And here I thought rats were good for ammo sales.
That bloated Communist Pig of a Government needs to tax less.
marking for later
It could also be called the "Added To The Price You Have To Pay Tax", but that's a lot longer and harder to remember. "Son of NAFTA" would be another good name for it.
The tax revenues are lower and the dems think that raising the rates will produce more revenue. That’s how nuts they are. Raising taxes will cause flight/strikes in these conditions because the productive are seeing the scales tipping to reward the looters and moochers. “Wealth” has to be produced before you ‘redistibute’ it.
Might as well send each person a bill for their tax burden rather than the voluntary system we have now.
I chose not to pay the 12% F.E.T. on the trailers we built by simply not building the trailers anymore.
Easy squeezy, Lemon peasey!
The biggest problem with a VAT is it’s hidden. Better to have a visible national sales tax so we know what we are paying, and forget that too unless the constitution is modified regarding the income tax.
As a simple example, consider a corporation that has $10 billion in revenue, but net income of zero and taxable income of zero. Corporate tax revenue under the existing system would be zero, but the VAT at a 20% rate would produce tax revenue of $2 billion, regardless of whether the corporation made or lost money.
VAT is a convenient way for politicians to suck ever-increasing amounts out of the economy into their coffers, without having to be concerned about corporate profits at all. At present, in times of corporate losses, politicians suffer along with the rest of us. With a true VAT, they get theirs, regardless of how much everyone else struggles.
And here is what your price tag will likely look like..
You select a shirt and the price is 50.00 USD. You go to the counter and the sales person says that will be 50.00 USD. You ask what is the tax? “ Oh it is already in the price”. What you may not know is that tax is 25.5%. That is the sales tax in Iceland. Last year it was 24.5%.
In Iceland, when you go to reclaim your VAT tax at the airport ( and you must have a special form filled out by the shop where the item was purchased and not all shops do this) you only get 15% back.
Oh and did I mention that there are annual income taxes in Iceland? Not sure what that amount is on your income but you can bet it is high.
Now, what kind of homes do they have? Some are quite nice, some quite small. What kind of appliances do they have? Not the same sizes we have oh and costs? Let’s say many don’t have tumble dryers...can we say skinny fridges or what we would consider a bar fridge?
Be careful what you wish for you just might get it.
We don’t need additional taxes. We need Congress to cut spending.
I dont know how they got the label in the first place...they have always been big tax and spend government
AARP os already singing the virtues of a VAT tax because Europe is doing it, why not the US!
Europe is jumping off a cliff. Why not the US!
The Left does not recognize that, as the article says, corp taxes are a VAT, paid ultimately by consumers paying higher prices and workers losing jobs ad multi nationals flee America. Of course they hope for the worldwide socialist revival, and they see their salvation not in red shirted mobs, but in the finely tailored Davos Men who see a marriage of Govt, Corp, and Labor erasing boundaries and creating a vast nanny state where decisions are made for our good by bureaucrats and managers in the comfort of their well appointed offices in Brussels, Dvos, London and NYC.(and maybe Shanghai)
the VAT, teh Fair Tax are merely offering the government other pockets to pick. if anybody thinks for a minute that congress is going to get rid of the IRS, I have a nice bridge in brooklyn I can sell, cheap.
lower the rates of the corporate tax but close the special interest loopholes.
It sounds like a VAT would serve to drive even more manufacturing offshore.
This is not exactly in concert with the article but I want to examine the premise.
I have seen articles that detailed the amount of taxes included in the retail price of damn near everything you buy.
You can readily tell these are dated but I feel safe in assuming the taxes have not decreased.
• Taxes account for 35 cents of the cost of a $1.14 loaf of bread.
• 18 cents of a 50-cent can of soda go toward taxes.
• 72 percent of the cost of a 750-ml bottle of liquor goes toward taxes.
• Taxes for an $80 hotel room average 43 percent.
• Taxes account for $63.60 of a $159 airline ticket.
• A $153.09 monthly utility bill consists of $39.35 in taxes.
There are plenty of unexpected taxes that raise the price of goods and services -- sin taxes, import duties, user fees and excise taxes on things as varied as gas guzzlers, firearms, communications services and air travel.
The less visible a tax is, the less likely taxpayers will be aware of it, unsettled by it and advocate against it.
•The next time you find buried treasure, remember to report it as regular income.
•Even if you're so broke that creditors have forgiven part of your debt, you're not off the hook. The forgiven portion of your debt is "income" and may be taxable as such. Note that there are exceptions if the debt was secured by your principal residence or you declare bankruptcy or are insolvent at the time.
•If you take a bribe or steal property, it's income unless you give it back before the tax year is over. Just a tip.
Will a Value Added Tax replace or be in addition to the hidden taxes already in place?
American University's Pike says the United States is the only industrialized country that does not have a value-added tax, which taxes all consumer goods and services at each step of the manufacturing process.
"A value-added tax could replace all these nickel-and-dime annoyance taxes," he says. But it also would level the playing field so everyone would be taxed for buying products and not just specialty items.
Under a system of value-added taxes, each time a company handles a product on its way from raw material to finished good, it pays a tax on the increased value. Ultimately, all those taxes are reflected in the retail price of a good or service.
Of course, that makes a VAT the ultimate hidden tax. Keep an eye on Congress. Our representatives are currently looking into the possibility of a VAT to raise additional revenue.
The author is wrong. We do not have a VAT although many states have some form of inventory tax. A VAT is a vast new, complex tax scheme. Its impact may be similar to a corporate income tax but it is clearly a different tax scheme. The rats are somewhat sour on corporate income taxes because taxes vary with profits. The rats want to strangle the goose without regards to profits. When production falls, the rats will modify the VAT rate to collect more taxes on less production.
The author is also wrong that corporate income taxes are regressive. Never fall into the trap of regressive taxation. Corporate income taxes hit all consumers about the same. The left does not like corporate income taxes because they cannot exempt 50% of the population from indirect taxation and force the top 10% or so to pay most of the indirect taxes.