FairTax Summit in Florida

August 20th, 2004 | AFFT

[Remember_Salamis]

Hello!

With the recent national media attention on tax reform alternatives we believe we are quite close to the tipping point on fundamental tax replacement. Our website has taken thousands of hits. Our 800 number is ringing off the wall. There is no question the time for positive action is now. We are working with both Presidential candidates staff and expect to get a senior surrogate speaker from both Bush and Kerry. The American people demand a fair and simple federal income and Social Security tax system. Come to Florida and make your views known.

We intend to keep this fire alive.
So we are having a conference, in Florida, in September, when the press will be crawling all over the state due to the hotly contested presidential and senatorial elections. And we'd like you there with us.

2004 Tax Policy & Jobs National Leadership Conference
September 17 through 19, 2004
Orlando, Florida
An invitation to attend

Why? Grassroots leadership is the key to actually moving reform forward. This conference brings together the top national, regional, and state leaders in tax policy, job growth, and economic development. We will examine the current alternatives to educate the grassroots and Congress in tax systems that make our country's goods more competitive at home and abroad, and provide sufficient funding for the reform and assurance of our Social Security system, while ensuring economic opportunities and stability for, and the welfare of, low-, lower middle-, and fixed-income Americans.

Our current tax system exports American jobs rather than American products.

The current income tax system drives up the cost of American manufactured goods and agricultural commodities, to say nothing of its complex, intrusive, inefficient, special-interest-driven nature. Not only does the current system decrease our competitiveness overseas, it increases domestic prices for those who can least afford to pay. Funding Social Security reform is almost as daunting as reform itself. The Social Security system is supported by a narrow, regressive payroll tax, levied heavily on low- and lower middle-income Americans. While Social Security system reform is clearly necessary, this is not the purpose of this conference. Determining a responsible, long-term funding solution for Social Security reform is a purpose for this conference.

Result? Bring job creation and Social Security reform-friendly tax policy to the forefront of our national economic debate.

Who? The Tax Policy & Jobs Conference is sponsored by National Tax Research Committee.

When? September 17 through 19, 2004

Where? Gaylord Palms Resort & Visitors Center, Interstate 4 @ Osceola Parkway East (Exit 65), Kissimmee (Orlando), Florida, right across the freeway from Disney World

Data for attendees

• Registration is $100.
• This conference is a summit. It is intended for leaders who move federal and state income and payroll tax policy and these tax systems' effects on job creation/competitiveness in the United States.
• This event is educational, nonpartisan, and will offer all viewpoints on tax reform where supporters are willing to present in person.
• Due to the media attention focused on Florida from both the presidential and the Florida senate race, it will be held there to heighten interest in the policy of these issues.
• There will be individual speakers and panels to educate attendees during general sessions.
• There will be booths available where attendees will learn more between general sessions.
• Register on line at https://secure.fairtaxvolunteer.org/registration/.

Very best regards,
Tom


Thomas A. Wright
Executive Director
FairTax.org
tom@fairtax.org
www.fairtax.org
1-800-FAIRTAX




Contributions to Americans For Fair Taxation are not tax deductible because we lobby for you in Washington, D.C.

[ancient_geezer]

Correcting for your inadvertantly included Gift/Estate taxes into the group of revenue sources not affecting prices. As I see Gift Estate taxes a factor inducing price variability as of most concern to small family businesses and farms, the tax hitting the generation to which the business is passed increasing the costs attributable to those business elements, while larger businesses and wealthy more estate planned folks tend to pass such properties through corporations and trusts to avoid those impositions.

So onto the calculation using the most accurate treasury measure for revenues collected, and putting Gift/Estate tax back into the components affecting price, you will note that the change is quite marginal,

22.64% as opposed to 22.18% under you assumptions for Gift/Estate taxes.:

Indeed a very marginal change in results.

I refer you to the section of the following article about the Income/Payroll tax system and its impact on our economy "A. Hidden Upstream Taxes. " paragraph 39.

"[39] Dr. Dale Jorgenson, Chairman of Harvard University's Economics Department, believes that the price of goods and services are inflated by about 20 percent or more by upstream taxes consumers ultimately bear. In a recent paper Dr. Jorgenson estimated the built-in taxes contained in the price of goods and services. /22/ In the chart above, he quantified the hidden component of tax, estimating that producer prices would fall on repeal of upstream taxes an average of about 22 percent."

