What the 999 plan will do for millions.

Here is a good example:
A retired couple collecting social security and supplementing their social security
with a $22,000 income working at Wal-Mart currently pays zero tax.

With the 999 plan they will pay $1980 (9% of the $2200). Then they will pay another 9%
national sales tax on food, clothing, gas, etc. Assuming they eat soup all week and dress
in rags they will undoubtedly spend at least $200 a week ($926 sales tax per year).
So the 999 plan will cost this retired couple $1980 + $926 = $2906 in taxes.
There are millions of Americans who would find themselves paying one hell of a lot
more taxes under the 999 plan.

How long would it be before the 9% National sales Tax becomes 10% - 11% etc.?
If you are 30 years old or younger it will be 25% by the time you retire.

Cain fails to provide significant details of his 999 plan:
Will social security income be taxed?
Will retirement income be taxed?
Gross income less charitable deductions – Goodbye mortgage interest deductions.
Empowerment Zones will offer additional deductions for those living and/or working in
the zone. What the hell kind of deduction is this? Sounds to me like this undefined
deduction is some kind of ghetto deduction, another welfare type benefit for those
already sucking up food stamps and welfare checks?

I do hope in the next debate they quiz Herman for more details on his 999.
Does anybody know if the Tuesday debate will be televised? What channel?

Who really gives a s about "old people". If they had saved a little money during their lives, they wouldn't be eating cat food.

Well, now that you bring up "savers", let's see how the 9-9-9 Plan affects us.

Although a high earner, I have always been a frugal guy and a high saver. After three decades of a workaholic medical practice, I was able to just retire on my savings. However those savings that I have accumulated up to now will end up being cumulatively taxed out the wazoo under the 9-9-9 Plan.

I had the top income tax rate rate of 35% last year. So, let's do the arithmetic for $100 earned and saved in December 2010 and then spent in 2014 under the 999 Plan.

($100 earned in 2010) - (35% Income rate) = ($65 left over to put in the bank in 2010)

($65 of saved money) - (9% Federal Sales Tax in 2014) = ($59.15 of left over purchasing power)

TOTAL CUMULATIVE TAX RATE ON THAT MONEY SAVED AND SPENT: 41%

Those of us who were taught the conservative values of hard work, frugality and savings will take it in the shorts as our life savings will be double taxed at an obscene cumulative rate.

Those who were taught to spend like drunken sailors without ever saving a dime don't have to worry about the double taxation on their current savings because they HAVE no savings.

As another poster noted on another thread, the 9-9-9 Plan, although it has a very catchy name, looks like something that was hurriedly scribbled out on a cocktail napkin after several shots of Scotch.

Where is the government going to get the money to keep paying retired people in perpetuity when the economy is collapsing?

I’m not sure people understand how lousy the fundamentals are in the economy. Much of the economic activity is artificial in a sense because it has been created by borrowed government money and before that by borrowed mortgage money.

We have to radically sweep away the tax constraints, regulatory restraints and high government spending in order to again create the conditions for economic activity in this country.

Otherwise, there will not be the money to honor the obligations to retired people anyway.

Cain is a fraud and a shyster and a relentless self-promoter. He probably dreamed this thing up while he was in the shower one morning. The country is in trouble, he thought; people dial 9-1-1 when they need help. Ah! A brilliant idea! I’ll dream up a tax plan and call it 9-9-9! That’ll get me the publicity and boost I need among the simpletons who’ll latch onto anything that sounds good even if on close examination it makes no sense. When Chris Wallace asked him for the names of the famous economists whom he claimed helped him develop the plan, he couldn’t name one. He said they didn’t want their names released to the public. Wallace didn’t let him escape with that dodge and he pressed Cain, “Well, if it’s such a good plan and they’re proud of it, why wouldn’t they want to take credit for it?” Cain had no answer. Of course not.

From all indications, Cain is more interested in competing with Sarah Palin's books at Barnes & Noble than competing to win the Presidency. He also seems very interested in promoting Mitt Romney while tag-teaming with Romney to attack Perry.

Cain endorsed Romney before Super Tuesday, 2008.

