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 ...
WHo??? Customers via prices???!!!!!
Irrespective of base calculation, the flat tax does indeed add to prices. Remember the taxes and tax costs (for the flat tax, that would include employer "contribution" payroll taxes)? Those costs are added to prices, subtracted from wages, or removed from ROI.
yep
There is no one exclusive (no pun intended) way to express tax rates. There is more than one way that may be used each time. The method you choose may or may not be the same I choose.You obviously didn't read my post. "There are none so blind..."
Better check your math again.
Yes, we know you think that. We were asking why.
I throw down the gauntlet.
Elaboration and substantiation of your statements are required for complete argument and thorough rebuttal to your claims.
You obviously didn't read my post. "There are none so blind..."
Irrespective of base calculation, the flat tax does indeed add to prices. Remember the taxes and tax costs (for the flat tax, that would include employer "contribution" payroll taxes)? Those costs are added to prices, subtracted from wages, or removed from ROI.May be added to prices, and if those taxes are added to prices, they most certainly aren't fully. You need to read up on tax incidence.
"... legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property, only taking care to let their subdivisions go hand in hand with the natural affections of the human mind. The descent of property of every kind therefore to all the children,...But it is not too soon to provide by every possible means that as few as possible shall be without a little portion of land. The small landholders are the most precious part of a state."
-- Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, Oct. 28, 1785 -- PROPERTY AND NATURAL RIGHT
You obviously didn't read my post. "There are none so blind..."You totally ignore the math I showed.
yn:May be added to prices,
That's what my posts connotes (some would say denotes). Didn't you read it? None are so blind...
And this matters as much as your request!
Why would you choose a difficult method to calculate rate? You should use the easiest method - and to everyone it's unique to the situation.
"You are truly a fool - I don't know too many landlords, and certainly no commercial renters, who don't call out sales taxes as additional payments on top of rent and the responsibility of the leasee. You do the math. The renter pays it.
In my buildings the renter will pay it or be evicted. Welcome to the NRST."
Are your buildings residential or commercial?
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. The taxes included as part of the utility bill under the FairTax would be pretty cut and clear. There would not be several hundred thousand pages of deductions, exemptions, etc. for them to hide behind. Even under a flat income tax, business taxes would be applied to income minus expenses and wages and many corporations will look for avenues to lower what ends up taxable to them for an advantage.
Are you saying that under a flat tax, there will be no cheating by corporations? No corporations looking for an advantage over the others and no representatives looking to change the flat income tax code to help certain constitutient industries have an advantage? Remember, our current tax code started out as flat with 4 total pages including instructions. Here is what Richard E. Byrd, speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates warned about that system:
"A hand from Washington will be stretched out and placed upon every man’s business; the eye of the Federal inspector will be in every man’s counting house . . . The law will of necessity have inquisitorial features, it will provide penalties, it will create complicated machinery. Under it men will be hailed into courts distant from their homes. Heavy fines imposed by distant and unfamiliar tribunals will constantly menace the tax payer. An army of Federal inspectors, spies and detectives will descend upon the state . . . Who of us who have had knowledge of the doings of the Federal officials in the Internal Revenue service can be blind to what will follow? I do not hesitate to say that the adoption of this amendment will be such a surrender to imperialism that has not been since the Northern states in their blindness forced the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments upon the entire sisterhood of the Commonwealth."
Meanwhile, Professor Seligman argued for the "FLAT" income tax stating that Americans value their freedom far too much to allow it to deteriorate into one that asked when you purchased a stock, for how much, and for how much and when it was sold.
It is hard to make an argument that any income based tax could be consistent with the definitions of a free society, even the one that existed in the "progressive" era of the early 1900s
Why would you choose a difficult method to calculate rate?Me? It's not my choice, it's the choice of the AFT.
Both. How is that so few of you understand that your lease is a contract. You will abide by the terms or be in violation (and evicted).
My leases state that all taxes (state, federal, local), with the exception of state property taxes, will be paid by the lessee in addition to the rent amount.
Every car lease, every major capital equipment lease, and every building lease has similar provisions, unless written by idiots.
So everybody that is renting a house, leasing a car, or renting a building will get zapped with a 30% increase in their rental costs on day one of the NRST.
End of this lesson of the obvious.
Lewislynn, in your math you forgot the final step. You said you would "play the silly price game" but then forgot that there would be no additional net tax on the final consumption. Your example shows the landlord reducing his rent by 25% pre-tax but prices on the goods going up by 23%.
In other words, if he had $750 after tax currently to spend, and 25% of the costs of his goods and services is the cost of the embedded system, his pre-tax FairTax costs for those same goods would only be $562.50 and his after tax cost approximately $732. He doesn't lose purchasing power in that example.
If you're going to use an assumption, you need to follow through on it.
The "rent amount" includes costs the landlord pays now that will be gone under the nrst. That's what's being missed. Your myopia is preventing you from becoming informed.
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