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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:
Yeah. Folks complain about Windows being bloated. But Adobe is the pits.
You should dunk you head...............
No, I just think it’s hilarious that you can post something complaining about personal attacks. Especially in light of your current post.
That was the position of the founding fathers - but never mind.
Yet your after Fairtax worker only paid $6,176 and nothing for replacement of the embedded taxes...
Let's see....in the example you responded to the amount of FairTax paid in was $8,523.80 before the Rebate of $2,384.
The $8,523 paid on NRST replaced 100-101% of the federal embedded taxes on retail products and services purchased. So your claim that there was no replacement of federal embedded taxes is shall we say one of your many interesting hallucinations that you frequently share on FairTax threads?
As for your request for me to illustrate revenue neutrality, that is easy to do on a macro scale as well as with super-micro anecdotes.
But before doing I will request you to explain how it is that you have been bashing the FairTax for years yet you haven't bothered to read the published peer-reviewed economic foundational papers that explain what you are requesting? It is impossible that anyone that spends as much time as you on this subject would never have seen the underlying determinations.
The FairTax is applied to a much broader base in the consumption component of GDP. Looking at past revenue receipts for federal government allows an easy calculation of about 23% on consumption to ensure revenue neutrality. That's the macro view.
The micro view is easily seen by recognizing that a huge portion of the consuming population does not pay or pays very little income and payroll tax.
For example, a retired grandmother living with only a social security check will pay practically zero federal tax on a monthly check of about $970. She will spend practically all of that on rent and consummables. She pays nothing in the form of income tax or payroll tax. But she is paying federal embedded taxes of 22-23% on all consummables. So she is in the consumption base but not in the income/payroll tax base.
Expanding the example to a broader view, the bottom half of all taxpayers pay a small percentage of income taxes, yet they are in the consumption base paying federal embedded taxes of 22-23% in the form of higher prices caused by a multistage income and payroll tax policy and associated compliance costs.
Shifting a revenue system to a broader base is a tactic often employed by big business in America. It allows for lower prices due to larger volume. Such tactical shifts are not mysteries, they are real and are often taken advantage of.
The FairTax is a shift of taxation away from the production chain towards the retail end of the chain. It eliminates all the tax siphoning along the chain from raw materials to distributiors, wholesalers, transport, marketers, retailers and shunts all the taxes to the retail end as one tax as a replacement.
The amount of federal embedded taxes provided by that part of the base that pays next to nothing into the existing chain, the 'non-payers' (e.g. grandmother example above) is mostly accumulated to existing retail businesses but will be collected by these retailers for the federal government under the FairTax. However, as is well known to those who study these issues seriously, these retail businesses and all their affiliate businesses upstream in the supply chain will experience a windfall under the FairTax that will offset nearly all of the non-payer federal embedded tax recoup that will be diverted to the federal government.
In a nutshell, federal government will take a portion of grandma's consumption away from present retailers and gives back to retailers a 100% cut on income/payroll/profit taxes. That's the trade. In addition, grandma will get a rebate so that she effectively pays zero federal tax. That's because we do not want the historical 'disproportionate burden' argument that every good communist student of political science knows to repeat, we do not want that argument to cause class warfare as it did throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.
That, coming from you, is what I think the shrinks call "projection," and what I call a lie.
They'reI'm constantly being embarrassed when the bill is quoted to them me.
Bingo!
The price of the object I’m selling is $ 70. Add 30% tax that’s $ 21. The cost to you is $ 91.
Saying that the tax is 23% because $ 21 = 23% of $ 91 is b.s. Isn’t claiming that the tax is 23% stating the tax as if it was “embedded”?
Claiming that I can recompute my cost to eliminate other “embedded taxes”, and so reduce the $ 70 that I need to get to operate my business is a fairy tale. The income tax on the profit on the $ 70 item is, maybe $ 2 or $3. 15% profit on the $ 70 item ( a very high margin ) equals $ 10.50 pre-income tax. Income Tax at 25% is $ 2.62.
The 0-$15,000 bracket will be loving the welfare bump.
Oh so you’re the expert again? When will you ever be embarassed at displaying such a gross level of ignorance?
I guess those Americans in the Whiskey Rebellion didn’t get your memo!
http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/fall96/whiskey.html
The price of the object Im selling is $ 100. The FT adds 30 dollars more for a total of 130 dollars.
30%
There were two posts, both contained roughly 50 each. I counted more than 100. Of course I told you that already, so you are just lying at this point.
Another lie. There might be a few that weren't threads posted by fairtaxers, but almost all of them were pro-fairtaxer created threads.
That’s a lie. Read the book.
Easily done:
http://rdftaxpro.tripod.com/taxhelp/id10.html
Why is it that you always demand that others do your homework?
Could it be that it’s because you are deficient in multiple ways?
Yes, that’s it. Most will ignore you but I am a charitable person.
Why don’t you run crying to the mods?
That's the game you fairies like to play, not me. Besides, I donb't think a dozen mods could keep uo if the BOOHOO button was mashed everytime one of you cruds told a lie.
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