Looking at the accompanying chart, the range of values from industry to industry appears to be about 12-25%.

Economists Gary and Aldonna Robbins of the Texas-based Institute for Public Policy examined the case of dry cleaning a shirt, with a particular eye toward uncovering the hidden costs of taxes in price.

The Robbin's attributed over 33.6% of "consumer prices" to be due to federal taxation passed on to the customer.

http://fms.treas.gov/mts/mts0901.pdf

• Total revenues collected by Feds in '00 = $2,025 billion
  (33.6% of consumer price [per Robbin's 1999 federal tax contribution to prices] )

Those tax components which will not change prices as a consequence of enactment of HR2525

• Individual Income Tax (Labor) = $1,004.5 billions,
• Employee half of Social Insurance = 648/2 = 324.0 billions,
• Excises = $68.9 billion
• Customs Duties = $19.9 Billion
• Miscellaneous = $42.7 Billion
  ============================

• Total constant price factors = $1,460 billion
• Remainder federal tax components affecting price = (2,025 - 1,460) = $565 billions

Adjust for a conservative $800 billion cost of tax compliance,
    (The Flat Tax; Hall & Rabushka, '95,What the Income Tax Costs the American People: quoting James L. Payne estimates 65cents for each dollar of revenue collected)

• Total tax related factors affecting consumption price = (800 + 565) = $1365 billions

Estimated change in consumption prices as consequence of enactment of a National Retail Sales Tax, repealing all business income and payroll taxes:

33.6*(1,365/2,025) = 22.64% reduction in consumption prices

Which more than verifies the Jorgenson empirical study of a 22% fall in producer prices

The two sources are in reasonable agreement, Just using static analysis taking the repeal of SS/Medicare taxes as well as income taxes into account for HR25.

I see 20-25% a reasonable value to expect retail prices to fall, not only for customers here in the United States, but in our exports as well making them far more competitive on international markets.

 

Accounting for productivity enhancements and other economic growth factors would add to the potential for decline in consumer prices as can be determined from Jorgenson's studies! But would be beyond the scope of this validation.

 

To do a more up todate calculation will require a bit of research as I am not sure we can stretch the Robbins 33.6% contribitution of federal taxes to consumer prices to necessarily be the same 5 years later under current lower tax rate condition. Because business taxes are somewhat lower today due to Bush tax cuts, the impact of just lowering the current tax rates would undoubtedly lower the percentage of price due to federal taxes a small amount just as it would allow a lower NRST rate as well. Though I will leave that calculation for the future as we see how the federal tax scene actually changes under the next adminsistration, whether it be Bush or that other guy who served in Viet Nam or something.

[Your Nightmare]

Total revenues collected by Feds in '00 = $2,025 billion (33.6% of consumer price [per Robbin's 1999 federal tax contribution to prices] )

First, the Robbin's "study" is completely arbitrary (unless you can point me to how they calculated these numbers). Second, if total revenues were 33.6% of consumer prices then total consumer prices would be $6,027 billion for 2000. They weren't, they were $8,459 billion (including edu costs and exports of goods I left these out previously - $7,588 without).

It's very easy to calculate what portion of prices federal revenues are. Why do you use the rate from that very amateur "study"?

$2,025 / $8,459 = 23.94%

23.9%*(1,336.5/2,025) = 15.79%

And that's with your made up $800 billion compliance costs.

[Your Nightmare]

Adjust for a conservative $800 billion cost of tax compliance, (The Flat Tax; Hall & Rabushka, '95,What the Income Tax Costs the American People: quoting James L. Payne estimates 65 cents for each dollar of revenue collected)

Revenue collected = $536 billion

0.65 x $536 billion = $348.4 billion

---

Total tax related factors affecting consumption price = (348.4 + 536) = $884.4 billion

23.94% * (884.4/2,025) = 10.46% reduction in consumption prices

[lewislynn]

Which more than verifies the Jorgenson empirical study of a 22% fall in producer prices

That's a space cadet's outer-world example from pinheads -A- pinhead who wouldn't know a business model from a super model...

