The funny thing is, I wasn’t trying to argue the math at all, just pointing out that the public will not accept a tax that applies 30% to every item and services they purchase.
I read somewhere that surveys have been done which show that the public are not opposed to the idea of a sales tax up to around the 20% to 25% mark, but when you get much higher - i.e. 30% then it’s met with a high disapproval rate. Hence the FT advocates using the inclusive 23% number instead of the more easily comparable 30% rate.
To argue that the FT is not a sales tax is ridiculous. As others have pointed out, companies will still advertise their wares at the tax-exclusive price and then tack on 30% to the bill at the register. How on earth is that “not like a sales tax”?
In the U.K. most retail sales are advertised and transacted using the VAT-inclusive rate. Guess what? That rate is still recognized as 17.5% on top of the price of the goods (i.e. value-added-tax) and not 14.8% of the inclusive price.
So when people are informed that the Fair Tax is a 23% tax on everything you buy they will naturally assume that means for every $1.00 they spend they will have to pay an extra $0.23. That’s how 200+ million Americans have been doing it for the whole of their lives. That’s how a sales tax is calculated, and that’s how they would expect the Fair Tax rate to be described, and they won’t be happy when they find that the real equivalent rate is 30%.
Fair tax advocates may argue that they use 23% as the better equivalent to the current income tax system, but it is mighty convenient for them that people won’t understand that the 23% tax on things they buy is not calculated the same way as the 6% or 8% or whatever sales tax they pay on everything today.
Funny thing, I wasn't arguing the math, either -- I was merely stating that what you were saying is wrong.
... just pointing out that the public will not accept a tax that applies 30% to every item and services they purchase.
And, I'm pointing out that well over a Million people already have accepted the 30% (when it's figured one way/23% when figured the other way -- both ways openly explained since the word go; and dozens of times on this forum. Plus 73 members of Congress are SPONSORING the bills -- the most sponsored tax bill in the history of our republic.
I read somewhere that surveys have been done which show that the public are not opposed to the idea of a sales tax up to around the 20% to 25% mark, but when you get much higher - i.e. 30% then it’s met with a high disapproval rate.
Until they understand BOTH methods of figuring the rates of tax -- inclusively and exclusively.
Hence the FT advocates using the inclusive 23% number instead of the more easily comparable 30% rate.
True -- IF YOU LISTEN TO ONLYHALF OF WHAT THEY SAY. What they DO say is that 23% marked price of the item is the tax. What they are NOT saying is that 30% will be ADDED TO the marked price of the item -- as you people are trying to say. That is a lie, and you all know it. To argue that the FT is not a sales tax is ridiculous.
Well, at least you have that right. The only ones I know of claiming that are the lying anti-FT horde, here and in the press -- including Bruced Bartlett -- NOT the FairTaxers, who call it a NATIONAL RETAIL SALES TAX, which it properly is.
As others have pointed out, companies will still advertise their wares at the tax-exclusive price and then tack on 30% to the bill at the register. Only if they want to be driven out of business by competeting companies who will lower their prices by the 23% and retrieve it with the 23% included in the marked price -- shown on the receipt as the sales tax. It's their choice; stay in business or be greedy and go bankrupt.
How on earth is that “not like a sales tax”?
Who's make that asinine? Not the FairTaxers. In the U.K. most retail sales are advertised and transacted using the VAT-inclusive rate. Guess what? That rate is still recognized as 17.5% on top of the price of the goods (i.e. value-added-tax) and not 14.8% of the inclusive price.
What the UK is doing is entirely irrelevant. And has been for a long time.
So when people are informed that the Fair Tax is a 23% tax on everything you buy they will naturally assume that means for every $1.00 they spend they will have to pay an extra $0.23.
That's exactly what I thought the first time I heard Neal Boortz say it. I thought he had lost his mind -- until he explained it, and I listened to what he was ACTUALLY SAYING.
That’s how 200+ million Americans have been doing it for the whole of their lives. That’s how a sales tax is calculated, and that’s how they would expect the Fair Tax rate to be described, and they won’t be happy when they find that the real equivalent rate is 30%.
I don't buy you obvious idea that the American people are too damned dumb to find out the truth that there at present about 23% of the price of their purchase is HIDDDEN federal taxes and costs, NOT disclosed on their receipt, and that it is that same 23% that the FAir Tax will be paying tax OPENLY, and which WILL be disclosed on the receipt they receive. Fair tax advocates may argue that they use 23% as the better equivalent to the current income tax system, but it is mighty convenient for them that people won’t understand that the 23% tax on things they buy is not calculated the same way as the 6% or 8% or whatever sales tax they pay on everything today.
You may think the entire American population is mind dead -- I don't. Admittedly, a lot of the American people are dumb enough to vote Democrat, but I don't think even all of those are too stupid to understand the Fair Tax comcept.