One small point on the article. The $345 billion figure does NOT incolude the illegal economy. the number they would generate as FairTax revenue is in addition to the $345 billion.
Also, illegal aliens would not be eligible to obtain the prebate.
The illegal economy alone would generate huge amounts of tax revenue that it does not at present and that alone should help lower the FairTax rate rather rapidly.
The $345 billion also does not include any amount for tax evasion (the illegal economy being considered "illegal", not "evasion" for some reason). Don't ask me why - ask the IRS.
Actually, it prevents nothing of the sort. Sure, to begin with all "new" goods will be taxed the same. But come on, we are talking about Congress here, how long before they start manipulating the rate for various types of good. Raising the rate on "bad" things or "luxuries" and lowering the rate on "needed" goods.
And don't get me started on this whole pre-bate thing. Which essentially makes everyone a welfare recipient, waiting for their monthly government check. You don't think that they'll start playing around with that. Of course they will. They'll decide that the "rich" don't need the money or that it should be higher for the poor.
All of that is once the system is in place, to say nothing about the process of converting to the system in the first place. Which would have to be done very, very carefully to avoid destabilizing the economy. In addition to severely punishing people for having previously saved money (one of the things it is suppose to encourage in the long run).
I think the FairTax sounds great in theory, I just think that in the face of reality it has too many flaws to be practical. (Which if anything makes it more likely Congress will pass it, being that they never do anything practical.)
OUTSTANDING LETTER!!
just out of curiousity, how redundant are these taxes going to be? like, i get income taxes taken out, then i put some away, get taxed on the interest, if i use that money i pay sales tax, i get taxed if i sell what i bought, if i die, my kids would get taxed.. will the same redundancy apply to fair tax? tax raw material, tax the refined material, tax the product made from it (repetitive until a complete unit is made) tax the distributer, tax the dealer, tax the customer.. etc or will there be one tax paid on things?
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