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.
I am just asking a question. Have you currently paid federal income tax this year?
He sells "Pay No Income Tax" kits.
You're walking on thin ice by continuously making public false accusations about me....I AM keeping track of them.
You've said on prior threads that you don't support the current flat tax bills and yet you refuse to define what you do support other than a nebulous, theoretical concept of a Nightmare VAT/Nightmare Flat tax.
I've said these groups have a bias because they are dependent on staying on he gravy train of public funding. That much is clear in seeing the type and titles of the "research" they don (and I've studied some of their reports). If you're trying to convince anyone that these sorts of groups have no bias or political ax to grind you're not being very convincing.
With the JCT and other groups you've also never said they were biased, either. I can see you're merely trying again to sidetrack he thread and you now bring up a meaningless flat tax bill which you don't even support as we know.
These things and your "excise" ploy are merely more of your red herrings. People are not so foolish as you suppose to not realize the diversionary tactics.
Are you currently paid federal income tax this year?
Are [sic] I currently paid federal income tax this year? No...I won't pay this years taxes untill April 15 2006.
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
Does the Fairtax repeal government funding of any programs?...I didn't think so.
Why would you threaten me? I said nothing about you. Paranoid?
Yeah, like most sales tax rates are figured tax exclusive - you know, tax exclusive... a method you say doesn't exist yet you insist on using? You have IQ deficency.
Percentage calculations can be defined in 2 parts;
1) the part
2) the whole... your current problem is that you don't recognize that the whole can be either the whole including tax or excluding tax.
In the following examples, see if you can pick out the whole (the bold should help).
a) I paid $20 tax and I earned $100. ======> tax/whole(i)=20/100=20%.
b) I paid $20 tax and I kept $80.======> tax/whole(e)=20/80 =25%.
(BTW this is the method you insist on using. BTW this is also the method you say doesn't exist... inexplicable).
I certainly hope you see that the two situations have the same amount of tax - the rates are only different because of the different method of calculation.
Here's another real word example you may understand. Let's say, hypothetically, that you sell tax evasion kits for $50. If you give a 10% discount, what would the new price be?....$45. That is a tax inclusive calculation (like income taxes).
Now, if the price is $45 and you must collect 10% sales tax, what is the final price?...$49.50.
Why aren't the prices the same - after all you took 10% off then added 10%?
The answer is that the number being used for the whole changes... just like in tax rate calculations.
It's really fun to show up every morning and teach you a little 9th grade math. You will eventually get this!
FREEDOM vs continued SLAVERY!
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.You're grasping.
Hardly. And in your original hitpiece link posting, you might notice that at least two of the authors of the article(both CRS staffers) have reviewed their own models in the mix. One of these authors joins with a notorious opponent (Gale) of anything but the status quo and the test of models was done by the JCT.
Hardly what any reasonable person would call "unbiased".
You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. None.
This is typical of this poster. When caught respond with condescension and adhominem attack.
Once again, you've got no rational response.
Now ... back to your Nightmare VAT/Nightmare Flat taxes, please point us to the bill explaining those schemes and how they would fit into our lives.
It can't, looey, it's not a spending bill. It's a tax bill.
Using your math. If the exclusive rate of "the remainder" of my income was 4% what was my inclusive rate?
When caught respond with condescension and adhominem attack.Caught? LOL! Piggy is saying the whole Congressional Research Service (part of the Library of Congress) is biased because they write reports on "government funding" and thus "are dependent on staying on he gravy train of public funding." But he can't point to one substantive piece of evidence that they are biased. Frankly, that's just asinine.
Yes, it is. Indeed it is one of two common ways to calculate percentages. Indeed it is the method of calculation YOU insist must be used in certain cases... but it can be used in any case you wish.
CASE: I pay $20 in tax and "the remainder" after paying tax is $80.
There obviously IS a remainder of income after tax, duh.
There is more than one way to figure the rate of tax, as explained:
1) 20/100 or 20% this is the tax inclusive method ie the amount of tax is included in number you're dividing (100 in this case)
2) 20/80 or 25% this is the tax exclusive method ie the amount of tax is not included in the number you're dividing (80 in this case).
Obviously, the dollar amount of tax is the same. The rates are different because each uses a different whole with which to figure percent.
That you insist that this isn't possible after numerous examples is curious.
Once again, you've got no rational response.Give me something rational to respond to. Show me what in the paper leads you to believe it is biased. Come on, show me.
Try this, looey. A rate (which is what the discussion is about) if a ratio - a number. It says nothing about requiring income or anything else for that matter.
The income tax rates are given as tax inclusive (by your reckoning a dishonest, fraudulent technique) and to compare THE RATES, the FairTax (or any other tax system) should also use tax inclusive - which it does.
Both systems could just as easily be expressed as ratios using tax exclusive rates which you think is the only "honest" ratio. Either way the ratios can be validly compared only if both ratios use the same basic technique - t-i or t-e.
Am I talking to a wall here, or what???
In the following examples, see if you can pick out the whole (the bold should help).a) I paid $20 tax and I earned $100. ======> tax/whole(i)=20/100=20%.
b) I paid $20 tax and I kept $80.======> tax/whole(e)=20/80 =25%.
LOL!
Let's see, you paid $20 , kept $80 ("the whole" LOL)...
(you say) $80 is the whole....Where did you get the $20?...."kept" $80 (the whole? LOL) from what?
Using your twisted logic. If $20 paid = 25% where is the other 75%? Or is your $80 (80%) the remaining 75%?....Oh wait 80 is "the whole" or 100%
LOL! If you want me to find the whole in that mess you'll have to put some hair around it.
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