Posted on 01/08/2008 4:34:14 AM PST by xcamel
If talk show hosts ran the world, we'd have a national sales tax. We'd have no immigration, and we would have long ago carpet-bombed the entire Middle East. We'd also have something called "fair trade," which means no real trade at all.
But they don't run the world; they just pretend that if they did, everything would be great. I would be a lot more confident that this was true if I didn't know so many talk show hosts. I would be even more confident if they had really run anything of consequence before. But I do, and they haven't.
I mention this because last week Mike Huckabee won the Iowa caucus partly on a movement incubated in large part on radio talk shows: the FairTax. If words were deeds, then life would be great. We could simply declare that by switching from a federal income tax to a national retail sales tax, tax cheating would end, code complexity would be a thing of the past, and illegal immigrants would start paying taxes. And, of course, we'd switch into high economic growth -- forever.
The problem is that none of this would happen. People would simply switch from cheating on income taxes to cheating on sales taxes.
Small vendors often fail to withhold sales taxes. Buyers cheat on sales taxes now. They often fail to pay taxes on interstate catalogue sales. They buy some goods in black markets.
This doesn't happen much because sales taxes are much lower than income taxes, but if that were reversed, consumers would cheat more. Look at cigarettes. Organized crime sells smokes on the black market in jurisdictions that impose high cigarette taxes.
There is a large category of economic activity designed to avoid sales taxes -- it's called smuggling.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Listen to the talkmaster respond at 8:30am EST at http://wsbradio.com/ (Neal Boortz)
Have YOU read the book or the House and Senate Bills?
Pretty weak initial argument. A good writer usually leads with the strong stuff and then gets into the nit picky arguments after he has your attention. This one leads with a popcorn fart. The rest of the column must be riveting!
PS, I dont have any problems with the other two ideas either (no immigration and carpet bombing middle east). We need to explore that further...
I listen to Neal, and I wish people would listen to his message more.
The FairTax is not intended to be a way to reduce taxes, IT IS A WAY TO REDUCES POLITICIANS’POWER AND INFLUENCE IN OUR LIVES.
The ability to alter the tax code, is the ability to influence our behavior and maintain control.
It is much harder for a Democrat to raise taxes if it isn’t hidden in some anonymous bill, to the advantage of some PAID LOBBYIST, for YOU TO PAY FOR.
Insisting that it is 23% instead of its actual ~30% rate is quite unhelpful in asserting it is at all "fair", or significantly attractive.
It is not an “actual 30%.”
Read the book.
FYI
Negatives of the Fair Tax vs. the IRS run Income Tax. So far you haven’t even woke the scale up!
The US would be better off if we eliminated the Income Tax and legalized drugs and put a tariff on imported drugs. That way the Feds would have to control the border to get their dough.
You have to remove the embedded taxes from the item first....that lowers the initial cost then the sales tax goes on top.
It is not 30%.
The other upside is you get your full paycheck...no deductions.
You basicly determine how much tax you pay by how much you buy. And you are rebated a set amount for “necessities” each month....meaning the “poor” still end up not paying taxes...a downside for me.
I think its worth exploring.
Which version? I think there are 4 out and one more due shortly... that should tell you something...
You are absolutely right, it is 29.87%
Well since you get to keep you full paycheck, those embedded taxes are still mostly in the product. Listen to the guy who did the fairtax study.
The part that always gets left out is that your paycheck will be reduced by around 30%. It might be reduced a bit less than that, but pretty close.
I haven't really decided if I like the fair tax or not (and I have read the book).
So what happens when we can’t pay for everything with a Fair Tax? Then we’ll have a national sales tax and they’ll try to stick the income tax on top of that.
No thanks.
There is really only ONE Fair Tax. Compute the amount of the federal budget, divide it by the total number of people in the US. Each person pays that amount (parents are responsible for paying for their minor children). If you can’t pay your part, you don’t vote.
I guarantee that spending will go down and everyone’s tax burden will go down.
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