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.
It's not that I can't but that there is no need to since the bias in the piece is obvious.If it's obvious, it shouldn't be hard to point out. Or are you just claiming bias because you don't like the paper's conclusions?
And, yes, the JCT, CRS, CBO, and other similar groups have a VERY large vested interested (as do you apparently) in retaining the existing suystem.What, exactly, vested interest does the CRS have in retaining the existing system. Do you even know what the CRS is?
So what have you been addressing for the last two hours? The definition of excise tax and sales tax. Yeah, that's a lot of content.Uh, your buddy AG started that one.
Are you actually admitting that you STEAL beer looey? Naughty, naughty and shame, shame!
Red-flag alert there! He didn't say he didn't drink it - just that he didn't buy it.
Gotta watch ol' slick looey.
"... tax levied on the manufacture, sale, or consumption of a commodity ..." (got that - SALE of a commodity??)."sale of a commodity"
"The fairtax crowd silence is deafening on this thread."
LMAO!! Little quick to form conclusions, aren't we, Louie?
Let it be noted that that was post #3 of more than 1200 and counting. Typical of the guardians of the status quo.
It is quite apparent that youDO have some sort of interest in the present system.
Jane Gravelle is with the CRS - Congressional Research Service and they are a group which "officially" take no positions (yeah, right) on economic issues but merely "advise and clarify" for the pore dumb congresscats.
If you're dumb enough to believe they don't have their raison d'etre wholly intertwined with the public trough and thereby the present tax system then you're pretty dumb and don't realize that they "analyze" deductions, etc. for charitable giving, etc. to let congresscats know which way is up.
Perhaps it is YOU that needs to find out what CRS, JCT, etc. do any why they have helped us arrive where we are tax-wise. Go sell your inane notions elsewhere. Bias is bias and they have as least as much as you.
It is quite apparent that youDO have some sort of interest in the present system.Yeah, that's why I want to replace it.
Jane Gravelle is with the CRS - Congressional Research Service and they are a group which "officially" take no positions (yeah, right) on economic issues but merely "advise and clarify" for the pore dumb congresscats.The CRS analyzes lots of stuff, most probably having nothing to do with taxes. They would have plenty of work to do if we had the FairTax, too. And you still haven't pointed out one thing that you found biased in the paper. Did you even read it?
If you're dumb enough to believe they don't have their raison d'etre wholly intertwined with the public trough and thereby the present tax system then you're pretty dumb and don't realize that they "analyze" deductions, etc. for charitable giving, etc. to let congresscats know which way is up.
Perhaps it is YOU that needs to find out what CRS, JCT, etc. do any why they have helped us arrive where we are tax-wise. Go sell your inane notions elsewhere. Bias is bias and they have as least as much as you.Pathetic. You really don't have any idea what the CRS is, do you?
The word commodity is a collective noun (not just singular) and can equally mean multiple things - especially the way it is used in that definition.
In that context it means ANY commodity - e.g, gold is a commodity but is hardly a singular thing. Wheat is a commodity similarly. Meat is a commodity also and there are many differing kinds of meat.
This is a pointless sidetrack you keep trying to pursue (your M.O. we now know). Perhaps you'd rather let all us peons know how the CRS is not biased.
"Most, PROBABLY having nothing to do with taxes ..."??? You don't know I see but post blithely away nevertheless. Their workload would be drastically cut since much of what they do is tax related in one way or another. Study some of their papers sometimes if you can find any that are not biased to the Status Quo - that's where they live and put bread on the table now.
This is merely getting to be one of your pointless sidetracking attempts I see.
Since you "want to replace it" (the present system) why is it you don't know two hoots in hell about anything but a Nightmare VAT (or Nightmare Flat) tax that is only a vague theoretical dream??? Let's see your plan in intimate detail otherwise it will be apparent to anyone with a shred of smarts that you really ARE a phony and a fraud trying by nefarious means to defend the SQL notions.
And the authors obviously think a sales tax is different from a excise tax,
Totally irrelavant to the issue of whether or not taxation of a product under a retail sales tax is an excise for purposes of economic analysis, or indeed even legally an excise as it is very obviously seen to be in many contexts.
otherwise why would the FairTax bill establish an Excise Tax Bureau and a Sales Tax Bureau?
Different focus, different bureaus.
Excise Bureau adminsters current specific federal excises as they exist now, that aren't under the BATF and need an administrative agency to take the place of those departments within the IRS that now handle them.
Sales Tax Bureau is specifically assign the job of working with states in administering provisions of the NRST.
SEC. 302. ADMINISTRATION OF OTHER FEDERAL TAXES.
