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Locked on 02/18/2008 10:17:33 AM PST by Religion Moderator, reason:
Childish behavior |
Posted on 02/16/2008 3:30:21 PM PST by xcamel
One solution to the nation's long-term fiscal problems that has gained support in recent years is the idea of replacing all federal taxes with a 23 percent national retail sales tax called the FairTax. Unfortunately, the administrative problems inherent in this proposal make it impossible to take seriously, says Bruce Bartlett, former deputy assistant secretary for economic policy at the U.S. Treasury Department.
For example, under a FairTax scheme: A worker now netting $800 per week would immediately get a $200 raise and start taking home the full $1,000 gross wage that he is paid; instead of paying income and payroll taxes, workers would pay their taxes when they buy things.
The FairTax would impose a 23 percent tax on all goods and services (this is not really correct, but for now we'll accept it at face value for analytical purposes).
Whether he is better off or not depends on what his effective tax rate is: Assuming he spends all his income and no more than that, he will be no worse off if he now pays 23 percent of his income in taxes. That is, his effective tax rate is 23 percent; in this case, the FairTax is a wash, the worker is no better off or worse off in terms of taxes than he is now.
But what if the worker is now paying less than 23 percent of his income in federal taxes? In this case, he is clearly worse off, says Bartlett: The prices of the things he buys will rise by more than his income rises from the elimination of income and payroll taxes. Conversely, if one is wealthy and in a tax bracket above 23 percent, that person would be much better off. His income and payroll taxes would fall by much more than the prices of goods and services he consumes would rise.
Source: Bruce Bartlett, "Why the FairTax Won't Work," Tax Notes, December 24, 2007.
For text:
Well, look who’s here — all ready to pick up that list of lies and run with them. Have fun.
That is a very silly question.
Will you still be *for* the Fair Tax when Obama raises your FairTax to 70%?
It looks like a statute to me rather than a constitutional amendment...I do not see how it would keep the income tax from being resurrected.
If you are referring to the Fair Tax, you haven’t the slightest idea of what you are talking about.
The tax is 30% if applied to the net after taxes.HUH? Take a pie, cut into 130 pieces. Eat 30 of the pieces...What is the percentage of the 30 pieces you ate to the 100 pieces you have left?
Most people are smart enough to understand the percentage depends on the base used.Hmmmm.I suspect that people who continue to insist the rates are different or somehow dishonest are not as stupid as they seem.
Take something that now costs $1 - a quart of milk, for instance. With the “Fair Tax,” it would then cost $1.30.
Almost any high school graduate would be able to tell you that the 30-cent tax constitutes 30% of the original price...
That the “Fair Tax” advocates express it otherwise is prima facie evidence they are liars and frauds, or fools.Take something that now costs $1 - a quart of milk, for instance. With the “Fair Tax,” it would then cost $1.30.
Almost any high school graduate would be able to tell you that the 30-cent tax constitutes 30% of the original price...
That the “Fair Tax” advocates express it otherwise is prima facie evidence they are liars and frauds, or fools.
Ok, I didn’t read the book but I did take high school math and I can see that your argument is just plain wrong. Lets do the math:
$1.00 for a quart of milk with a $0.30 sales tax comes out to $1.30. Now if you spend all of your income on milk, what percentage do you pay in taxes? .3/1.3=.23 or 23%
The reason Fair Tax people would say the tax is 23% is because that is the best way to compare it to the income tax. 23% of what you spend on new products will go to the federal government. You are trying to compare apples to oranges. Apples to apples, the Fair Tax is 23%, apples to oranges its 30%.
I can take your flawed high school math further and say that someone who pays 23% of their income actually pays 30%. It can work both ways. If your gross pay was $50,000 and you paid 23% in taxes, that comes out to $11,500 leaving you with $38,500 net. Percentage of income that is taxed: 11500/38500 = .299 or 30% Wow, its crazy how you can play with numbers. The bottom line is that to accurately compare an income tax to a sales tax you have to apply the same method and compare apples to apples.
They'll claim that's only 41% when calculated using their "inclusive" method.
Why do none of the states tweak their sales tax numbers like that?
Oh Hell, not you again.
Get off the holier that thou BS bub.
There is nothing you have said here that doesn’t amount to “We can’t change it because that would be changing it”.
It’s different but it could work. I have the idea that if we were using the fair tax were talking about going to the income tax you’d be on the other side of it screaming ”this can’t work!”.
“The Fair Tax would not automatically repeal the federal income tax. Repeal would require a separate congressional bill together with legislation expressly forbidding such tax.”
http://www.netaxpayers.org/fairtax3.html
H.R. 25 looks like a statute to me — there’s no mention of any constitutional amendment.
http://www.mises.org/story/1814
http://www.geoffmetcalf.com/wwwboard/messages/4906.html
http://www.therant.us/staff/huston/09052007.htm
http://www.fairtaxblog.com/20050903/why-not-repeal-the-16th-amendment-first/
Fair Tax won’t work because it reduces the Government’s control... They like the old-fashioned IRS thug method of power.
You lose right there.
Strike one: The FairTax cannot be compared with the sales taxes you pay today. The FairTax will be a FEDERAL tax, and will have no effect whatsoever on those state or local sales taxes you pay at present. ... it’s still 30% no matter how you present it.
Strike Two: It is 30% if it's figured one way, and 23% if figured another -- as has been show dozens of time before on this forum and on the Fair Tax web site.
I punched the button too soon above. But no problem, the rest of you post was a bunch of twisted stable sweeping anyhow, because the few FACTS that you have, you don’t know what to do with them to get the truth straight.
Oh, I forgot -- you don't know how to do anything else.
Wrong! If my retirement is in a 401(k) or IRA, the IRS takes 15, 25, maybe 35% when I withdraw it. And since we seem to be arguing about which base to use, if they take 35% of my total account balance, they have taken 54% of what I have left. If my retirement nest egg is in stock, the IRS takes capital gains of maybe 15%. (or 18% of what I have left) If my retirement fund is in cash in a passbook account, you may have a point. Then we would have to rely on some price reduction due to elimination of the embedded tax in the price of a product to come out even.
I have heard a lot about problems to be dealt with with the FairTax, and I agree there are some. I have not heard of one dis-qualifier.
The FairTax is an excise tax coupled with a rebate to add a progressive component.
The original tax system that made America the wonder of the world was an excise tax, an indirect tax crafted by the Framers to eschew any form of favoritism.
The Income tax is a plank in the Communist Manifesto, promoted by Marx as a way of bringing socialism to a capitalist society.
And you think that Americans are going to believe that the FairTax excise tax is the ‘worst’ idea?
Read what Mark Twain said about fools and pay heed!
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