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.
In fact, looey, what that business is doing is STEALING from the government, not "forgetting"
Who said it wasn't paid?....You are really quite dense.
You don't think it's possible for example a plumber (who normally does plumbing not tax collecting and doesn't have a cash register in the van) could forget to include the tax in his bill?
You don't know the difference between collecting and paying I take it.
The problem is the 20-30% figure is fictious. If you take all consumption and include all federal taxes, you are at about 15%. And if you only count the taxes paid by businesses, you are only at about 7%
The plumber would be required to give a receipt to the buyer - and the buyer should insist on one just in case. If the plumber refuses the request for the receipt then he is both violating the law and almost insisting that he be reported.
If the plumber collects the tax and does not send it to the state, that is stealing, looey. Keep in mind the plumber has to be a licensed vendor to collect the tax (for which he is paid to collect and forward - but not pay ... that's the buyer). "Forgetting" is a lame attempt to dodge the requirement he agreed to in his contract with the state.
BTW, looey, your illustrates of "forgetting" attempts to use collusion between both buyer and seller to avoid taxation. While that may occur in some cases, the plumber won't be in business for too long with that M.O. and once he's nailed both he and the buyer(s) would be in difficulties with the law.
The increased costs are real enough as you could see with a bit of research on the FairTax website.
You don't seem to grasp what the increase stems from. Check the FairTax derivations of the increase.
The plumber would be required to give a receipt to the buyer - and the buyer should insist on one just in case. If the plumber refuses the request for the receipt then he is both violating the law and almost insisting that he be reported.
Come down off the drugs, you're rambling.
The bill is the record of the transaction Your Denseness.
You're making the assumption the mistake was somehow dishonest. Your hate and distrust of business people (or maybe just plumbers) capable of being honest is showing as well.
LOL, I grasp everything just fine. What you don't seem to grap is that the extra money in employees paycheck has to come from somewhere. Since the total amount of taxes is to remain constant, the only source is increase in costs of goods. No matter how many times this is explained to you, it never seems to penetrade your hard head.
BTW, looey, your illustrates of "forgetting" attempts to use collusion between both buyer and seller to avoid taxation.
You're the only one assuming no tax was paid. And you're assuming that because you think everyone else is just as dishonest as you are.
It will also have a provision to increase the amount. The politicians spend more every year and they always get it from the same place.
All this talk from them about fair tax or reforming tax laws is about one thing, getting more of our money to fill their insatiable appetites.
Not at all, looey ... and YOU'RE making the assumptions that both parties "forgot"; the plumber after he had agreed by contract to collect such taxes.
Read the bill's requirements that the receipt that must be provided shows the tax-inclusive taxes. The "... shucks, I forgot" defense won't work too well.
You're making a massive stretch (also unwarranted) to try to throw insults about.
All people who oppose the economic idiocy of the NRST are not SQL. And what increase are you referring to and what makes it "rational" in your eyes?
I presume by all the posting of the "f-ing" comments that those refer to "FairTaxing", do they not? And don't disabuse yourself of reality - several FairTax supporters are business owners and in general those supporters cover a wide spectrum of Americana.
Even intelligent people can be easily swayed by their emotions. Hating the income tax does not automatically mean you should support a worse system.
The FairTax - as has been shown - is not "on top of" your current prices, either.
Are you just nuts, over? If I sell an item for $100, the customer will pay that price plus all state, local, and federal taxes. Under the NRST, that would be at least $136.00
Saying revenue neutral does not mean that more money will not be raised due to expansion of the economy. It merely means tax revenues start out as revenue neutral.
I think that what will happen is that the economy will increase thereby increasing tax revenues which would allow us to pressure the pols to decrease the tax rate, not increase it. The spending issues still exist and that's a whole 'nother story. We should all work on that side of things, but at least it will be clearly known to all what their tax burden really is with the FairTax.
Actually, looey, that's one of the funnier things you have said (2nd funniest actually I guess since the 400% error on a calc you devised probably remains the all-time funniest).
