Posted on 09/17/2006 8:03:05 AM PDT by Principled
Sorry Groanup - I pinged you but forgot to tell you I was asking you about the pre-tax savings vs post tax savings figure. IIRC you are in that arena professionally?
The nitpickers say that the retirees that have all of their savings in after tax money will be hurt. In a stretch that COULD be right for the wealthier ones. If so, it should be easy to do some Peter/Paul type of thing with the legislation since the pre-taxers will receive such a HUGE bump in their buying power.
If you'd do some rational examples using reasonable numbers for the tax free part of spending under the FairTax to get to the likely effective tax rate, I believe you'd find things much less alarming.
I can't answer that question because I don't have enough information.
You're backtracking severely? Why's that?
It's because you know the rebate is a refund. Your assertion that the rebate is an "entitlement" is empty scare.
What's your real reason to object to the nrst?
If someone receives regular gifts of food, clothing, and housing from a charity, who pays the tax? If a church gifts a destitute member with a used car, who pays the tax? If the rental value of a home one owns is counted as an expenditure, who pays the tax?
An in kind gift may be counted as an expenditure when measuring certain economic activity though no money has changed hands, and I assume, no tax would be paid even under the FairTax.
What is interesting, is that FairTaxers make the claim that even the impoverished "spend" up to the poverty level when justifying the prebate, and present tax free purchasing opportunities (legal evasion) when promising the tax "will be good for you too".
What's your real reason to object to the nrst?
Economists can therorize what the effects of the FairTax will be, but without actual experience, nobody knows.
For instance, experience in other countries has shown the sales taxes over 12% are difficult to collect, a fact poo pooded by the FairTaxers.
You apparently do not know the origin of this particular urban legend, but since you choose to promulgate it, let's see your background material.
Since you oppose the FairTax with every peculiar reason you can dredge up, your position seems to be that your opinions hold more credence than, say, an economist who has studied things of this sort for his life's work???
Interesting!!!
"An in kind gift may be counted as an expenditure when measuring certain economic activity though no money has changed hands, and I assume, no tax would be paid even under the FairTax."
Had you actually read the bill, you'd have known the answer to this "assumption".
You said you rejected the rebate because it represents an entitlement. But there will be fewer negative rates under the nrst than the income tax as evidenced by the BLS data link above.
So your reasoning is faulty. If you really were concerned about minimizing negative tax rates, you would be in favor of the nrst because it reduces negative tax rates to a negligible number. See the BLS data above.
So why do you pretend to want to minimize negative tax rates?
I've already posted it.
All economists do not agree.
I don't understand your argument. Perhaps you would restate it with examples.
I must have missed it since I've not noticed it on this thread. Please post a link to the information I requested.
LOL!
You have not, after all, presented any economists showing (using the actual specifics of the bill itself) that the FairTax will be deleterious to the country in some fashion.
There's an example. Enjoy.
The information you need is in the BLS table and the rebate table for the nrst. The information isn't the problem. It's all there.
The reason you don't answer is because your reasoning has betrayed your true position IMO.
If you were opposed to people getting negative tax rates, you'd favor the nrst because it has fewer. But you don't favor the nrst.
So then you were not truthful when you said you thought the rebate was an entitlement and that's the reason you object to the nrst.
Can't have it both ways. Which is it?
Oh jeez Louise! Now your claiming that the FairTax catches more poor people in its net than the income tax? Unbelievable!
That seems to be a matter of opinion.
You might want to read A National Retail Sales Tax: Consequences for the States
(The authors ask not to be quoted or cited without permission)
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