That would also have to be an average.

SO, using the bill, not a pinhead's idea of what he thinks should be in the bill (he thinks the employer's going to get to keep the entire payroll tax repeal...They won't get to keep any of it nor should they.) , show us a REAl world business example, make it up, copy and paste it, who cares? just show ONE that can realistically reduce their reatil prices 20% simply by eliminating their income tax...Just one.

And, if you're going to use the same old pathetic AFFT parroted line "You've been shown/told/proven/explained to a thousand times, How many times do we have to show/tell/prove/explain" bullshit. Fine, you're the master at copy and paste, copy and paste it again...Let's see it.

[lewislynn]

Who? The Tax Policy & Jobs Conference is sponsored by National Tax Research Committee.

Does "National Tax Research Committee" have a website...yet?

[lewislynn]

Economists Gary and Aldonna Robbins of the Texas-based Institute for Public Policy examined the case of dry cleaning a shirt, with a particular eye toward uncovering the hidden costs of taxes in price.

LOL! It's easy to come up with 33.6% tax on a $1.10 dry cleaning when you break everything down then guess that the tax on each item's gross is 33.6%...Was there any money left for Texas?

These guys are what you're using as an example of imbedded taxes?...who's the fool in this picture?

[Your Nightmare]

LOL! It's easy to come up with 33.6% tax on a $1.10 dry cleaning when you break everything down then guess that the tax on each item's gross is 33.6%

It's pretty silly, isn't it? Notice how everything is rounded off to the cent. Then they have the gall to say it's a thirty-three point 6 percent tax! I guess they just discovered decimals at the end there.

These guys find anything that supports their political agenda, no matter how ridiculous, and they treat it as the gospel.

[ancient_geezer]

First, the Robbin's "study" is completely arbitrary (unless you can point me to how they calculated these numbers).

Actually Robbins appeared to have simply applied a constant tax factor for '99 or '98 consumer prices to a Washington Post article to resolve the federal tax to attribute to each component. If you carry out the calculations you will find that each component appears to be multiplied by a constant tax factor rounded to the nearest cent and is very close to federal tax revenues expressed as a percentage of personal expenditure for '98 NIPA numbers.

If you want to know how Gary and Aldonna Robbins specifically derived or sourced their factor, You can probably contact them at

Through Heritage foundation staff
http://www.heritage.org/About/Staff/GaryRobbins.cfm
E-mail Gary Robbins

or at Fiscal Policy Associates Inc
1515 Jefferson Davis Highway
Arlington, VA 22202
Phone: 703-413-4371

The comparisons were done for one of Congressman Bill Archer’s Newsletters - 1999
an excerpt of which can be found on the archived Citizens for an Alternative Tax System (CATS) websight

http://web.archive.org/web/20000207214333/http://cats.org/articles/archerprice.html

It's very easy to calculate what portion of prices federal revenues are.

Only if you want argument over derivation with the likes of yourself and lewislynn all day. Which I refuse to do when independant values are readily available from known and respected economists.

Why do you use the rate

Independance of source for validation purposes.

from that very amateur "study"?

I rather doubt the source of the factor used was all that amateur considering who provided the information and affiliations. But then I'm not surprised that you would confuse a simplistic application of a single factor for a lay publication as a measure of its ultimate sources.

As you apparently are unable to resist your attempts to denigrate respected professionals and their work. I see no particular reason to continue discussions with you.

This not about who can come up with their personal derivations for this and that, it is about validating results derived from substantive studies.

Good night.

[lewislynn]

Here's one:

Rent
Total cost (gross)... 12 cents
Federal tax... 4 cents...or 33.333333% of the gross

Didn't AG say he rented something to AFFT?

HEY GEEZ, do you even read the shit you post?... Do you pay 33.3333% income tax on your gross rental income?

[ancient_geezer]

Do you pay 33.3333% income tax on your gross rental income?

Yep, income/payoll tax burden embedded into everything I buy in support of aquiring and maintaining that property with the individual tax that gets levied on that little bit of extra income.

