Posted on 03/08/2005 9:20:44 AM PST by n-tres-ted
Our tax code is a mess for a reason. Special interests pay for special favors. And with 17,000 pages and counting, there's plenty of places for our politicians to hide the kickbacks. Meanwhile, all the exemptions, deductions, exceptions and special provisions reduce the tax base, which means higher tax rates and smaller incentives for individuals and companies to produce income. And whether the tax breaks are set in fine print or spelled out in bold type, they generally favor the rich, making our tax system less progressive than is generally believed.
No tax system is perfect, but ours is so awful that fundamental reform is the only option. Fundamental reform is not just a necessity; it's also an opportunity to stop taxing income and start taxing consumption. My colleagues and I have been studying income and consumption taxation via computer simulations for some time now. We've found that switching from taxing wage and capital income to taxing consumption can significantly improve economic efficiency and growth. What's more, it can make our tax system much more progressive and generationally equitable.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
geez,
Will you kindly post the graph that shows so clearly the progressivity of the Fair Tax as compared to the current tax system? Thanks a lot.
Assume H.R. 25 becomes law. Overnight, people would move from paying, to the feds and states, roughly 50 cents per dollar earned on their supplies of labor and capital to roughly 30 cents.
No it doesn't. It would have to also repeal state taxes, it doesn't/can't.
The fairtax is a tax "of the gross payment" it in fact would tax state taxes and anything else included in the "gross payment", including itself.
Liberals wouldn't let the Senate be lost, they wouldn't let the house be lost, they wouldn't let the presidency be lost --- but they did. I don't want to tax an American living on foreign soil, nor do I want estate taxes, unearned income taxes or any other taxes on the creation of wealth. After I have created some wealth and want to spend it, then I'll pay taxes. That idea is so simple and so saleable to the American people.
Those who think the fair tax is out of reach should think again.
You are absolutely correct. We will get a sales tax but we will have it in addition to an income tax. No question about it. Ask Mr. Greenspan.
Oh, give it up, Zon, you're wrong, but nobody else on this thread cares, either way. You're wasting bandwidth.
This is as grotesquely wrong as many of your assertions. Just like this one in which you base your faulty argument on the underlying "fact" that 100-22=88.
The gross payment is the cost of the product plus the tax - hence the tax-inclusive rate you're always complaining about. The term "gross payment" is not what Lewislynn thinks it means - it's the cost of the good including federal taxes - hence the tax inclusive rate.
It's just as foolish for you to continually say this as it was for you to say that a 22% decrease first and subsequently a 29% increase would lead to a price increase...when anyone can see that the price would be the same.
LOL! You're ducking the issue with evasive insults. That only demonstrates your inability to respond directly, and thus your weak position.
It just means he's reached the end of his predictable path... the place where he will either have to say why he really opposes tax reform or he will have no more false objections that are easily overcome. Quite predictable.
Mr. Greenspan has no taxing authority nor does he have any say so over how and where taxes are levied. We are in this spot because we only seem to care about lining up every four years and voting for a king. Our congressmen lead us down the primrose path every two years when we ought to be leading them into the woodshed.
How does a country like Zimbabwe or Bangladesh collect thier taxes? They don't have the infrastructure that we have, yet they seem to manage.
What makes you think Zimbabwe or Bangladesh don't have complex infra-structures to support complex tax systems? The size or world status of countries has little to do with the nature of their tax systems other than maybe their efficiency of doing themselves and their citizens in.
Index of Economic Freedom 2005 - Zimbabwe
"Zimbabwe’s top income tax rate is 46.4 percent, up from the 45 percent reported in the 2004 Index. The top corporate income tax rate is 30.9 percent, up from the 30 percent reported in the 2004 Index. In 2002, according to the World Bank, government expenditures as a share of GDP increased 1.6 percentage points to 36.5 percent, compared to a 11.9 percentage point decrease in 2001. On net, Zimbabwe’s fiscal burden of government score is 0.7 point worse this year."
Zimbabwe Taxes:
Yeah, well you have hit your "mariginal propensity" for economic thought. I was in the Army at the time and in my twenties. At other times, I was starting my business and had to buy "retail" because I was operating out of anothers shop and starting up on a shoestring and hope. Just WHAT is YOUR entrepreneurial experience? Or have you just collected a check from your employer all your life. Have you ever gone without a salary to make your payroll? Have you ever put your employee's withholding taxes on your own personal credit card to make it through the quarter? I don't think so. I think most of you who are in favor of an NRST never worked for yourself since you were teenagers mowing lawns and there was no income tax then.