Of course you may come up with some more "beauties" as we move along to pass the FairTax.
The government spending and obtaining more money is actually the spending side of the coin. That's not what the FairTax is about at all. It is revenue neutral meaning it raises the same amount initially as at preseent.
The spending is another concern and should also be addressed but the FairTax is a bill to change the tax laws of the country. Most of us are in favor of less spending by government (much less, for the most part). Since most people have no idea of their tax burden now the FairTax will show them that very clearly which should certainly stir up many to DEMAND lowered spending.
Read #833 to see that the poster agrees with the increase in prices of 20 - 30%.
Since from the concerns you offer you show yourself to prefer the existing tax structure, that qualifies you as being one of the SQL crowd.
If not, then do some serious research about the FairTax before starting the hipshooting. You can do it in these places:
http://www.fairtaxvolunteer.org/smart/faq.html
http://www.fairtax.org/research.html
http://www.fairtaxvolunteer.org/smart/rebuttals.html
and you would also benefit from reading the FairTax bill, hr25 which can be done here:
http://thomas.loc.gov
Usually when our politicians reform our tax system we get very little reform and a lot more taxes.
Usually this takes when they have had big spending increases as we have just had and like we had under Regan when he had to rebuild our military.
The tax increase that we supposedly didn't get under Regan's administration didn't hurt, but the reform was a killer.
That's when they pulled that slight of hand where they didn't raise the percentage you where paying they just eliminated the deductions.
It hurt the American working man worse than anything I can remember. The States liked it so well the following year most of them reformed the the State income form also.
My federal return had been averaging $2500-$2600 a year for four years previous ,at the end of the three years it was $600-700. It hit so hard they had to phrase it in over a three year period.
They use the cover of reform and fair share on that one to.
They where going to make it more simple and easier to fill out the forms.
They certainly did that.
They took all our deductions except home mortgage and religious charities and threw them out he window.
That's what I'm afraid is happening here.
NO, that's not what's going to happen with the FairTax. Do some reading with the links given in #855 and be sure to read at least part of the bill itself - and make your own judgement.
I believe the work the Panel is doing is because most people know that the present tax system is BROKEN and can't be fixed. The President has charged the Panel with investigating and coming up with recommendations that meet certain requirements.
The FairTax bill (hr25/s25) as written clearly meets these requirements and so far other plans do not.
With the FairTax, there will be no quesstion about what each taxpayer's tax burden might be nor will there be any suspicion (as at present with all the class warfare stuff) that someone else is escaping taxes - he'll be paying at the same rate you do --- everyone will; even the poorest people. They are protected due to the prebate but still pay at the same rate when they consume.
The president also instructed them to look at reducing current deductions.
I'm not sure they're there to give the Fair tax or any other idea a fair or serious consideration.
I think it is more likely they where told to make it look like we are trying to do something but don't upset the cart just bring us back more dollars.
We got a war to pay for. Iraq To Rebuild. Medicaid drugs to pay for. A huge new department of Homeland Security to fund.
Our hospitals,schools , prisons and welfare systems going bankrupt from the flow of illegals through our borders and a $2.6 Trillion budget along with a big growing deficit.
The American people are fixing to get the bill for these.
The panel I believe is laying the ground work by putting lipstick on the pig. Read my lips.
I hope I'm wrong.
I hope - and actually believe - that you are mistaken since I doubt there would be that elaborate a ruse (wouildn't be necesary since they could do as was always done before).
We'll find out soon enough, though. I think they are supposed to report by Jun 30.
It'll be interesting to see. Then, too, no matter what they report the President may not care for it and do something else entirely. Either way we'll know before too long.
Even though Regan put the money to a real good use, a much needed military build up that brought about the fall of the Soviet Union we sure got blind-sided by it.
I wish he had been a little more up front with it and had showed a little more faith in the American people.
He could have made his case. He was good enough. He had tremendous leadership qualities.
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