Posted on 05/12/2005 7:46:54 PM PDT by Your Nightmare
Members of the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform on May 11 expressed concerns over the FairTax national retail sales tax, a plan that has emerged as an alternative with a major grass-roots push.
Panel chair Connie Mack, vice chair John B. Breaux, and other members worried the plan would be difficult to enforce, would be regressive, and would require a high rate in order to take in enough money to fund the government.
Breaux raised concerns that the proposed 23 percent (tax-inclusive) rate would not be sufficient to raise the revenue necessary to fund the government. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that it would take as much as a 57 percent (tax-exclusive) rate to be revenue-neutral. Further, Breaux said he thought exemptions that would be carved out to make the sales tax progressive would also complicate it.
Mack, who raised concerns similar to his fellow panelists', said he was "intrigued" by the plan. "But if it's such a great idea, why haven't other political entities around the world pursued it?" he asked.
Americans for Fair Taxation Executive Director Tom Wright emphasized that the plan emerged after "thorough academic research" and "thorough polling" The strong grass-roots push has resulted in some of the group's 600,000 members appearing at each of the panel's hearings and has inspired a large comment-writing campaign to the panel in support of the plan.
Sales tax advocates were among the 20 witnesses who gathered before the panel for a full day of testimony on tax reform proposals. Although the group has held several other hearings in Washington and around the country, the May 11 meeting was its first hearing on specific reform plans since Bush appointed the panel in January. The panel has been charged with identifying tax reform proposals that are progressive, encourage charitable giving and home purchases, and are revenue-neutral. The proposals are due by July 31.
Among the tax replacement and reform plans presented to the panel were the value added tax, consumption-based tax, and the flat tax, as well as proposals that would use the current income tax as the foundation.
Witnesses generally claimed that theirs was the fairest, simplest, most flexible, most transparent revenue-neutral proposal that would improve economic growth and savings while meeting the president's criteria of encouraging charitable giving and home buying. Witnesses presenting consumption-based plans praised their overhaul as taking millions of low-income taxpayers off the rolls, being easy to transition to on a worldwide basis, and including safeguards to prevent new loopholes that would result in increased complexity down the road.
Tax reform panel members, who agree the current tax system needs to be fixed, grilled witnesses without revealing whether they will ultimately endorse a consumption- or income-based tax or a different mixture of the two.
As I have repeatedly said, I am quite happy to let them judge for themselves which of us knows or does not know what he is talking about.
Golly! Why not just increase income taxes on business until our deficit is gone! Wow! If income taxes aren't in prices, it won't make a bit of difference to business no matter what the income tax is! That's really cool!
Why not simply increase business income taxes to 95%? It won't affect prices at all, right? (eyes rolling)
30 cents for every dollar is 23% percent. But no where is it 30%, so you are just a liar spreading FUD about the Fairtax.
Lewislynn insists it must be 30%, but he also insists that there is no such thing as tax inclusive because it would be "impossible". ..(don't ask me!)
Why don't we increase business income taxes to cover our deficit and an annual first class trip to Australia for every family? After all, it won't affect prices, right?
It really is something isn't it!
Despite all their self congratulation and condesation, economic geniuses these guys ain't!
You seem to have yourself convinced but I doubt that many others have bought in. LOL!
Over the years I have learned ONE thing above all others and that is that, generally speaking, the more one toots his own horn about what he knows the less the actually knows!
THe more one relies on book knowledge to the exclusion of real-world knowledge, the more of a "don't have a job" kinda person it is... unless it's in academia.
Why not just increase income taxes on business until our deficit is gone! Wow! If income taxes aren't in prices, it won't make a bit of difference to business no matter what the income tax is!
"So you are only considering the taxes themselves and not the inefficiency of the system that is used to collect them. IOW, you are interested in tax relief, which is a completely separate and distinct issue, rather than tax reform. In addition, if there were a way to save American taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars collectively in compliance costs, that would be of no interest to you, either, since that would not, in and of itself, change the total amount of taxes that you pay."