You didn't answer as to how much it cost you to comply with the existing tax code?
Did you include your corporate income taxes and the employer portion of wage taxes as part of your cost basis?
I beg your pardon! I don't have to answer these questions! These are questions I don't respond to on the Internet or outside of my accountants office. As a conservative, I am both surprised and offended that you have the nerve to ask. However, if you've the mind, you may think the worst and add some conspiracy theory in as well.
My position on a NRST is that it will be a financial disaster to the country, rich and poor, smart and dumb, attractive and ugly, old and young. Even you.
Are land prices going to drop 25%? -- I don't think so.
The actual construction is highly labor-intensive, so how is that cost going to drop if everyone gets their old gross pay? Don't tell me the average home-builder has legions of tax lawyers on his payroll whom he can fire!
A lot of fear in there! They'll "get you"! Nice liberal tactic! But it doesn't work on FR.
And it's really wrong with respect to HR 25 too.
If an item has ever been taxed before, the nrst HR 25 does not tax it again.
So a car is taxed once and only once - when purchased for retail consumption. There is no nrst (HR 25) on used goods. Nor is there any nrst on goods produced under our income tax... because goods produced under our income tax already have near equivalent tax in their prices.
Yes. You are someone who gets it. There are darn few that do.
The nrst HR 25 is not an additional tax, it's a replacement tax.
If you would post some reason for thinking prices will rise, I'd like to read them.
and the only fair way is to tax ALL income at the same rate.
I will disagree on the fairness of taxing the income of anyone myself. Income should never be taxed as it places to much power over the individual and free markets into the hands of government.
| "As a matter of fact, what the income tax does — and this is the debate that I think we always try to get into in order to let you and him fight, see — and the people of this country are led down a path where the actual control of their resources, which in the end is the control over their will, is handed off to the government." . . . "The government then manipulates that will in order to destroy the freedom of our electoral system through the income tax structure, and we call the resulting slavery a free system." "In point of fact, it is not as the founders understood, and the only way to restore real freedom is to give people back control over the income that they earn so that they won‘t, at the voting booth and in other phony issues, be subject to that manipulation." |
To allow government that much control over the property of the individual and intrusion into family financial privacy walks far outside the bounds of the foundational principles of this nation.
There was good reason why Karl Marx and the Communist Party makes 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.
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in he hands of the state.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc. "
And it was on these principles that the 16th amendment ratified, and the nations income tax system rests.
It is far past time to end the income tax in this nation of any kind, round, flat, or square. An income tax is an anathema to a free people.
Is that gross household income percentage of 23% inclusive of current business taxes?
Yes, as measured in 1999-2000 when the legislation was drafted and first introduced to Congress. Current revenue neutral rates would be some what lower, if Bush is succesful in making his tax cuts permanent the rate could actually be lowered to the 18-20% range for 2004.
This table derived from Taxfoundation information indicates the range the rate would lay in today.
refer Tax Freedom Day 2004 PDF http://www.taxfoundation.org/sr129.pdf
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Total Effective Tax Rates by Level of Government |
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| Year | Federal | State | Total |
| 1997 | 21.8% | 10.3% | 32.1% |
| 1998 | 22.4% | 10.4% | 32.8% |
| 1999 | 22.5% | 10.4% | 32.9% |
| 20000 | 23.1% | 10.4% | 33.5% |
| 2001 | 22.2% | 10.5% | 32.7% |
| 2002 1 | 19.7% | 10.2% | 29.2% |
| 2003 2 | 18.5% | 10.1% | 28.6% |
| 2004 3 | 17.9% | 10.0% | 27.9% |
| Notes: Leap day is omitted to make dates comparable over time. Since depreciation is not available to pay taxes, GDP is an overstatement of spendable income for the purpose of measuring tax burdens. Depreciation is netted out of NNP. 0 Last year of Clinton administration when the HR25(Fair Tax Act) rate was estimated 1 Economic Growth and Tax Reform Reconciliation Act of 2001 Sources: Office of Management and Budget; Internal Revenue Service; Congressional Research Service; National Bureau of Economic Research; Treasury Department; and Tax Foundation calculations. |
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