Posted on 12/24/2007 7:55:05 AM PST by Alex Murphy
WASHINGTON — Mike Huckabee, one of the most conservative Republicans in the 2008 presidential race, has embraced one of the most radical ideas on the campaign trail: a plan to abolish all federal income and payroll taxes and replace them with a single 23% national sales tax.
The idea -- dubbed the "fair tax" by proponents -- has been a political asset for Huckabee; its well-organized backers have helped catapult him from the back of the presidential pack to its top tier.
Sales tax proponents have tapped into seething voter hostility toward the Internal Revenue Service to become a below-the-radar political force, popping up at campaign events and candidate forums in Iowa and elsewhere.
The efforts on Huckabee's behalf by sales tax advocates helped spur his surprise second-place showing in an August Iowa straw poll -- the breakthrough that marked the beginning of his rise in the state and nationwide.
He is the only major presidential candidate to make the idea central to his campaign. "The first thing I'd love to do as president: Put a 'going out of business' sign on the Internal Revenue Service," he said at one debate.
Some wonder, however, whether his embrace of the plan eventually could turn into a liability.
The sales tax proposal has been around for years but languished on the fringes of practical politics and policy. Tax professionals generally regard the idea as impractical, regressive and even "crackpot," as one critic puts it.
It has gone nowhere in Congress. The 2005 Presidential Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform soundly rejected the idea. And many politicians shy away from it because it is easy for opponents to portray it as a huge tax increase -- as Democrats did in a 2006 Senate race in South Carolina.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
That's ok, for your GRANDson will make 25 times what you have!
It's all relative.
The money is gone because...
1. They started giving it away to people it was NEVER intended for, and...
2. Abortion has wiped out a large portion of the ones the original designers of the system had COUNTED ON to put the money in!
[The FairTax eliminates all those different taxes, and replaces them with one national 23% sales tax. PLUS, you get a prebate check for the amount of taxes expected to be paid by a family at a poverty level income.]
AND IN THEORY I’m as fair as a 16 year old maiden.
What would happen in reality is that the Democrats would us this excuse to mash the system even worse so would get the evils of both worlds. The IRS will NEVER go away short of an armed conflict. Fair Tax means a VAT PLUS and income tax PLUS capital gains, etc.
How bout we just keep the current tax cuts on the books before jousting at windmills.
Now, extrapolate this a little... what items does (or can) the government control prices on (and therefore raise)?? - basic necessities - but they try to hide this behind the socialist prebate scheme....
The 'milk cartels" come to mind, and gasoline, and grain, and....
I haven’t seen you post a pornographic picture ... did I miss something or was that more “fun and civility”???
No, that's not fair. Fair would be to return our federal government back to its constitutional size and support it with about a 10% tax. But, the idea behind the Fair Tax is a great idea; tax consumption and quit taxing production. Also, it would make it a huge political liability for congress to ever raise taxes again because a tax raise would no longer be hidden in back room deals and it would affect EVERYBODY, rich, black, white, poor, hispanic, etc.
If you believe in the FT, you'll most likely believe anything.
With the FairTax, income isn’t taxed - only certain qualifying consumption.
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I Won’t capitalize,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
I don’t have any income. I planned it that way,,,,,,,,,,,,,
to NOT pay taxes. I paid my taxes. I paid my taxes, I paid my taxes.
But now you want me to throw out all my planning and pay taxes again, some more and on money which has already been TAXED.
Tell me where I went wrong. Besides lying about two capitalized words.
“I still think a flat tax is a better solution”
The problem with a flat tax is that it is typically applied to income of people that work for a living. Those living off interest or capital gains or donations or family wealth do not pay any taxes at all. Yet they get all the benefits of a working person. I don’t think that is fare or good economics. We need to make sure that everybody pays.
Why should only the old people get a refund? That is my point. Open your brain. Don’t get caught up in the libs plan to divide us. With Fair Tax you do not pay on the money you have or the income it generates. Do you understand that? It is pretty basic.
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OK, your plan is for me to not spend one penny of my already taxed money. Ahhhhhh,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
how do I get thru retirement without spending what I saved??????
Like I said you are an advocate for double taxation on savings. And why stop there. If I have too much in savings then make it easier on somebody else by halving it.
I rather stick with the IRS and make the IRS even more of a burden on the American taxpayers...
*ducks for cover*
The Fair Tax is a Ponzi scheme for those at the top....
You are exactly right on this! Then, when the country is in economically down times, the government will be forced to spend the same way. This tax replacement is the best idea, period. And, if the mass public dislikes spending programs and other wastes that make it to where we need a 23% sales tax, then the people now will demand en masse to lower it and to stop the welfare programs. The fair tax is a win-win for our great nation.
You are NOT paying attention. Under my plan EVERYBODY pays taxes. Why is this hard for you to understand? I do not care how you get/got your money. You want to live in the country without paying your fair share?
If everybody paid the same believe me the total taxes taken would be a fraction of what they are today.
Try telling that to those here that say it is a tax on INCOME. Which it isnt if its put in as it is intended.
BTW where in Mich are you a woodsman? UP? or below the bridge?
I want to point out that you see the employer and the employee are both coughing up half. It’s still a combined figure (tax total that the government is busy collecting)for that individual to be employed for another. If it was a flat tax, it would stop the need for an underground economy...
it’s better said that for small business “the employee pays the full amount, and the owner pays double...”
You are NOT paying attention. Under my plan EVERYBODY pays taxes. Why is this hard for you to understand? I do not care how you get/got your money. You want to live in the country without paying your fair share?
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And I was told that if I carefully did X, Y and Z that the taxes I paid on the money in the bank would not be taxed again.
You and others have convinced yourselves that this tax will, will, will solve some problems. Maybe it will.
But it is a disgraceful and despicable solution for those that played by the rules only to have the rug pulled out from underneath them. It has no chance of acceptance without a major accommodation that prevents double taxation.
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