First of all, don't put words into my mouth in an attempt to make it seem that I'm indifferent to others.
Second, you confuse two different principles. A tax is efficient to the extent that the cost to the government is low compared to the amount of revenues raised. The cost of compliance is not borne by the government, it is therefore, irrelevent to the question of efficiency.
Third, my point is that I want the taxes of all Americans to go down. The best and quickest way to that objective is to reduce the cost of government. Any 'revenue neutral' proposal, by definition, does nothing to achieve that objective.
"Not really. Businesses make expenditures for two basic purposes
1. personal consumption, typically on behalf of employees, or
2. business purposes.
That distinction isn't hard to make at all. It doesn't require "pages of rules, regulations and definitions"."
Sorry, but that is the exact reason for most of the pages of tax rules, definitions, and regulations. You've gained nothing.
"Judging from the number of pages in the two systems at present, you would gain about a 99% simplification. You may consider that "nothing", but I don't think most people would agree with that."
Sorry again, but you're confusing HR25 with the rules, regulations, and definitions required by the bureaucracy to implement HR25. HR25 is by no means the only tax rule, regulation, or definition necessary to implement this system of taxation.
Our income tax system has no effect upon pricing and thus is not disadvantegous wrt the rest of the world.
Actually untrue, as the effect in exchange rates acting in reaction to exports is the depreciation of the American dollar against foreign currencies causing an outflow of capital asset investments away from the U.S. to move trade flows toward balance.
Removing the effect of taxation from our exports causes foreign currency exchange rates to depreciate in relation to the American dollar (i.e. our dollars appreciate against their currencies) pulling more investment into the U.S. to move trade flows toward balance.
Actually untrue, as the effect in exchange rates acting in reaction to exports is the depreciation of the American dollar against foreign currencies causing an outflow of capital asset investments away from the U.S. to move trade flows toward balance.A "No IRS!" t-shirt to the first person who can correctly diagram this sentence. I don't think it can be done.
Removing the effect of taxation from our exports causes foreign currency exchange rates to depreciate in relation to the American dollar (i.e. our dollars appreciate against their currencies) pulling more investment into the U.S. to move trade flows toward balance.I think you may be wrong here. If there is more foreign investment in the U.S., our trade balance (merchandise) would be further from balance, not closer. And if the dollar appreciates, foreign imports are cheaper and our exports are more expensive, moving our trade account further from balance.
True colors.
Oh, I beg to differ. Our system of taxation MOST CERTAINLY impacts the price of goods in the world market.
There is an arcane distinction here, between an indirect tax (such as the VAT) and a direct tax (such as the Corporate Net Income Tax). The WTO has ruled that an indirect tax is border adjustable without penalty. On the other hand, the CNI is not permitted to be adjusted at the US border...as a consequence, U.S. goods, to the extent that they carry any portion of the CNI burden, are disadvantaged in the global marketplace.
This distinction has been at the center of a trade dispute that is nearly 35 years old. Moreover, our global system of corporate taxation, as compared to a territorial system, further disadvantages goods produced by US companies....based here or overseas. This reality has lead to the corporate inversion phenomenon. Moreover, our system of corporate taxation increases the hurdle rate of return that any project contemplated within the borders must vault before it is undertaken.
No...the US system of taxation significantly disadvantages US goods in the world market, and we MUST stop the stupidity. The FairTax is the only way to truly unburden our exports...and entice foreign direct investment to the US.
Please see: The Role of Extraterritorial Income Exclusion in the International Competitiveness of US Companies, http://www.finance.senate.gov/sitepages/2002HearingF.htm/hearing073002.htm
Ya found me out! The jig is up. I'm not an anti-IRS kook. I don't own a "No IRS!" t-shirt and I've never protested in front of an IRS building. I don't think the IRS is evil incarnate. I think they are only doing Congress's bidding.We don't believe that the income tax and the IRS are the root of all evil.True colors.
And K Street is a children's television program.
And K Street is a children's television program.Texas is a long way from K Street.
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