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Value-Added Tax: What You Need to Know (barf alert)
The Atlantic/yahoo ^ | 5-1-10 | Derek Thompson

Posted on 05/01/2010 6:21:04 AM PDT by Need4Truth

President Barack Obama's bipartisan commission to fix our long-term deficit crisis held its first meeting on April 27. But a couple of weeks ago, the Senate overwhelmingly passed a symbolic measure rejecting an important tool to restore fiscal sanity to the budget: the value-added tax. To which you might respond: a what?

Americans like to think of our country as exceptional. Our tax system certainly is. The United States is the world's only developed nation without a national broad-based consumption tax. As a result, our taxes hit income harder than most countries. Nearly 38 percent of our overall tax take comes from the individual income tax. The OECD average is 25 percent.

(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: deficit; economy; government; valueaddedtax
This mega-barfer is on the front page of yahoo finance for the weekend.
1 posted on 05/01/2010 6:21:05 AM PDT by Need4Truth
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To: Need4Truth

I only need to know one thing. Government is going take by force, more of my money, how can I avoid it?


2 posted on 05/01/2010 6:28:39 AM PDT by MsLady (If you died tonight, where would you go? Salvation, don't leave earth without it!)
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To: Need4Truth

The Obama Regime demands more money/blood and they’re going to get it—or else there will be hell to pay.


3 posted on 05/01/2010 6:29:27 AM PDT by subterfuge (BUILD MORE NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS NOW!!!)
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To: Need4Truth
This is easily one of the more deceitful and over-simplified articles I've ever read. There are many examples to cite, but here are a couple, with my comments:

"Maybe that sounds complicated. But it's actually much easier to collect VAT than a national retail sales tax because there is a counterparty to every transaction. The baker can try to avoid paying her share of VAT. But the government will see that the supermarket reported the purchase of her bread, and it can go to the baker and say "you forgot to report your sales."

The gov't is tracking all the steps between the manufacture and sale of a product, seeing who is and who's not paying their VAT, and then CONTACTING the offenders? This is simpler than a single national retail sales tax? Oh - I suppose War and Peace is a simpler read than Dick and Jane, too...

And this:

"Of course, a VAT could take years to set up..."

Why? Because it's so "simple"??? How long does it take to set up a national retail sales tax? Betcha it would be a small fraction of that time.

And this:

The United States is the world's only developed nation without a national broad-based consumption tax. As a result, our taxes hit income harder than most countries. Nearly 38 percent of our overall tax take comes from the individual income tax.Does the article mention that most of those taxes come from the upper 10% of the population? No. Does the article mention that nearly 50% of the population no longer pays income tax? No. Does the article suggest that the income tax code should be scrapped and replaced by the VAT? No.

The article only suggests that the gov't needs more money because of current and future massive debt, blaming it mainly on Baby Boomers who will soon begin collecting Social Security. Do they mention the enormous impact of out-of-control expansion of the government, the so-called Stimulus Bill and the Omnibus Bill, bailouts for the too-big-to-fail, new 'Share-the-Wealth' social programs like Obamacare? No. It's all of us retiring Boomers who caused this.

Where's my Throw-Up Pot?

P.S. Did I mention that I'm not really in favor of a National Retail Sales Tax? No, but it would have to be better than a VAT, and only if the present income tax were eliminated.

4 posted on 05/01/2010 6:53:46 AM PDT by DJ Frisat (How's that change workin' out for ya, Obama voters?)
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To: Need4Truth

‘an important tool to restore fiscal sanity’

The most important tool would be to STOP SPENDING first and then cut or eliminate the new spending that the Dems have already foisted upon us. But spending is oxygen to the Left. They would die without it.


5 posted on 05/01/2010 7:21:21 AM PDT by originalbuckeye
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To: Need4Truth
But a couple of weeks ago, the Senate overwhelmingly passed a symbolic measure rejecting an important tool to restore fiscal sanity to the budget: the value-added tax.

The maroons in DC think we don't recognize their infantile "strategy". They've spent zillions and now want to "fix" it with more taxes. PFFT!

Fix it with less spending. FUBO

DC created the problem on purpose so that they could try to "fix" it w/ a VAT. Duh

6 posted on 05/01/2010 7:47:24 AM PDT by Principled (Get the capital back! NRST!)
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To: Need4Truth
The United States is the world's only developed nation without a national broad-based consumption tax.

A "value-added tax" taxes more than just consumption. It taxes every stage where value is added, from production to the final consumer. (And thus the name "value-added" tax.)

If you want to just tax consumption, it makes a lot more sense to tax only retail sales rather than taxing every production stage from putting the first seed in the ground. Also, a VAT can easily be integrated into all kind of import and export taxes; indeed, since we are a member of the WTO and it allows VAT to be applied to imports, a VAT would also make it politically simple for us to apply VAT to all imports, thus effectively creating import tariffs under a different name.

I was just reading a paper from one of the nitwits proposing these massive, regressive value-added taxes, and he is positively giddy over the ability of a VAT to tax financial services. (Unsurprisingly, the paper also neglected to include a single line about how VATs actually have worked in practice.) I hadn't realized that a VAT was also part of the Democrats' mad plan to bring the entire economy under the government's grip, but it's clear that's exactly what's going on.

Massive taxes, total control over a command economy: even Stalin or Mao would be impressed by the Democrats' mad ambitions.

7 posted on 05/01/2010 12:37:55 PM PDT by snowsislander
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