Posted on 04/10/2008 8:23:51 AM PDT by Turret Gunner A20
“Twenty two million dollars. That’s the amount of money spent to come up with the original FairTax plan.”
So it doesn’t matter if someone is for or against the plan based on its merits? It should be supported due to its research costs?
I’m sure glad they spent some money on focus groups to determine what the best tax policy would be. Very Clintonesque.
Boortz is such an oddity... a libertarian who supports multinational interventionist war and the Patriot Act. The FairTax is an interesting idea and certainly better than our current psuedo-Marxist model, but it’s not the long term answer IMHO.
I think IMHO I could create a Fair Tax Plan in just a few words.
Cut all taxes by 50%, have only a flat one tier rate, say 10%, households earning under $50,000.00 a year pay NO taxes Federal or state.
Oh yeah, and if it isn’t in the US Constitution don’t do it.
The prebate thing is the deal killer.
In 20 years, that will look like our current tax code - and, all the fairtax will have accomplished, is adding a federal sales tax to everything.
Under the present Income tax scheme they're going to pay the (average) 22% embedded tax that exists in every product or service purchased at the retail level. With the FairTax comes the end of all business and corporate income and payroll taxes and the end of this 22% tax embedded in our goods and services. Then along comes the FairTax to replace the embedded tax.Fine, the 23% Fairtax replaces the 22% embedded tax. What your numbskull boss and other Fairtax supporters parroting the "22% embedded tax" line continually (purposely) ignore is the personal income and payroll tax the Fairtax also replaces...
How does the 23% Fairtax replace 22% embedded taxes, 15.3% payroll taxes, 15+% personal income taxes AND a government check in the mail every month?...
Which one is the lie?
I honestly don’t know much about the Fair Tax, but the rude, condescending tone of this writer has done nothing to make me want to learn more. Why does he think insulting people will win them to his cause? Clearly, he’s just interested in scoring points with those already on his side.
Yeah, I guess if they’d only spent $21 million it would be OK to attack the plan. I do generally like Neal but this is over the top.
I don’t know enough about the Fair Tax yet to know whether it’s the answer or not — although from some things I’ve read, it sounds like it would have its own batch of “exceptions” and other intricacies, and I don’t want that. I want something simple and direct, a one-liner tax code or at least something that will fit on a single page. I would even be willing to pay slightly MORE taxes just to be rid of the aggravating, time-consuming hassle that is the current tax code.
However, I’m not sure what this author’s point is in emphasizing the research expense. So? What does that prove? There have been quite a few misguided, unnecessary studies that have cost far more. I’m not saying that this is necessarily misguided or unnecessary, but the expense is irrelevant. Besides, 22 mil is a relative drop in the bucket. To put it into perspective, it’s four days worth of gasoline for the troops in Iraq.
Just think of how many hundreds of millions have been spent researching global warming. I guess we better not question any of those studies, either, given the amount invested.
wah!wah!wah!
crybaby!
just because you chose to spend 22million buckeroos on your agenda doesn’t entitle it to a free pass.
it is a flawed plan based upon ignorance and hatred of the IRS and little more. it is smoke and mirrors and favors the super rich and places a more heavy burden upon the middle class.
not to mantion the damper it would place uypon huge segments of the economy.
and the tactics of it’s adherents with regard to their opposition are Clintonian at best, fascist at worst.
The base for the nrst is larger than the base for the payroll tax and income tax. A lower rate with a larger base can generate the same revenues. No lie there - you just don't get the whole thing about consumption base being larger.
Boortz is an idiot - but you're wrong on this and Boortz is right [maybe the only time.]
One of the many places boortz fails is in his apparent ignorance of what everyone believes; people will keep their full gross paycheck. If people keep their gross, then prices won't fall 22% until all costs are wrung out of the system - not just taxes per se. If, as we all expect, employees keep their gross, prices will fall only in the amount of business tax costs [appx 10% of retail].
Hence nominal prices will rise, but so will purchasing power - by equivalent amounts in the aggregate.
But until the rest of economic costs are wrung out [maybe 3 yrs? 5? 10?], there will be a negative for those who don't earn income.
Nonetheless, this nrst is by far the best alternative - by FAR. I just wish boortz would go away.
boo-friggin-hoo
Neal Putz on another FT tirade. Go figure
My opinion exactly.
Furthermore, it should not be my problem. I should be able to fill out my W4 when I first hire in, and there is no reason I should ever have to re-visit the issue. The table should be simple enough that the employer merely deducts the correct amount, its his problem to get it right, not mine.
The idea that ordinary working people should have to deal with this is silly. The whole April 15th madness is just that, madness. Eliminate the intricacies, and make it the employer's problem to get it right. Working people are not businesses and should not be taxed as if they were. The tax table should be simplicity itself. If your wife works, or doesn't work, it shouldn't affect what is taken from your check. If you have a side business, fine, get an accountant, but your wage earnings from your day job would have no bearing on your tax from your side job.
I want simple.
The biggest problem with the Fair Tax is that the politicians and bureaucrats are too heavily invested in the current power structure to allow it.
It will take some time for prices to come down because of the costs of on-hand inventories. I expect that some retailers will take advantage of “Price inertia” and try to keep prices at the level their customers are accustomed to but there will surely be aggressive retailers that will immediately mark down and promote heavily to generate cash flow and build their customer base. Eventually, overall retail prices will have to come down.
As opposed to the current system that is straight out of Karl Marx’s book The Communist Manifesto & is such a cluster f*ck that the IRS has admitted under oath before Congress repeatedly that it does not know what the tax code says or allows but if they think that John Q.Citizen ain’t paying what the IRS arbitrarily decides they owe it’s off to prison they go.
Farting around with the current system will not fix anything ! Is the “Fair Tax “ perfect ? Name a perfect way for the government to take your money to piss down assorted rat holes or to buy votes.
If insist on showing your ignorance, at least get your fcts straight. For one thing, IO didn't spend a dime developing the FairTax Bill.
And, how about proving what some of the drivel you puke, for once???
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