- (a) In General- Section 7801 (relating to the authority of the Department of the Treasury) is amended by adding at the end the following:
- `(d) Excise Tax Bureau- There shall be in the Department of the Treasury an Excise Tax Bureau to administer those excise taxes not administered by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
- `(e) Sales Tax Bureau- There shall be in the Department of the Treasury a Sales Tax Bureau to administer the national sales tax in those States where it is required pursuant to section 404, and to discharge other Federal duties and powers relating to the national sales tax (including those required by sections 402, 403, and 405). The Office of Revenue Allocation shall be within the Sales Tax Bureau.'.
Aren't they the same?
Economic classification of the taxes is irrelavent to the duties assigned to the bureaus
In that context it means ANY commodity - e.g, gold is a commodity but is hardly a singular thing. Wheat is a commodity similarly. Meat is a commodity also and there are many differing kinds of meat.Gold, wheat, and meat are commodities (plural). Gold is a commodity (singular), as is wheat and meat.
This is a pointless sidetrack you keep trying to pursue (your M.O. we now know).Then stop replying with crap and I won't have to correct you!
Perhaps you'd rather let all us peons know how the CRS is not biased.So now you want me to prove a negative. You are the one who claimed they are biased. Prove it.
Are you saying you don't pay federal income tax every year like the rest of us?
Has reading comprehension always been a problem for you?
"Most, PROBABLY having nothing to do with taxes ..."???I haven't sat down and counted them, so I don't know for sure. Have you counted them? [Actually, they don't even release their reports to the public, although members of Congress might.]
You don't know I see but post blithely away nevertheless. Their workload would be drastically cut since much of what they do is tax related in one way or another. Study some of their papers sometimes if you can find any that are not biased to the Status Quo - that's where they live and put bread on the table now.I really doubt their workload would go down. This is a sampling of reports from May. Out of the 120+ it appears two have to do with taxes.
excise tax vs. sales tax
An excise tax is one levied on the purchase of a specific commodity or group of commodities (e.g., alcohol or tobacco). A sales tax is one levied on all commodiities with only a few specific exclusions (e.g., all purchases except food).
What has that to do with the central issue, of whether or not taxation of a specific product under a sales tax can be analyzed as an excise tax?
Remember?
| http://star2.vub.ac.be/~dvermeir/mirrors/ingrimayne.saintjoe.edu/econ/government/ExciseTax.html Excise Tax:
|
Secondly legally an excise can be and has been emposed on occupations, employements and trades broadly and with no distinction of specific services rendered, merely of the activity of paying someone for service is sufficient to engage an ad velorum excise levied on the person paying for the service.
To analyze the such an excise requires only one define units of product and establish supply/demand curves for for the units of specific service product whether production quantity be specified in hours or piecework produced is irrelavent to the analysis.
You can keep trying however, some day you might get it right.
Subce you don't know what they do, prove they are not biased. I've stated why they have a bias.
In fact you're not correcting the definition I gave but enforcing it. I said that ANY commodity was the thing intended in the definition and gave you three example of each type of commodity. I doubt that you even know what a collective noun is anyway.
You're merely repeating what I sau by stating the same thing that each of the 3 is a commodity. That is what I said in my example. Since you agree with me why don't you stop rattling your own cage? You really make no sense.
Go tell us how the JCT is not biased, either. AND, BTW, show us a bill offering all the particulars of your Nightmare VAT/Flat tax you phony.
I've stated why they have a bias.You haven't even shown they have a bias and you are already stating why!
Go tell us how the JCT is not biased, either.I never said they weren't.
AND, BTW, show us a bill offering all the particulars of your Nightmare VAT/Flat tax you phony.There is a flat tax before Congress, S.812, but so what? It won't matter in the end.
If you look more carefully at the list you posted you'll see that almost everyone of those reports has to do with economic issue which are related directly or indirectly with taxes and/or government funding.
They are there to do the dirty work that congress has no stomach for (or background) and if you do not think the issues they "research" are not related to economic issue(read taxes and spending) then you're kidding yourself. How long do you think such a body would exist if it were not for the easy access to public funding that can be easily hidden under the present system?
The CRS, however, is not the issue nor the JCT, nor other groups hoping to perpetuate themselves with public funds. To say they are not biased on your part is certainly gilding the lily. Their very existence depends upon tax funding. The reports don't have to be about taxation to involve the very public funding they exist on.
The latest report I've seen from the CRS (April 5. 05) had to do with reforming charities and charitable giving. If you don't think that is tax connected in some fashion, think again.
amount of tax divided by the amount remaining EXcluding tax (tax exclusive); 20k/80k=25%
A tax rate that excludes the tax?
20 is 25% of 80...so what, do I owe another $20.00? Using your exclusive income tax rate, how would I first calculate "the amount remaining"?...remaining from taxable income?...remaining from gross income?
I don't pay income tax on 100% of my income what's the remaining amount I divide by what tax rate to get your "exclusive tax"?...And since I know the real rate, why do I care?
I am just asking a question? Are you currently paid federal income tax this year?
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