Shock and awe not only for Iraqis {The "Fair" tax cometh}

WorldNetDaily ^ | 4/16/2003 | By Joan Veon

[JohnGalt]

There in lies the problem, so long as the government controls the printing press, we would be stuck with the same problem we are in today. Yes, there would lower costs for getting products to market with a NST or a flat tax, but if the government controls the value of dollar (which effects the price of credit and imports) than we are still in the same mess we are in now.

[JohnGalt]

You are asking the wrong questions and using a poor example with the air line industry which is essential government own as it is.

Business can either decide to sell cheaper products or they may decide to offer 'better' products, actually increase cost of production.

Either the flat tax or the NST will reduce the cost of compliance, and those savings will be passed on to the marketplace, which may or may not mean a change in prices.

[Always Right]

You are asking the wrong questions and using a poor example with the air line industry which is essential government own as it is.

I never mentioned the air line industry anywhere.

[JohnGalt]

My bad, not sure why I thought you did.

2 minutes in the penalty box where I will feel shame.

[Always Right]

Either the flat tax or the NST will reduce the cost of compliance, and those savings will be passed on to the marketplace, which may or may not mean a change in prices.

Yes that is a fair assessment. The problem I have is that the sales tax folks always minupulate the statistics to show how everyone will be saving a ton of money in taxes, when in fact the same amount of taxes are being paid.

[JohnGalt]

I saw that we were in agreement re: sales tax versus flat tax, which is why I thought to chime in only 'princpled' seems to be a NST zealot, God Bless him, so there is not much point in engaging him on the point I was trying to make.

[Dick Bachert]

Jeezzz, and the CURRENT system isn't being manipulated by the political ruling class to modify our behavior, punish their enemies and reward their friends?? That's how the damn thing grew to over 20,000 pages. Jefferson warned us that the price of liberty is ETERNAL vigilance. Eternal is like a really long time. We've slept on the rights the Founders TRIED to leave us and have, consequently, lost many of them. The FairTax or ANY tax reform won't -- indeed CANNOT -- solve THAT problem. What it WILL do is get the tax collector at least one level out of our PERSONAL lives where he had no business in the first place.

And that "new" bureaucracy is to REPLACE (look it up!) the current IRS. Under the NRST, the present IRS would be disbanded and a new, much smaller NRST collection office would be established directly under the Secretary of Treasury. Since this new agency will NOT have to deal with 100 million individual taxpayers and 20 million businesses but only with the 45 to 50 state collection agencies, the entire federal end could be run by a few hundred folks. It might take perhaps 200 field agents (4 per state) to work with the state revenue offices to be certain they aren’t cooking the books or playing games with the fed’s piece of the action + additional for those non-sales tax states foolhardy enough to allow the feds to have their way with their businessmen. Perhaps another 100 more in the main office to run the computers and post deposits, make coffee, run out for the donuts, etc.

They WERE going to call this "NEW" bureaucracy "RAPLH" but settled on something a bit more descriptive of its activities.

[Paul C. Jesup]

Why do you support the IRS?

This is a real simple question, so it should be easy to answer.

[Always Right]

Why do you support the IRS? This is a real simple question, so it should be easy to answer.

You mean there isn't gonna be a tax collection agency with the full force of the government behind them in a sales tax scheme? We will still have an 'IRS', but it may not be called the 'IRS'.

[JohnGalt]

Because it gives Americans a place to focus their culturally ingrained hatred towards taxation. The act of the average American writing a $10K check to the IRS every April 15 is in my opinion, the surest way to end the DC tax regime, not merely to replace one form of taxation with another.

[JohnGalt]

It will be called the American Freedom Service.

(LOL)

[Paul C. Jesup]

The very fact you post a statement like that and OPENLY support the IRS proves you're INSANE!!

Go to the DU, they'll love your comments and support of the IRS. Here we will merely at best question your sanity.

[Paul C. Jesup]

With NRST, the tax collector with be on the BUSINESS side tax collectiing and not on the personal side tax collecting, meaning they will take your business to court, but not you PERSONALLY to court.

This a step up from what we have now.

[Always Right]

Please tone down your rhetoric. We have been posting here a lot longer and probably have contributed a lot more than you have.

[Always Right]

With NRST, the tax collector with be on the BUSINESS side tax collectiing and not on the personal side tax collecting, meaning they will take your business to court, but not you PERSONALLY to court.

People are still gonna be held personally liable for taxes. Otherwise people will just set up a bunch of phoney companies, defraud the government and fold up shop. You really think the feds are gonna let that happen?

[Paul C. Jesup]

There are already other laws on the books right now to handle that and they usually work.

[Zon]

The national sales tax will favor cheaper imports over more expensive home grown items

Wrong. There will be no hidden taxes embedded in American made products. The NRST strips out the cost of embedded taxes in products. Most imported products have embedded taxes in them.

As I lean libertarian, the end in mind, the radical reduction in the size and scope of government

Got it. I'm not a libertarian but I have read and understand the libertarian platform.

A suggestion to my NST friends, and I am listening (hope you are checking in on us, chiefnegotiator) is to focus on the political end in mind. Ending the 'IRS' may put some bad people out of work, but I have bigger goals in mind.

The flat tax involves government initiation of force and or threat of force -- "report your income and pay the tax or we'll fine you and put you in prison". It also requires every person to report to the government how much income they make. That's an open door for the government to snoop around in people private financial affairs.

With the NRST if a person doesn't want to pay the tax they can choose to not buy the item -- and they can still get a check every month to cover the tax up to the poverty level. And since no person has to report their income to the government the government has no tax incentive to snoop around in a person's private financial affairs. No doubt if chiefnegotiator is looking in, he now has a reason to cast a happy smile.

Apparently the bigger goals you have in mind include the government prying into people's private financial affairs and the government initiating force and threat of force against people. Have you read the Libertarian platform?

[Always Right]

There are already other laws on the books right now to handle that and they usually work.

You ought to read the fair tax bills that have been proposed in both the house and senate. It is the individual who is liable for the tax.

[Principled]

. If wages are higher how do prices go lower?

Glad you asked.

Suppose a company realizes savings of $1000.

The company reduces prices in an amount that uses up $400
The company increases wages in an amount that uses up $350
The company increases ROI in an amouont that uses up $250.

There. $1000 of tax savings used to do three things:
1) lower prices
2) increse wages
3) improve ROI.

Jeez. That was easy.

[JohnGalt]

Libertarian don't get elected, why would I read their platform?

"report your income and pay the tax or we'll fine you and put you in prison"

That is the visceral hatred I think could be tapped over time to return us to a pre-1913 American republic free from the DC tax regime; a return to true federalism.

These days I lean rather Jeffersonian I guess.

For what it is worth, NST advocates semm more interested in abolishing the IRS than destroying the DC tax regime.

I needed to complete my thought; I prefer a stream of revenue collected at the docks in the form of a tarriff so that there will be a means of federal revenue that can replace direct federal taxation. I do not like the idea of eliminating the tax at the dock, and I hate the idea of double taxing imports.

But if you eliminate the collection at the docks and just slap a tax on it, the power of the Fed will grow as monetary policy will determine the price of imports.