[Your Nightmare]

Actually Robbins appeared to have simply applied a constant tax factor for '99 or '98 consumer prices to a Washington Post article to resolve the federal tax to attribute to each component. If you carry out the calculations you will find that each component appears to be multiplied by a constant tax factor rounded to the nearest cent and is very close to federal tax revenues expressed as a percentage of personal expenditure for '98 NIPA numbers.

Federal revenues in '98 were $1,722 billion. Expenditures were $6,722 billion, so revenues would have be 25.6% of expenditures. If you add in exports (remember, there are taxes in there, too) you get $7,677 billion and 22.4%.

---

If you want to know how Gary and Aldonna Robbins specifically derived or sourced their factor, You can probably contact them at

Got it. You post something questionable and when someone calls you on it you tell them to go to the source. No way. You posted it, you defend it.

---

The comparisons were done for one of Congressman Bill Archer's Newsletters - 1999 an excerpt of which can be found on the archived Citizens for an Alternative Tax System (CATS) websight

Citizens for an Alternative Tax System? Weren't they that Scientology group? You a Scientologist? (It would explain a lot if you were.)

---

Only if you want argument over derivation with the likes of yourself and lewislynn all day. Which I refuse to do when independant values are readily available from known and respected economists.

Independent values? I got my numbers from the NIPA tables and the Federal Budget. It's simple division after that. You have no idea where your numbers came from.

---

I rather doubt the source of the factor used was all that amateur considering who provided the information and affiliations. But then I'm not surprised that you would confuse a simplistic application of a single factor for a lay publication as a measure of its ultimate sources.

LOL! You should look up the word "simplistic." I think you meant "simple", but "simplistic" is much more appropriate in this case.

---

As you apparently are unable to resist your attempts to denigrate respected professionals and their work.

So I guess I can start posting William Gale's papers and you won't "denigrate" this "respected professional"?

Hypocrite.

[William Terrell]

It just really doesn't matter what quotes or propaganda you post, geezer, the fact is that the federal/national government faces a crises of revenue. That sole use of that revenue is for socialist programs.

In 1986 the aggregate amount of social payout programs almost exactly equaled the amount of fed and FICA collected. The same is true today.

The NRST fixes that problem, with known effect on the federal budget and unknown effect on the American public. Every single item mentioned that paints a rosy picture of the NRST's effect of working Joes in the US is a prediction of human behavior and economic outcomes. Both in the past have been notoriously inaccurate.

Anyone advocating a move to a NRST is advocating the continuance and enrichment of the very subsystems that are destroying our rule of law and unique form of democratic republic.

The NRST enables the imposition of globalist free trade (to our disadvantage) and socialism. Period.

[lewislynn]

Yep, income/payoll tax burden embedded into everything I buy in support of aquiring and maintaining that property with the individual tax that gets levied on that little bit of extra income.

Nice try, no one pays on the gross. The example is for the direct tax payment, not the almost non-existent imbedded taxes.

Even the exorbitant tax rate the "economists" guessed at weren't compounded and multiplied through "the production chain". Even their phony example showed the average tax of each component was 33.6% of the gross and at the bottom the best they could reduce their price was the same 33.6%, and that incuded payroll taxes they couldn't touch if they wanted to.

[ancient_geezer]

So I guess I can start posting William Gale's papers and you won't "denigrate" this "respected professional"?

Go ahead, I for I definitely won't "denigrate" this "respected professional."

I will however point out where his analysis is of an ad-hoc retail tax with provisions that could never be enacted and thus is a non-sequitur.

If you believe any Congress can pass a visible retail consumption tax over 50%, or a 100% tax added on to consumer prices as his ad-hoc tax simulates, you had better get rid of whatever is in your pipe.

[ancient_geezer]

Anyone advocating a move to a NRST is advocating the continuance and enrichment of the very subsystems that are destroying our rule of law and unique form of democratic republic.

 

Constitution for the United States of America:

• Article I Section 8: "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States;

A LAW DICTIONARY
by John Bouvier, Revised Sixth Edition, 1856:
EXCISES. This word is used to signify an inland imposition, paid sometimes upon the consumption of the commodity, and frequently upon the retail sale.

