Posted on 11/03/2004 10:42:24 AM PST by tgusa
"I'm not exactly sure how big the national sales tax is going to have to be, but it's kind of an interesting idea that we ought to explore seriously," the president said. The next day administration officials said Bush was not considering such a reform.
John Kerry's campaign quickly condemned a national sales tax, and Bush for potentially supporting it.
“If [Bush] has his way, every trip to the supermarket will feel like a visit to H&R Block and every day will be April 15. And now that this plan has been exposed, George W. Bush is trying to mislead the public into thinking it was just an off-the-cuff comment," Kerry spokesman Phil Singer said in an Aug. 12 statement.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Even if there were NO taxes at all, liberals would still be faced by the "inequity" of a simple fact: a rich man and a poor man must still pay the SAME PRICE for the same good; so a poor man must pay a greater percentage of his income to buy, for example, a quart of milk than a rich man does. If libs don't find this simple fact of economic life unfair, why do they gripe over the idea of a national sales tax of X% added on to that quart of milk? The rich man and the poor man are still paying exactly the same price.
Get rid of the IRS and the income tax.
Reinstitute a gold standard.
Finally, get rid of the practice of fractional-reserve banking; that will end the boom/bust cycles in our economy.
And who will audit that? You're going to need an IRS-type agency. Are fed auditors going to come around and demand 27% of my garage sale and e-bay receipts?
But with a national sales tax you wouldn't be taxed at the 'employment' level, just on what you spend, thus no "AGAIN".
The idea is to replace the withholding tax with a flat sales tax. This would be a tax on consumption; income tax is a tax on production.
Because it no ones frickin' business how much money I earn. Is that clear enough for you and all you other naysayers?
Unless you have savings. Then you will be taxed twice, once at the income level and again at the sales level. It's OK I guess if you are in debt, as you then get to pay off goods aquired without a sales tax with money not taxed as income, but tough luck if you have managed to save up any money for your retirement.
Exactamundo! In other words the tax would be voluntary. Exactly the way The Founders intended it.
I too have lived and worked in the UK, and I would guess that the vast majority of business there don't play games with the VAT. But those poor bastards get taxed at every turn (example: 80p for a liter of petrol, about 75% of which is tax). How do you think they would feel about Inland Revenue being abolished?
...and this applies more than 200 years later because... you say so?
Then why is it anyone's business how much money I spend? Or anyone's business if I want to sell something at a garage sale? Do you want to destroy small businessses?
I am talking about the retirement money I have slaved to save to this point. I already paid tax on it when I made it and a national sales tax would tatoo me AGAIN!
You never went to market day on some High Street somewhere? 90% of those guys don't play the VAT game.
It applies because it's logical. The logic of personal privacy and the choice of how much money you wish to give the government (yes you give it to them, not the other way around) does not change any more than the inalienable rights. In fact, it's part of our inalienable right to privacy. These tenets are a priori, not inventions of man. Taking money (read that as life) away from a man at the point of a gun is just as wrong today as it was 200 years ago. Why is this so hard for people to understand.
If you would like to be added to this ping list let me know.
John Linder in the House & Saxby Chambliss Senate, offer a comprehensive bill to kill all income and payroll taxes outright, and provide a IRS free replacement in the form of a retail sales tax:
H.R.25, S.1493
A bill to promote freedom, fairness, and economic opportunity by repealing the income tax and other taxes, abolishing the Internal Revenue Service, and enacting a national retail sales tax to be administered primarily by the States.Refer for additional information: http://www.fairtax.org & http://www.salestax.org
No, actually I lived, worked and shopped in Bristol and Filton, and I didn't see any VAT games being played. But I'll take your word for it wrt High Street. BTW, the whole reason this legislation is being discussed is to hash out issues like the small business issue. Another real issue which someone mentioned was what about savings, investments etc. that have already been taxed? These are valid issues which need to be addressed, but I bet they're not insurmountable.
What is your evidence that people are more willing to remit taxes just out of the goodness of their hearts today?
You sound like someone advocating communism -- "everyone will work for the state and the state will give you what you need -- and it will work because everyone is so nice to each other." We know better. Communism failed everytime it has been tried because people are not willing to give economic wealth up for the good of the state. And now you want to try that system here.
In fact, your plan sounds like the way the UN is funded. Each country is supposed to remit a certain amount, but even the U.S. has withheld money for the UN when it has disagreed with the way it is spent.
I'm for making the Federal Government ask the states for it's revenue, if not gathered from tarrifs (ie, no direct federal taxation). But abolishing the IRS and replacing it with a sales tax is a step in the right direction.
The trade is between you and the person you are trading with. There has to be at least one other person involved for there to be a trade. The government would NOT know how much money you spend, only what has been spent. Used goods would not be taxed, only new consumer goods.
Basically only retail would carry taxes. This only helps small business because it removes a very large expense of time and money from their practices. Don't even pretend that businesses pay taxes, because they don't. The end consumer does. Businesses simply pass the taxes on to the consumer in the cost of their products.
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