Posted on 06/10/2005 11:13:37 AM PDT by Always Right
I am amazed when I hear people make claims that say by changing the *method* they will decrease the total burden.
And I am amazed that folks are stupid enough to believe that.
The federal government should just bill states for their portion of the national budget,proportional to the population,and leave it to the state governments to decide how to tax their people.That would give us some CHOICE.
But if the drug dealer was somehow on the up and up, he would have to remit 23% of his gross to the feds.
Fact is, NO ONE will pay such a tax on ANYTHING.
Registered retailers certainly will have to remit such a tax on their gross receipts.
As I have said, I would put the drug gangs out of work and make drugs legal and let it be sold just like liquor. When was the last time two liquor dealers had a shoot out over turf? I'll give you a hint: it has something to do with Prohibition. The Drug Prohibition has created EXACTLY the conditions we sought to eliminate by repealing the 18th Amendment.
That's reassuring.
It doesnt matter what price people are used to paying. When the product next to it on the shelf's price goes down, its price will go down. The invisible hand of supply and demand will bring the price down.
Okay, serious now... "Nothing in the Fair Tax bill requires states to go to a sales tax and drop their current income taxes."
How do those states (like mine, Arizona) who index their income tax based on your Federal AGI maintain their receipts? When the tax cuts kicked in 5-6 years ago, Arizona failed to reindex the State Income Tax rates and took a terrible hit in tax receipts.
I realize the answer is buried in my question, but it should point out that many states will take the easy way out and mirror the Fed VAT/NRST.
Wow, sounds like something our founding fathers would think up. A great idea that worked until 1913.
The doctor will also no longer being paying FICA and other employment tax expenses on his employees, nor will his practice be paying income taxes and associated compliance expenses.
Most of the argument between FT fanatics and their opponents has been whether there are enough real savings in compliance costs to allow (a)the Feds to get their whack, (b)the employees to keep their gross salaries, AND (c) retail prices not go up. I don't believe there are enough real savings (not phony savings like counting up the time a guy spends doing taxes instead of watching TV @ $25/hour). However, let's bypass that argument for the moment and assume for this exercise that you FT fans are right, that there is, say $600B, in real potential savings.
What are these costs? They are almost entirely labor costs -- tax accountants, their clerks and secretaries, etc. If you can wring these costs out immediately and to the tune of say $600B, then perhaps retail purchases will not go up by the 25-30% or whatever of NSRT. (It has to be immediate because otherwise the cost of retail purchases will go up before the compliance costs can be wrung out of the producer costs). Therefore, for the FT believers' scenario to occur, about $600B worth of labor has to be dropped -- either laid off or immediately re-assigned to other tasks. It's impossible to do the latter quickly enough to prevent purchase costs from going up, so they will have to be immediately laid off. Now $600B represents a huge number of people, and corresponds to a sharp increase in unemployment rate from about 5% to about 17%!. Now I am concerned about a depression.
However, what is most likely to happen in real life is that the retail purchase prices will go up by about 30% due to the NSRT, before any savings can be realized, unless those savings are realized by immediately reducing employee wages to about the same level their take-home pay had been after IT withholding. That might be implementable quickly enough to avoid retail price increases.
Therefore, from this analysis, even allowing, just for the sake of argument, FT Faith claims of huge real potential savings in compliance costs, one of three things could happen: (i) either retail purchase prices go up 25-30%, due to the NSRT, before producer costs can be reduced, (ii) take-home pay remains the same, or (iii) we get 17% unemployment, and thus a depression.
Looks like a private transaction to me. Do you currently remit taxes to the state and county whenever you buy an item at a yard sale? You won't do it under the NSRT, either.
Your #143 is making me think you're just dense.
Any argument based upon the alleged improper ratification of the 16th is a loser from the world Go.
Hey, there's something we can totally agree on.
If the drug dealer was on the up and up, he wouldn't be a drug dealer!
We could also legalize drugs and the drug dealers could set up retail shops and then they would pay the sales tax.
I (as landlord) have never done a lease adding my personal income taxes to rent paid by tenant. Nor have I ever done one adding my self-employment (FICA) taxes to the rent. I simply increase the rent by enough to (hopefully) pay for maintenance, and other costs, like my TAXES.
Nor did I ever sign a lease as tenant that included the personal income taxes or payroll taxes of the landlord.
Your statement is false.
When the Euro switched in for Local Currency in Europe, businesses took advantage of the cover and jacked up prices. They didn't come down again, and consumers are still bitching about it in Germany, Italy, and Greece.
1) The NRST is not a VAT.
2) Always Right has contended that states will have to switch to a sales tax and drop their income taxes. I am mearly asking him to provide proof of this.
That's not the point -- AR was comparing him with the drug dealer.
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