The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787
(Farrand's Records)
James Mchenry before the Maryland House of Delegates.
Maryland Novr. 29th 1787--
Appendix A, CXLVIa, page 149, S9.
"Convention have also provided against any direct or Capitation Tax but according to an equal proportion among the respective States: This was thought a necessary precaution though it was the idea of every one that government would seldom have recourse to direct Taxation, and that the objects of Commerce would be more than Sufficient to answer the common exigencies of State and should further supplies be necessary, the power of Congress would not be exercised while the respective States would raise those supplies in any other manner more suitable to their own inclinations --"

Federalist #21:

"Imposts, excises, and, in general, all duties upon articles of consumption, may be compared to a fluid, which will, in time, find its level with the means of paying them. The amount to be contributed by each citizen will in a degree be at his own option, and can be regulated by an attention to his resources. The rich may be extravagant, the poor can be frugal; and private oppression may always be avoided by a judicious selection of objects proper for such impositions. "

"It is a signal advantage of taxes on articles of consumption that they contain in their own nature a security against excess.

They prescribe their own limit, which cannot be exceeded without defeating the end proposed - that is, an extension of the revenue."

 

Patrick Henry, Virginia Ratifying Convention June 12, 1788:

• "the oppression arising from taxation, is not from the amount but, from the mode -- a thorough acquaintance with the condition of the people, is necessary to a just distribution of taxes. The whole wisdom of the science of Government, with respect to taxation, consists in selecting the mode of collection which will best accommodate to the convenience of the people."

[Montesquieu wrote in Spirit of the Laws, XIII,c.14:]

• "A capitation is more natural to slavery; a duty on merchandise is more natural to liberty, by reason it has not so direct a relation to the person."
  --Thomas Jefferson: copied into his Commonplace Book.

 

The NRST enables the imposition of globalist free trade (to our disadvantage) and socialism. Period.

Let me see,

Today imports come into this country essentially free of any tax(tariff or otherwise) EU & Japan for example provide a credit to thier exporters for VATs the would otherwise end up paying on their manufacures, US products are hit with their VAT entering their countries.

Our exports, meanwhile, are loaded down with federal income and payroll taxes putting use even further into a disadvantage to incoming imports.

Something definitely wrong with that picture as far as "free trade", globalist or otherwise, is concerned.

---

 

Under the NRST, products manufactured in the US would be free of federal taxes thus exported at their full potential for competitive pricing in foreign markets.

Under the NRST imports would be hit with the full federal tax when sold.

As a consequence two things are apparent:

"The Sales Tax generates a substantial export boom; the level jumps to 29.2 percent about the Base Case level in 1996[1st year], but declines by 2020, reaching 18.9 percent of this level. Imports in 1996 exceed the Base Case level by 2.5 percent, but fall to 1.3 percent below this level in 2020."
Jorgenson/Wilcox 1999

And second:

Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee,
Rep. Bill Archer (R-TX)
August 12, 1996

• "A recent survey was done, in Europe and Japan, of the major corporations and I was astounded at the results. They were asked, 'If the US abolished its income tax and went to a sales tax, would that have any impact on your decisions?' Eighty percent of the corporations said they would build their factories in the United States of America. Twenty percent said they would move their international headquarters to the United States of America."

Hmmm, "free trade (to our disadvantage) Period." NOT.

 

As opposed to the income tax you have said you want to keep in place:

The progressive/graduated income tax, the 2nd plank of the Manifesto of the Communist Party, by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, published in 1848. We should never forget nor overlook the philosophical underpinnings of that choice:

"The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state ... . Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property ... . These measures will, of course, be different in different countries. Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.

Which by your admissions of the past, to assure the economic destruction of the United States.

No Thank You Mr. Terrell

[William Terrell]

You're a socialist, geezer. Why not just admit it?

Soon, there won't be enough revenue to fund socialist programs. The income tax is dead in the face of global economic permeability. The only thing that will continue the programs is a deeper government proboscis into more people. That is exactly what the NRST provides.

You're not stupid, so the only reason you stump for the sales tax is to maintain the status quo.

Over and out.

[ancient_geezer]

You're a socialist, geezer. Why not just admit it?

Soon, there won't be enough revenue to fund socialist programs. The income tax is dead in the face of global economic permeability. The only thing that will continue the programs is a deeper government proboscis into more people.

