heard that...
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 ...
heard that...
Our country has strayed FAR (much too far) down the road to socialism and if we don't turn that around fairly quickly we may NEVER find our way back!
To know what tax you’re actually paying, though, YOU need to know your effective FairTax rate might be.
My example of a family of four earning $100K was to illustrate the absurdity of how the FairTax can be gamed into a clearly middle-class family paying a low effective tax rate. A family of four has a prebate that cancels out the first $26K in retail purchases. So $100K - $10K - $10K - $20K - $26K = $34K FairTaxable spending, and a FairTax collected of $7,800 at 23%. At 25% it jumps to $8,500 on the same $34K FairTaxable spending.Your figures aren't quite current but close enough for example purposes so let's take them as presented. Actually this is not an example of "gaming the system" at all but an example of how the FairTax is intended to work.
If the F4 family has a low effective tax rate under the FairTax - and as you presented the data - that seems quite likely, think about what happens with the money not spent but saved/invested. This means that they are contributing to the build up of capital and therefore helping bump up the economic activity by such capital investment. So even though some of their income is not taxed for consumption it does help our economy. At present that income would be lessened by income taxes and not be so available for investment.
One of the concepts behind the FairTax is that the consumption tax has a broader base than the income tax and therefore the individual effective tax rate will drop compared to the income tax rates. This helps drive capital investment assuming the sort of situation your example describes. So I genuinely don't see your example as gaming the system but as a reasonable operation of the consumption tax as spelled out in HR25.
Also, I don't know that keeping all things (spending, savings, etc.) the same but increasing the tax rate is any more realistic that doing the opposite - keeping all things steady but decreasing the tax rate. I don't see that modifying the example either was contributes much to the understanding of the FairTax. And I don't consider the normal operation of the consumption tax as "gaming" anything - unlike many situations under the income tax.
That’s for openers. Next off, I have been stupendously kind to your lack of open-mindeness and your hognostications. Just because you say something should go one way for everyone does not make it right, let alone proper, let alone accurate or truthful.
Now for the fun part—you are speaking to what is known as a “BORNED AS@HOLE,” as opposed to yourself—a meager AS@HOLE. The mediation process would allow me to speak to you in a way you could not even dream of, because I would be granted this before any conversation (through mediation) would take place. Vulgarity by the way is NOT a weakness, it’s only for the sake of emphasis—something you should learn. By the way, the only true obscenity (if you are a religious person) is to take the Lord’s name in vain. Remember, you can say anything a trillion times and it’s only one-trillionth as bad to take His name in vain.
You need to be mentally crucified for you petty, little cognitive elitist argument of “I know how to use an internet calculator and you don’t.” Got that? Besides, it seems to me that you are a onerous individual.
I was trying to play fair and decently, but I have been informed that some of you Fair Tax individuals will bait someone into an arrangement so “you” can have an individual thrown off of Free Republic.This would also be brought up through the mediation process.
So, if you want to play your pathetic, juxtaposed, illicit little games, then bring it on. Thus far, I have been disgustingly, even egregiously “fair” with you. The next time, all living hell will break loose and I will try my damnedest to scar your cognitive being for life. However, if you want to be civil and admit the Fair Tax would work for MOST (not all), then I will listen to that because that is the truth. So, civility or a mental beating with heavy mining equipment, which is it going to be? That is fair.
It will certainly be less than the 23% marginal rate.
Wrong. Any prebate I get will be after the fact. Or before the fact. It won't show up on the bill.
Try again? LOL!
I think that everyone should be paying something. Not paying anything like yourself is not good when we need to have a military, roads etc. However 23 percent is way too much. 10 percent across the board is much better and yes you would have to pay the 10 percent to...God forbid you support the United States.
You say this like it's a bad thing.
All of your threats are chilling ... do you suppose you can terrorize someone into not posting on what is supposed to be a free and open forum???
Your foul language merely adds to the insults - that’s apparently your real intent since I read nothing as being a real FairTax rebuttal. But, hey, it’s a free and open forum and you’re certainly as welcome to not be in favor of the FairTax as I am to be in favor of it.
