Posted on 05/27/2009 5:38:44 AM PDT by GreaterSwiss
With budget deficits soaring and President Obama pushing a trillion-dollar-plus expansion of health coverage, some Washington policymakers are taking a fresh look at a money-making idea long considered politically taboo: a national sales tax.
Common around the world, including in Europe, such a tax -- called a value-added tax, or VAT -- has not been seriously considered in the United States. But advocates say few other options can generate the kind of money the nation will need to avert fiscal calamity.
At a White House conference earlier this year on the government's budget problems, a roomful of tax experts pleaded with Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner to consider a VAT. A recent flurry of books and papers on the subject is attracting genuine, if furtive, interest in Congress. And last month, after wrestling with the White House over the massive deficits projected under Obama's policies, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee declared that a VAT should be part of the debate.
"There is a growing awareness of the need for fundamental tax reform," Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said in an interview. "I think a VAT and a high-end income tax have got to be on the table."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Yep.
A national sales tax is a tax on the poor. What happened to the Dems being for the “poor man”? LOL
Exactly. This consumer will stop consuming if they implement a national sales tax.
Remember Clinton’s luxury tax? That really worked...NOT.
It is tempting to hope the thugs in office add this punitive tax in hopes that enough Americans
would throw the trash out of office. Then I came to my senses and realized that
there are too many lazy, leftbent and human waste people
calling themselves American and voting for the scum we now have in office.
“That’s 10% on everything you buy, from a $3.00 gallon of gas to a $7.00 bag of pullups...and that is OVER AND ABOVE the state and local sales tax you will already pay. We’re ALL screwed.”
It is actually 10% at every level of production. When the barrell of oil is sold to the refiner, 10%. Then when the refiner sells it to the distributor, another 10%. When the distributor sells it to the retailer, another 10%.
So, to run some quick numbers (accuracy be darned) we would have a $50 barrell of oil sold to the refiner for $55. I think the refiner gets 42 gallons of gas out of a barrel, so $55/42=$1.31 and it takes something in the neighborhood of 25% additional cost to refine the oil, $1.31*1.25=$1.64 now they sell it to the dist and it is $1.64*1.10=$1.80. Another 10% to distribute it and you are at $1.98 to get it to the retailer. Now it is sold to the retailer with the VAT for $1.98*1.10=$2.18. Add another 5% profit for the retailer and you have $2.29 cost per gallon before the state/fed sales taxes.
That same formula, without the VAT results in the pre-taxed cost of $1.72 per gallon. $2.29-$1.72=$0.57/$1.72=33% tax increase on a gallon of gasoline.
I am using the above as an example only, however it should suffice as a guideline.
Yea but what'd zerO's aunt and his brother in the hut say about this?
Slap tariff's on imported goods manufactured by American based corporations.
Make attractive incentives available to said corps for building new plants in the USA to manufacture goods for sale in the USA.
VAT would be unnecessary.
Unemployment would plummet, employment rate skyrocket through the proverbial roof.
Won't happen.
Both or either idea would eliminate "crisis".
Would conflict with the very same family responsible for spawning the colossal Emmanuel asshole duo, one of which had the chutzpah to TELL us all where he stands on crisis.
Americans voted for this crap and Americans are getting it.
Even IF the GOP were to wrestle control away from this lot? Think for one second they'd reverse any of it even tho' it'd be a sure spike through the heart of the Liberal-Socilaists? Especially if the GOP campaigned to do exactly that?
Think again.
Doubtful. There will probably be waivers for those who receive subsidies like WIC, foodstamps, etc.
Trite, ignorent quip.
The wealthy do not have anything that I don’t have, materially. Personally, I find material objects boring. Manufactures make’m by the millions and all you need is a checkbook.
I do, however, HATE, disproportional and undemocratic concentrations of power and influence over the this huge, loathsome, armed metastized organism known as government.
Totall, totally guilty.
Bump!
The American people need to learn how to get together and trade services. No cash involved. No taxes. No paper trail.
Just call it a politically correct name - like "sharing."
“And in a paper published last month in the Virginia Tax Review, Burman suggests that a 25 percent VAT could do it all: Pay for health-care reform, balance the federal budget and exempt millions of families from the income tax while slashing the top rate to 25 percent. A gallon of milk would jump from $3.69 to $4.61, and a $5,000 bathroom renovation would suddenly cost $6,250, but the nation’s debt would stabilize and everybody could see a doctor.”
Interesting, but you would be looking at a jump of the grocery bill alone probably a good 50 bucks or more.
Quite a punch, even without an income tax or a decreased rate, and this proposal (at least as quoted by Emmanuel in the article) would NOT eliminate the income tax. Another person in the article said it could be removed, but not him and he is the one who would really have any say at all on the matter.
I honestly can’t see how they would say this would stimulate the economy. The FairTax, yes. Not this VAT.
The article does make it pretty clear very few are even taking this idea seriously.
It’s “out there,” but it won’t actually go anywhere.
Wish the FairTax would instead, but it won’t and never will so I basically have given up lobbying much for that.
That is a perfect, succinct description of what I see at my local Wal-Mart if I happen to stop by there during lunch. I hate going in there for fear of being drooled on by those slack jawed inbreds. America has turned into the movie “Idiocracy.”
HOLY CRAP .... a VAT ? What are we, frakking Europe???
I was at the local one in Boston. The usual crew. A few nutters( and I’m pretty nutty, so if I thought the others were nuttty, they were way way out)
Anyways, small businesspeople that no one gives a crap about.
I’m wondering when the tradesmen, the small businessmen, the workers, when we get to have our riot? Where is our Black Panther, our Liberation Front movement?
Ain't happening man ... the corruption is too thick and the GOP will NEVER win another election with everything coming down the pipe.
How about reining in out of control FED Gov’t spending instead?
The FairTax would result in unprecedented economic growth.Yea, cuz there's nothing like a hefty 30% tax on all goods and services to spur economic growth.
And if a (gag!) prebate is such a good idea why not double it?
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