Posted on 06/10/2005 11:13:37 AM PDT by Always Right
The IRS is eliminated. There will be sales tax revenue agents just as there are today. I believe it is misleading to connote that the IRS is going to stay.
Not in Jorgenson and Wilcoxen's model.
Of course you over look the emperically determined parameratized inputs, that establish the relation between change in tax policy production, prices (including price of labor) and consumer behaviour that of necessity implicitly incorporates all cost factors involved in a change in tax policy.
You know, the unique little twist that distinguishes J&W's IGEM from the run of the mill attempts at macro simulations.
Sorry, YN, but the more you twist and turn the more you are losing ground. Thanks for the opportunites to enlighten folks.
This is really silly. The problem is not when they spend it. The doctor has to remit sales tax on his gross receipts, and drug dealer does not. The drug dealer gets to pocket all of his receipts. The drug dealer has 23% more money to spend than the doctor. That is where the drug dealer cheats the sales tax system, which is about identicle to how he cheats the income tax.
What seems clear to me is that the current system sucks big time. It's also clear that when "reform" gets talked, the truth is that all they're talking about is fiddling with numbers, deductions, rules.
It is absolutely true that an entire library is necessary to keep track of our current tax law; it is absolutely true that expert accountants preparing the same return cannot arrive at the same number; it is absolutely true that the code is on the side of those with a bank of lawyers; it is absolutely true that the code is a tool that government uses to bludgeon people it finds distasteful; it is absolutely true that the code is corrupt.
Now, it seems that I'm on the side of anyone who's talking about changing a system, not just "reforming" a line here and a line there.
That is pretty much limited to the NRST and the flat taxers.
The drug dealer gets to pocket all of his receipts.
Yep just as he does today under the income/payroll tax system.
That is where the drug dealer cheats the sales tax system, which is about identicle to how he cheats the income tax.
As you point out.
The difference lay when he purchases anything under the NRST from a legitimate business.
That drugdealer/consumer then pays the full tax. Under the income tax system today, when buying the same thing, he pays only that portion of federal tax per-se that happens to get passed on in the prices of goods and services.
LOL! You ARE confused. How will that bring down prices?!?!?!
Which you have been telling me for years is 30%.
You can find $60,000 cars for sale just down the street from $18,000 cars, can't you?
Which you have been telling me for years is 30%.
No I have been telling you for years that the combination of federal taxes, tax system related costs on business, and increased efficiency providing growth in productivity allows reduction of producer prices by about 20-25% in the short term rising to 30% over time under competition for the consumer/investors dollar.
That however is not the federal tax per-se, passed through prices. But then you know that, as I have stated as much hundreds of times to you and others as well.
But nice try at a strawman, anyway.
There are many dissimilar types of cars. Dissimilar cars may have different prices.
What you won't find is two similar cars with such price differences.
The reason you find all similar products priced similarly is because competition drives out unnecessary costs, just as competition would force eliminated tax costs from prices after implementing the nrst. Then add the nrst and prices come back to today's level.
But you will have no withholding (you'll pay your 100% of your taxes when you purchase for retail consumption) - no payroll tax withheld and no income tax withheld. ANd you'll have a prebate to cover the costs of poverty level spending.
That is also a point I have been making -- that businesses make their product as different as they can, so they don't have to reduce their prices or sell their cars for $18000. There's a lot more to competing than dropping your price, and that's where your argument has collapsed into a damp spot on the rug.
Can you out-weasel a weasel?
That's not enforceable anywhere that has a saltwater coast.
The fact is, if you had enough gasoline on a 30' boat, and were willing to drive the requisite thousand miles it would take to get from Mexico to some little pier on the Gulf, you could do it, and chances are, you wouldn't get caught, because everyone excepts the runners to use the easy route via Miami.
As it is now, most of our ports have at least one bent customs agent, now, they are likely not to let terrorists in, with drugs and contraband though, it becomes entirely different. All that you would do would be to create a contraband industry for goods you don't have to register with the government in anyway. (as opposed to a car)
Alcohol, Tobacco, CD's, Books, there would be a huge black market because people wanted to sidestep the tax, and there would be more than enough customs agent to oblige.
Every time the government tries to track down, people will find a way to get around, and they'll do it just so they can defy the government.
Every time the government tries to track down, people will find a way to get around, and they'll do it just so they can defy the government.
And this is different from the current system, with its 15-25%(as percent of GDP) cash underground and illegal trade how?
The issue in not on how oppressive a government must be to extract the last drip of blood for a turnip.
The fundamental is what kind of tax system is appropriate to fund a constitutionally limited government of a nation that is rooted in principals of personal liberty, and protection of the rights and property of the citizen, not the empowerment of government.
If the revenues are sufficient to the legitimate constitutional functions of federal government, then no more burden than that should be expected to be extracted from the citizen.
A retail sales tax system administered by the states provides the necessary buffer and protection of the individual citizen, while assure that level of funding necessary to the proper exercise of constitutional powers of government.
Huh? I'm not sure what you're saying here.
The fact is I still send a check to the government and the customer is where the money came from in BOTH cases.
The difference is in that you're collecting the customer's portion of HIS tax due to government. A tax he is VOLUNTARILY paying because he is making a purchase. You're not paying a damn thing. It ain't your money; it isn't coming out of your pocket, you're just routing it to where it needs to go. In computer parlance, it's a distributed processing sort of system. And as a retailer, you're already part of it, only just at the state level. A few programming changes and it's also on the federal level.
You, likewise, are not paying any taxes on your income until you purchase some new service or goods.
So this brings me back to what I said in Post 343, which you somehow have failed to address. Which is: If this whole system is a wash revenue wise; then why are you in favor of keeing the current Rube Goldberg (nice term for - Cluster F#@k) of a system we have now????
The difference is in that you're collecting the customer's portion of HIS tax due to government. A tax he is VOLUNTARILY paying because he is making a purchase. You're not paying a damn thing. It ain't your money; it isn't coming out of your pocket, you're just routing it to where it needs to go. In computer parlance, it's a distributed processing sort of system. And as a retailer, you're already part of it, only just at the state level. A few programming changes and it's also on the federal level.
That is one of the clearest statements of the bottomline of how a retail sales tax operates I have seen.
My hat is off to you.
The federal government is still exercising undue authority on the state's, by telling them, you will have this law, you will collect for us, there's no way around it.
That is firmly against the principles of state's rights.
You still have a federal government bureaucracy, my solution (which is somewhere on this thread, but I'll repeat)
The only federal functions should be the military and some base law enforcement
Everything else goes to the states, they want a welfare state in their state boundary, lovely, they want to create a Libertarians paradise, so be it.
Each state would contribute a percentage of it's revenue, however it decides to collect it, to the feds for law enforcement and defense.
Part II: What do you do if a governor decides, we're not complying with the sales tax. Are you really willing to send in federal troops to protect a national sales tax.
Ron Paul tried to. :)
Uh...It is used. No NRST on it.
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