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 ...
“... will also be contributing to the tax revenues through the FairTax but they will not be eligible for SS and MC.”
You seem to think that is a good thing. Why ? It just means they are defenseless since they cannot vote against higher FairTax rates. So we’ll have a huge number of legal families that know they can vote themselves increases in SS benefits and somebody else will have to pick up the tab for it. See my previous post for examples with numbers.
While I am all for getting the underground economy to pay taxes for the national defense, it does seem unfair to force them to pay SS/M taxes if they will never be able to get anything back. Besides, have you considered the other side ? Say the person in the underground economy is a waitress who doesn’t report all her $40K tip income today. Under the FairTax, she’d report higher tips than she actually got in order to boost her SS benefit. HR25 actually has a provision that attempts to prevent that and limits reporting tips to the SSA to a max of $5,000/yr — so now you penalize waitresses that really do have $40K in tips a year, and they don’t get full credit toward SS. At least under the current system, when the waitress fails to report all her tips she saves taxes today but it hurts her SS benefit down the road.
I'm talking about my current savings. Money I saved from my paycheck (taxed income) and then invested. The money grew. Interest was received (and taxed), dividends were received (and taxed) and capital gains were realized (and taxes were paid on those too). Now, when I finally start spending these saved dollars, you want me to pay an addition 30% sales tax. Guess how I feel about that?
In fact, it will be a boon to small businesses and economic expansion in general. You can read about this in any of the several economic studies done that point up these benefits.
You’ve got it just backwards.
You’re right, though - the disinformation campaign continues but it’s coming from those who wish to keep what we now have.
Actually, I’d rather see you live with reasonable frugality, pay very little in taxes, and save and invest your capital and help the FairTax resurrect our economy. As it is, it’s going to hell in a handbasket.
No, I'm talking about current withholding on my current pay check.
Surely you're not really that dense.
I couldn't compete with you in that area.
Look at it this way, then, at least the FairTax will keep you out of tax prison due to gaming the tax system as you claim to have been doing.
I never claimed that, so keep lying, you're good at it.
Sorry shorty, but I’m not a drug user ... and you’re certainly not a joke-teller. Surely I knew tax evasion existed but I didn’t know you favored and indulged in it until you told us about your “cleverness”.
And now you want to let your congressman tax me again. LOL!
I don't hate Huckabee. I just won't vote for him. As far as a fine tax system, LOL!
Surely I knew tax evasion existed but I didnt know you favored and indulged in it
You'll have to show where I said that.Maybe when you're finished with that doob you're working on?
You must have all your assets in Munis and tax free money market funds. Teddy (the swimmer keeps has all his trust dough wrapped up in State and Guvmint Bonds.
Oh, we see. In #482 you were just advising another poster how he could do “as well as you” by using different (illegal) schemes to not pay income taxes? Of course you don’t do that, heaven forbid.
Do you understand the liability implications of giving such tax advice???
One way or another congress will tax you - you can be sure of that as no government goes without taxing in some way. The question is - what is the best way overall and I believe the FairTax is that better way.
Wrong. I was explaining that people can reduce taxes paid under the current system by making choices.
Do you understand the liability implications of giving such tax advice???
As soon as I give the advice you imagined I gave, then I'll worry about liability.
Except now, when I spend my savings, my Federal sales tax paid is 0%.
The array of “republican” candidates we have before is nothing more than someone’s which-RINO-will-you-pick puppet show. They have a convenient patchwork pattern of mis-matched liberal beliefs to not only divide and conquer conservatives, but to also find out which conservative values we will forgo in favor of someone who is barely a true conservative. It REALLY sucks.
Yes, Fred is the only exception, but I believe there are some areas where even he doesn’t pass the smell test. Duncan, love ‘em, but why would he, the real deal, do SO poorly in the polls. It makes no sense, money or not.
Most people with any sense of equanimity who've read the President's Tax Panel's report on the matter realize that the tax they "reviewed" and commented so negatively about was not the FairTax at all.I didn't read the tax panels report, nor have I ever made any comments about it. I don't know why you think I did. Maybe you could post what was written or at least post a link to it so everyone will know what you're saying is accurate..
There's no free lunch with the Fairtax. Actually the only parties I've noted who make such a claim are those opposed to the FairTax rather than FairTax proponents.
Well at least you got that much right. We are the only ones claiming there's no free lunch with the Fairtax.
If youd spend some time looking at earlier threads youd see many, many links to peer-reviewed economic studies that clearly demonstrate how erroneous your comments are.Really? "many, many" and you can't find just one...Typical.
The opponents of the FairTax invariably pretend that you spend everything you make and that everything you spend it on is taxable. Thats not true. Ask yourself why they might do this.It's because you Fairtaxers pretend all income is taxable.
First consider the source, then read the book. The Fair Tax is a very worthy issue to be debated with clear heads open to explore the possibility that it would work.
For the life of me, I do not understand why a Conservative would not give a great deal of study to this proposal.
Huck-a-boo is killing a great idea. Read Ann Coulter today.
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