HERMAN CAIN'S ENDORSEMENT OF MITT ROMNEY PUBLISHED IN THE ATLANTA JOURNAL CONSTITUTION TWO DAYS PRIOR TO SUPER TUESDAY, 2008

Cain still supports Romney today. He will not even support Perry against Obama but he has no problems supporting Romney.

Herman Cain said Wednesday that he would be unable to support Rick Perry for president if the Texas governor were to eventually win the party's nomination. .... The former businessman said, for instance, that he could support former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney....

This Romney:

VIDEO clips of Romney/Kennedy Debates: Liberals For Romney - More Liberal than Ted Kennedy

Cain was not taking winning the Iowa Caucuses very seriously.

Herman Cain's top Iowa staff resigns ..... Goff stated that she resigned because the Cain campaign refused to make a serious effort in Iowa, the home of the First-in-the-Nation caucuses.

Cain is not taking the campaign very seriously now as he hawks his book instead.

Cain Campaign: Selling a Candidate or Selling Books? ..... But even as he enjoys the fickle embrace of the party’s social conservatives, doubts are being raised about the straight-talking businessman’s legitimacy, and even his motives. Instead of capitalizing on his newfound momentum by hitting the campaign trail hard, Cain this week opted to spend most of his time promoting his book, This is Herman Cain! My Journey to the White House, which just arrived in retail stores this week. Rather than visit diners in early voting states like Iowa and New Hampshire, he’s signing books at Barnes & Noble outlets in Texas and Washington D.C., although his tour does also include several stops in South Carolina and Florida, two key primary states. .... Steve Deace, an Iowa-based talk show host, posed the question on the minds of many people aligned with the Republican Party: “Is that guy running for president or just lining up a book tour?” .... But, as Block also said, the campaign has just 30 staff members spread across five states, fewer perhaps than one of Cain’s former pizzerias. The candidate this week was scheduled for six book signings and just three traditional campaign events. .... An e-mail that went out to Cain supporters the day before his upset victory in the Florida straw poll wasn’t about one of Cain’s policy positions but instead offered them a chance to buy a collector’s edition box set of the book, complete with a red case and gold trim. “Consider giving a loved one a copy of This is Herman Cain,” it said. “You wouldn’t be giving them just a book. You’d give them a gift to open again and again.” ..... One GOP strategist said he didn’t think Cain’s book tour was bad strategy – business strategy, at least. Cain knows he isn’t going to win the nomination, despite his recent rise in the polls, said Rich Galen, a Republican consultant and former aide to House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is also vying for the nomination. “It’s very smart to leverage his political surge to sell more books,” Galen said. “He’s a smart businessman.”

Cain has left his old pal, Romney, to lock up key donors while he locks up his book sales at Barnes & Nobles.

Romney Rounds Up Backing Among Key G.O.P. Donors

Try your best to tear down his ideas but at least he has some. I am all for getting taxes from those working under the table and using tax loopholes.

Going going gone;: IRS tax and tax attorneys

Why do you think having a new tax scheme will suddenly cause people to stop avoiding taxation? When a landscaper faces a 9% sales tax and a 9% income tax on the money paid to him or her to mow a lawn, won't they (and the homeowner) be tempted to just exchange some cash and avoid the 18%? Lets see, $100 to mow the lawn if paid in cash, or $120 if paid by check. Tax enforcement will always be an issue until the tax rate is so small that avoidance isn't worth the effort, or is impossible (customs tariffs, for example).

And the IRS won't go away, nor will tax attorneys. Instead they'll be more work for them to do, since the definition of income, and what is a "sale" won't be as simple as the sound bites of a campaign speech.

Lets take some examples. Goods at the pharmacy will no doubt be subject to the 9% sales tax, so you'll pay a 9% tax on prescriptions. But it really doesn't make sense for the government to have to pay itself 9% for drugs covered by Medicare or Medicaid does it? So no doubt the 9% sales tax won't apply to purchases paid for by the government. And that alone will create the need for a gigantic bureaucracy just to sort that out.