Stopped reading right there, article is BS.
It might eliminate their ability to impose 'special taxes', e.g. the taxes on cigarettes, but it wouldn't stop their social programs. (And I would bet it wouldn't be long until they reinstituted those 'special taxes'.)
Yeah, I know. As you read the thread further you’ll see I admit that. Would be nice if it slowed ‘em down a little though...
First off, if you know how to use something and plugged in the proper numbers (per your individual situation) you have used the calculator correctly.
By the way, I have said the Fair Tax is a good idea; however, anyone who can deduct a boatload of their gross income through tax deductions (in my case 48.5 cents per mile) is put at a disadvatage.
Originally in the early nineties, the idea was the Fair Tax was supposed to be around 13-15 percent—without the tabular rebating/adjustments, etc. Under my situation (caluculating with my figures again) my tax rate was 17.2 versus the (rebated) Fair Tax rate of 18.7 percent.
The idea of the Fair Tax is brilliant, but (the present 23 percent) the proposed execution isn’t. The rate is too high—that’s the only problem.
I do also realize (unlike most) that everything you buy is taxed from both sides—i.e. your utilities, doctors appointments, driver’s licenses, automobiles...everything. So I am well versed on the idea of the Fair Tax.
The only problem I have is that I was told of “my ignornce” when I know that I am absolutely correct, but opinions are like, well, yo get the idea. I have to give you credit for your last paragraph because (at least) it seems you are a somewhat willing to take this further—which is fine.
In conclusion, I am on the same side of this issue as your are, but it would be better if a few things were tweeked. This is because there are very few things that are perfect (and certainly not ME), especially with the preconditioning that has been taking place since 1933—the one-percent “income-tax.” Also, (and this might sound weird to you) I’m not sorry of the things I have said, but I am sorry I had to do it. The only thing I ask is that you think the Fair Tax is a perfect idea, because it’s not—it’s only a great idea. :)
[And I don’t consider the normal operation of the consumption tax as “gaming” anything - unlike many situations under the income tax.]
The entire FairTax is “gaming” the system of fair and equitable taxation to fund necessary government spending. In my example, the family earning $100K ends up paying barely half as much in taxes as the $15K they currently would pay on SS/M alone. Yet they still get full credit and future benefits equal to what would require a $15K contribution today. Which means their actual tax contribution for necessary government spending — like national defense, judiciary, etc. to protect their lives, liberties, and pursuit of happiness — is ZERO. People should not get something for nothing.
If I had to list the single most dangerous idea to the continued prosperity of America, it is the notion that it is OK to pay nothing for necessary government. There are millions of people out there that think they “don’t make enough money to have to pay taxes”. Yet government costs money, and if it doesn’t come from that person, it must come from their neighbor. People are either willfully ignorant of this fact, or knowingly approve of the government robbing their neighbor rather than shouldering their own tax burden. These people have conspired to steal from their neighbors and should be despised just like any other armed robber.
And you still, apparently, haven’t bothered to find out how low your might be. The question is not what “shows up on the bill” - that’s called out in HR25. The question is what it actually cost you and that involves knowing the effective tax rate.
Under the FairTax many things are not taxed which goes to drastically lower your effective tax rate. Many of these are detailed in post #282 on this thread.
You’ll never see me use that word with respect to ANY tax system. They are all flawed. It happens, though, that the FairTax is far less so that any other I have even investigated in depth.
And thank you for “quieting” your language down since if forced to I can cuss as well as my husband (in fact, better).
All I was trying to point out is that you possibly missed the fact that many of your “expenses” written off under the income tax were also written off under the FairTax since they amounted to business to business transactions and were not in the nature of retail consumption at all - which would greatly lower your effective FairTax rate. Those sorts of things are easy to miss since it’s quite a different concept than under the IT.
So, no, not perfect but surely massively better than what I have to do each year for three families each year (substantially different reporting for each due to the income nature) - and I’m damnably sick of it since I’m not paid to do so by the families OR the government. And, of course, there’s always the chance I’ll get embroiled in some sort of IRS related dispute putting my own finances and time at risk.
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