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 ...
It’s always nice to discuss intellectual points with such a warm and wonderful person who expresses things so eloquently.
... and you did’t use the calculator correctly - “accounting degree” or not. Try again, Jack (if that’s really your name).
I love it!!! They are so screwed up they cannot get out of their own way. There are many ways to beat the IRS but football is more important to many than learning how to do it.
The receipts we get will break out the tax, so we can finally see the true cost of government. Everyone who buys an item for $100 will see the exact same tax on their receipt. The receipts will not vary according to each persons different effective rate. How would the retailer know my effective rate?
Try again? For once, please. LOL!
Besides you have a better chance of growing boobs on you back than this thing passing in the next 10 years.
How much will that Snickers bar from 7-11 cost after Huckabee’s tax takes effect? Will he exempt food? Will he not exempt junk food?
the problem is spending not intake.
The problem is spending not intake.
Why do we need to have all these tax gimmicks?
The issue is reducing governmental spending and governmental control of our lives.
We need to get the govt back to only defending our country and building interstate highways. And a few other needed things that only a central govt can do.
Get it out of education, nuke Social Security, etc.
How the money is raised is irrelevant to me.
In that case you truly are a fool!
In a supposedly FREE society the HOW of taxation is hugely important!
“In that case you truly are a fool!
In a supposedly FREE society the HOW of taxation is hugely important!”
The fools are the public who has let our government grow unchecked since Roosevelt took office.
The Fair Tax is just another gimmick that hints that things can be changed.
Things won’t change unless the public realizes and demands a limited government role.
All this navel gazing about changing the method of collecting the tax is futile unless a limited govt is really demanded.
I so happens that I agree with that statement and also KNOW that we aren't going to get there until the public KNOWS how much all this government is really costing them. They cannot know that with the income tax in place but would with the FairTax in place!
Are you smoking dope? There are plenty of tax professionals who go to bed each night thanking God for our tax code.
I would love to see a candidate start out using Social Security contributions as an example.
The average American does not realize the wealth they could accumulate if their 40 years of SS contributions were put into a very modest rate of return investment. Many could retire with a million dollar net worth.
Most Americans do not realize that SS is just another tax, just another revenue source for the govt. They don’t realize that their SS contributions were spent the year they were collected. Most think that those funds are sitting in a govt acct somewhere.
This is just one of many examples of what is wrong.
Just a question that I wonder about: Do you know approximately how much in income/payroll taxes you pay each year? Do you know how much in sales taxes? How about gasoline taxes. I argue that it is actually easier for the government to take more of your money without you knowing it in sales/consumption taxes than in income taxes.
I don’t keep every receipt for bread/coffee/gas that I buy each year so I can calculate how much the government has taken. At least with income taxes I file a return and know to the penny what they confiscate.
Never contact me in any way shape or (juxtaposed) form again. I know what I have done, the next time you contact me, FR moderators will become involved.
By the way, you’re the one who has acted like a four-year-old ameoba, not I.
The problem is that although you know approximately how much you pay directly you CANNOT know how much you pay indirectly and that is not an insignificant amount.
Any nation claiming to be a FREE society ought, in my humble opinion, to have a tax system that is simple, not easily manipulated behind the scenes for political purposes, completely transparent, and one that does not require a large administration for its enforcement. The income tax fails on all points! The Fairtax would not.
Do you know how much in sales taxes?
As a matter of fact yes I do to the penny! Anyone who wants to know that can easily do so. I am also reminded of the high cost of government with every purchase I make under the sales tax and, unlike the income tax system which takes whatever portion of the fruits of my labor it currently wants before I actually see a penny, I get to decide whether or not I am in a position to pay the tax with the sales tax! If not I simply make do with what I have and fore go the purchase until I AM in the position to make it.
Putin doesn't have to support Chinese coming across his southern border.
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