And I doubt the sales tax will cover rentals, since that would sink most renters financially. That means that any transaction that has some component of renting - like a lease to buy contract - needs special treatment. Otherwise we'll all be leasing our new cars to avoid paying 9% of the purchase price of the car.

As far as I know Mr. Cain's 9-9-9 plan isn't a VAT tax, so the sales tax is only paid by the end consumer. That means every purchase for resale would be exempt. Take a look at the complexity and audits that occur on state sales taxes now that are related to resales, and you'll understand that the IRS will be bigger, not smaller.

What’s the solution? There will never, ever be a “no taxes at all” tax plan.

Actually, there was. :-)

Bachmann proposes to eliminate all taxes

“You earned every dollar, you should get to keep every dollar that you earned,” the candidate said. “That’s your money, that’s not the government’s money.”

That is why these "30 Second Sound Bite Contests" that pass for "debates" are so ridiculous.

Cain’s 666 plan opens the door to a bad formula for a government
that doesn’t eliminate any taxes, but adds a new one - a national
sales tax.

Every sad excuse for government spending will be defined in terms of,
“let’s add 1% to solve the housing crisis”, “let’s add 1/2% or
fighting poverty”, “let’s add 1% for college education”.

666 becomes 9,9,9, will become 12,12,12 - will become 15,15,15
- will become 18,18,18

... at the same time the income tax is going from 9% to 11%
to 12, 20, 35%.

Eventually, we will have three taxes that are as high or higher
than taxes today.

Where? How about dissolving the Education Department and the EPA, and defunding PBS, for starters. There are billions waiting to be cut, which could allow reduction in taxes.

I don’t think you get it. I worked an entire lifetime paying into the social security “trust account,” far more money than I’ll ever get back from it. The Ponzi scheme isn’t retirees—it’s the politicians who took all that money and blew it.

You won’t straighten it out by picking a victim group and screwing them.

When retired people hear about this, they ain’t gonna vote for McCain, er, Cain. Nor anyone who is approaching retirement.

The solution is simple. Cut out the bureaucracy that is weighing us all down and destroying our businesses. Cut the pork. Slicing the budget by a trillion would be a simple matter, if they just sat down and DID it.

...scrapping our ridiculous tax code, lowering business taxes and eliminating taxes on capital will provide an environment for businesses to grow and provide jobs, and encourage businesses to locate in the United States as opposed to overseas.

Reducing business taxes is a good idea, but Mr. Cain's plan doesn't do that. Look at it carefully. Here's what his own web site says:

# Business Flat Tax – 9%

* Gross income less all investments, all purchases from other businesses and all dividends paid to shareholders.

* Empowerment Zones will offer additional deductions for payroll employed in the zone.

He replaces a 35% income tax -- a tax only on net profit -- with a 9% tax on business gross income less purchases, dividends, and investments. Notice that he excludes payrolls from the deductions, except in some "Empowerment Zones". That is a gigantic tax increase on most businesses, not a tax decrease.

Basically a corporation has to pay 9% on all employee salaries. That's more than FICA costs now, and for companies with little or no profits the new 9% tax has the same effect as increasing the employer's share of FICA to 9%. (Of course that's how Mr. Cain can make his plan "replace" FICA...)

A quick calculation based on Walmart's 2011 annual report indicates that they would pay about 2.5 Billion dollars more under Mr. Cain's plan. How is that going to help our economy, or consumers? That 2.5 Billion dollars has to come out of the pockets of Walmart's customers.

Mr. Cain's plan is a tax hike for just about everyone. Try it out on your own finances, and if you have a small business just run the numbers. You won't like what you see.

I fully agree on the spending cuts, and I would go much, much further.

THERE IS NO TRUST ACCOUNT. It is just an accounting entry.

When the payroll tax comes in, the income tax comes in, the corporate tax comes in, it ALL goes into the same giant sucking maw that is the federal government, and the federal government has spent it all.

The federal government has $15 trillion in debt and unfunded obligations of anywhere between $80 trillion and $200 trillion, depending on the assumptions one uses in calculating it. It has a sustained negative cash flow of $1.5 to $2.0 billion a year.

And there is nothing to show for it.

You might consider picking up some second-hand riot gear from Greece, it might come in handy.

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