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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:
for a change......
Spot on.
Back to the holier than thou BS right away are we? I guess all us lower beings deserve your scorn!
I didn't say the flat tax wouldn't work. I'm just saying that the fair tax can work.
That’s called lemmings following each other over a cliff - not even close to “competition”...
Good start..
Embedded “sales tax” is more fair than embedded “other kinds of tax”. Don’t you believe in freedom?
It taxes investment by taxing the point of investing
It massively re-taxes after tax savings from the transition forward.
Anything else you’d like to add?
I don’t think the Fair Tax will bring so many compliance issues as to require 30,000 people to administer it. The number of forms, receipts, and BS that I have to save in order to (1) comply with the law and (2) take all the deductions I am allowed, and the time it takes to do that, REALLY pisses me off. This on top of the injury of taking so much money from me every year, mostly to give it away to people and causes I don’t support. The Fair Tax wouldn’t address the latter injury, but at least it wouldn’t cause me so much aggravation on the first part.
No doubt many are looking out for their lively hood. I have been accused of being for the IC because I utilize tax credits. Which is pure crap everyone gets benefit of deductions and credits. It is your choice to take advantge of them or not. I see more ways to make money with the FT all of which are loopholes or oversightes - for my personal situation. I am against it because it is not fair and it will cause an economic upheaval in this country of historic proportions.
As an aside, did you notice that the “book” Bruce got fired over, and his predictions in it, are all coming true?
FT’s avoid that topic like the plague.
I do not understand the the objection to filling out forms. If you keep good records etc on Quicken it is almost painless to roll them into Turbotax (or some other program) for tax preparations. I see crazy numbers of how long it takes people to do taxes. I do my personal ones and several for my companies in less than one day - all of the info is already tabulated and it just rolls in. We do have to check them but it is easy when you do not have to go to the shoe box and try and remember every transaction. Do not forget theere will surely be other requirements on tracking of funds by other agencies. They are not going to give up the stock transfer, money movement etc that is already tracked. You may even be required to account for any funds over $10,000 as part of the WOD- which goes on now and will not go away.
I do agree that being taxed to support things you do not support or condone sucks but that is that way of the taxman.
I see this all the time. There are no circumstances where earning more money means that you take home less. If the additional money bumps your total into the next tax bracket, you only pay THAT bracket on the dollars that were earned above the threshold. That top bracket for you does not apply to the dollars earned through the lower brackets.
In your particular circumstance, I suspect, you got a raise that applied January first. Lo and behold, less money in the first check. How can that happen? Easy, there are plenty of taxes that cap out, including Social Security so that towards the end of the year, you were taking home more than the beginning of the year even though you didn't get a bump in income.
It's not all that hidden really as some of them have openly or inadvertently shown themselves to have a vested interest in the current income tax system and I suspect that the same is true for the rest of them as well.
That's the MO of the Free Republic Income Tax Lobby Group led by the man that claims to have “engineered the largest tax-free family business transfer ever”, Captain Xcamel.
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