Hmmmm:

Fallacy: Personal Attack

A personal attack is committed when a person substitutes abusive remarks for evidence when attacking another person's claim or claims. This line of "reasoning" is fallacious because the attack is directed at the person making the claim and not the claim itself. The truth value of a claim is independent of the person making the claim.

Fallacy: Red Herring

A Red Herring is a fallacy in which an irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention from the original issue. The basic idea is to "win" an argument by leading attention away from the argument and to another topic. This sort of "reasoning" has the following form:

1. Topic A is under discussion.
2. Topic B is introduced under the guise of being relevant to topic A (when topic B is actually not relevant to topic A).
3. Topic A is abandoned.

This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because merely changing the topic of discussion hardly counts as an argument against a claim.

Fallacy: Ad Hominem

An Ad Hominem is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument. Typically, this fallacy involves two steps. First, an attack against the character of person making the claim, her circumstances, or her actions is made (or the character, circumstances, or actions of the person reporting the claim). Second, this attack is taken to be evidence against the claim or argument the person in question is making (or presenting). This type of "argument" has the following form:

1. Person A makes claim X.
2. Person B makes an attack on person A.
3. Therefore A's claim is false.

 

 

When one no longer has a valid argument or position falsly charge the messenger of an association that is unpalatable, change the subject from the real issue under discussion, and attack the messenger and claim he holds a position inverse of his true one.

Pitiful

[William Terrell]

But you are, indeed, a socialist. You seek to save the socialist structure in America by insuring its financing. This is not ad hominem; it is a statement of deductive reasoning like saying a person that you see giving drugs and getting money is a drug dealer.

Nor is it a red herring. A NRST will guarantee financing of the socialist system, obviously. One who argues for an NRST takes on the primary effect and/or agenda of an NRST, therefore he is either not thought it through, is dumb or agrees with the agenda.

You have obviously thought it through and are not dumb. And, in prior posts, you have agreed with and advocated the concept of a government disbursing public funds to individuals not on contract for goods and services furnished to the government.

It is never misdirection or diversion of attention for the agenda of an advocate to be known. It is entirely relevant to know that one who politicks for sheep safety is really a wolf in disguise.

Nor is it a personal attack. It is a personal opinion on my part and a personal criticism toward your part. I criticize each person who works toward a bigger government and deeper socialism.

I have no personal animosity toward you; I would probably hire you at a good rate for a number of tasks were I an employer and you an applicant, and all I knew was your work for the NRST on FR.

I also realize you may not think of yourself as a socialist. The kernel of the systems has been expanding since 1935. That's long enough for the condition to have become SOP for many. But a person is a socialist if his purposes work toward socialism, whether he is aware of the label or not, because that will be the result of his efforts.

[ancient_geezer]

Whatever Terrel.

I would suggest you have a personal problem.

Good Day.

[lewislynn]

ME: Do you pay 33.3333% income tax on your gross rental income?

Yep, income/payoll tax burden embedded into everything I buy in support of aquiring and maintaining that property with the individual tax that gets levied on that little bit of extra income.

Personal, first hand, matter of fact experience yet you still aren't able to demonstrate how it works out to even 20% on your level....

You seem to think you know all the stages, now simply show the numbers.

BTW, Where did the $800 Billion compliance cost number bandied about come from? Your own link debunks that. Besides, according to the link you provided it's a guesstimate cost for ALL taxpayers including millions of individuals whose "compliance costs" have no affect on consumer pricing.

Let me use YOUR words:
"I refer you to the section of the following article about the Income/Payroll tax system and its impact on our economy . Hidden Upstream Taxes. " paragraph 39 62."

[62] In addition to disguising the economic incidence of the upstream taxes, our still photograph of the income tax system has also conveniently covered up the costs of compliance with the system. These are not negligible. According to most estimates, compliance costs are approximately $220 billion per year. /33/ Although some estimates at the low end are about half that. There are also estimates that are twice that high. If the compliance costs are upwards of $220 billion, they amount to about $850 per man, woman, and child for paperwork, filing requirements, interpretation of the law, contesting penalties, and the other unnecessary chores associated with a protean system that makes every taxpayer a collector and accountant.