Hmmm, you don't know my tax status, and you are making a very rash statement unless your real taxable income is zero.
If you're 100% invested in tax-free municipals (assuming you are arguendo), you're missing some good income/capital appreciation opportunities and exposing yourself to the other tax neither of us has discussed -- inflation -- but then, that's your business.
Unless you are paying zero federal taxes, I assure you, you are standing on a banana peel.
I pay no income or payroll taxes today. I would be paying net federal tax under the NRST proposed in HR25.
If your financial structure is that simple, then your enthusiasm for NRST is self-wounding, raising questions about your common sense, or about your having told the whole story.
[You quoting me] And no, I won't pay your business taxes for you.
[Your reply] I don't have a business. But I do manage to do reasonably well with tax free bonds and no income taxes whatever.
If you say so, one for you, I assumed you had to be a business proprietor or manager on the make. That's who this bill is written for.
[Quoting me] Well, I prefer to shoulder a proportion of the burden of government commensurate with my income -- having already paid income taxes on my savings.
[You, replying] I said propo[r]tionate, not a proportion. Look it up sometime. Proportionate mean everyone pays the same rate.
One, I don't think your usage niggle makes a point. What I meant was perfectly clear, and perfectly fair, and it doesn't have to mirror your proposition. Now that my income has declined, I want the same deal I got when the government taxed my income as a good way to skin me harder as an object of tax policy. I was taxed on income then, and I want to be taxed on income now, same-same. I don't want the Congress going back and rewriting the tax code just to keep me in the barrel, in order to favor someone else.
That's why I favor a flat tax. Flat, in the name of fairness, but a tax on income nevertheless, in fairness to myself. Except for my cap gains and other investment income, those savings not in my IRA are after tax, and I'm damn well determined to keep them that way. I am absolutely not in favor of rewriting the tax code in order to target the Boomers' savings for the financial benefit of the business wing of the GOP, which is exactly what I think this proposed legislation is all about.
Hmmm, you don't know my tax status, and you are making a very rash statement unless your real taxable income is zero.
It is, thus is not only not a rash statement, but a statement of fact.
If you're 100% invested in tax-free municipals (assuming you are arguendo), you're missing some good income/capital appreciation opportunities and exposing yourself to the other tax neither of us has discussed -- inflation -- but then, that's your business.
Your right is not your business. There are more strong and valid reasons for such a sitution than mere economic ones. My priorities obviously are not your priorities as is readily apparent throughout your responses on this thread.
Unless you are paying zero federal taxes, I assure you, you are standing on a banana peel.
Standing on solid ground here, obvious to me that the one who has made the weak assumptions lay with you.
If your financial structure is that simple, then your enthusiasm for NRST is self-wounding, raising questions about your common sense, or about your having told the whole story.
LOL, why should I tell you a total stanger my life story and finances on an open forum for. Obviously I do not tell you my whole story nor will you ever hear it for it is none of your affair.
My choices were made for solid and valid non-economic reason long before the FairTax was a twinkle in anybody's eye. In point of fact the basis of the choices establishing my current financial state provide the basis to support an NRST over any other federal tax system as well. The basis for my financial arangements leads directly and a logical necessity for support or total elimination of income taxes and replacement by an overt and visible consumption tax.
If you say so, one for you, I assumed you had to be a business proprietor or manager on the make. That's who this bill is written for.
Bad in more than one assumption, I can guarantee you are bad in others as well.
What I meant was perfectly clear, and perfectly fair, and it doesn't have to mirror your proposition.
Fair is in the eyes of the beholder.
Patrick Henry, Virginia Ratifying Convention June 12, 1788:
- "the oppression arising from taxation, is not from the amount but, from the mode -- a thorough acquaintance with the condition of the people, is necessary to a just distribution of taxes. The whole wisdom of the science of Government, with respect to taxation, consists in selecting the mode of collection which will best accommodate to the convenience of the people."
17th century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, in Leviathan: state people should pay taxes in accordance with "what they actually take out of the common pot, not what they leave in." For it is fairer to tax people on what they extract from the economy, as roughly measured by their consumption, than to tax them on what they produce for the economy, as roughly measured by their income.
Now that my income has declined, I want the same deal I got when the government taxed my income as a good way to skin me harder as an object of tax policy. I was taxed on income then, and I want to be taxed on income now, same-same.
"It's like me in the restaurant: What do I care about extravagance if you're footing the bill?"
Walter Williams
That's why I favor a flat tax. Flat, in the name of fairness, but a tax on income nevertheless, in fairness to myself.
| I discussed the importance of abolishing the income tax because of its tendency to form a habit of servility in the souls of a people that accepts it. Servility of soul is bad not only in itself, it is also an open door through which will soon walk the abuses of ambitious government power. Leaders who find themselves with governmental power over a servile people will be quick to conclude that such a people exist to serve them. |
"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 inquisical features, it will provide penalties, it will create complicated machinery. Under it men will be hauled 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."
-- Virginian House Speaker Richard E. Byrd, 1910, predicting the consequences of an income tax.
Have a good day.
"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace."
--- Samuel Adams