Posted on 11/05/2005 4:42:13 PM PST by ancient_geezer
Tax Changes on the Horizon
Buzz Timothy, BellaOnline's Accounting Editor
The President's Advisory Panel on Tax Reform finished its ten month investigation and research and has submitted its two best proposals to the US Treasury Department. The Treasury Department has said it will make its own tax reform proposals by the end of this year. Congress is scheduled to begin the tax reform debate next year.
But, what does tax reform really mean? Well, the tax reforms that have been put forth so far are at best disappointing, at worst they are nothing more than tweaks to an outdated, enormously confusing and cumbersome income tax system. The basis of both of the Panel's proposals is to reduce or eliminate deductions, thereby seemingly to simplify a cumbersome tax code.
However, if you look a bit deeper and really read the proposals, one finds that the panel has missed a great opportunity to come up with a tax system we could all live with. A tax system that is fair accross the board and fixes the one fundamental flaw in our current tax system, that is changing it from an income based to a use based system. Although one of the proposals is being touted as a Use or Consumption Based Tax, it is really not, it is truly an income based system being disguised.
The Tax Reform Panelists should have taken a blank piece of paper and devised a completely new, equitable and simple tax system. Instead they chose the politically easy choice of starting with the existing system and trying to change it, rather than fix it, when in fact, looking at their proposals, they have done niether they have only tweaked it.
What we need is a flat tax that is based on use. We already have this in place when in comes to gasoline, alcohol and cigarettes, why is it so difficult to think that this couldn't be expanded to all "used or consumed" items and completely do away with the income based system. As long as we live with an income based system individuals and businesses will always try to find ways to limit their incomes to hide from the overzealous tax code. However, if you change the focus of our tax system to a use based system then, "if you use it you pay". It really is that simple, and shouldn't that be our ultimate goal.
There are many situations, such as organized crime and the Mafia, where guilt by association is valid.
This is one of 'em.
Thanks for clearing that up.
You're welcome.
Ends justify the means, eh? Atta boy. Thanks again for making that clear.
Well, it's wonderful that we're STILL talking about it using a new means of information sharing and exchange. What I want to know is, since we're an official band of burned up brothers, what are we going to do about it?
One would think Willie could have come up with something novel for his attacks rather than brushing off the serial numbers and using this guilt by association tactic of Bruce Bartlett's.
Seems Congressman Linder, the actual Congressional sponsor of the FairTax Act, first introduced in Congress in 1998 as HR2525, has had abit to say about such tactics:
http://www.salestax.org/library/bartlett.html
| Sponsor defends national sales tax bill by Rep. John Linder The Washington Times, January 12, 2000 In his Dec. 29 commentary, "Sales tax detour for tax reforms," Bruce Bartlett expressed his opinion that efforts to replace the current broken tax system with a simple, fair, pro-growth national sales tax are "Quixotic" and "led by the 'church' of Scientology." Mr. Bartlett evidently lacked rational arguments against the sales tax and thus resorted to religious animus. As a sponsor of H.R. 2525 (Fair Tax Act of 1999), I confess that I have never been introduced to the "church" of Scientology. I doubt that my co-sponsor, Rep. Collin C. Peterson, has either, though the subject has never come up. Nor have we asked the more than 250,000 members of Americans for Fair Taxation, the many thousands of Americans who have attended FairTax town hall meetings, academics from Harvard to Stanford, editorial boards across the nation or the many other groups that back the plan - including the National Taxpayers Union and National Small Business United - what their religious affiliations are. We do share, however, the excitement that our goal is reachable. I suspect Mr. Bartlett is confusing our bill with another because he seems so confused about other "facts." Most observers know that Mr. Bartlett is biased in favor of a flat tax on income and thus is prepared to produce a screed against any realistic proposal that competes with his idea. Even at that, it is fair to expect him to keep his facts in line. For instance, if the sales tax were imposed at a rate of 60 percent, the flat tax would have the same rate. Both plans tax income (or spending) once and exempt savings and investment. Nearly all economists, of every ideological stripe, agree that a broad-based sales tax and a flat income tax have virtually the same tax base (and thus would have the same tax rate). Mr. Bartlett must know this. Yet he quotes a virulent opponent of both the flat tax and the national sales tax, economist Bill Gale, to the effect that a sales tax rate would need to be 50 percent. This, of course, is pure fiction. Mr. Gale did not analyze the FairTax but instead manufactured his own version of the sales tax that achieves this high rate by exempting most things from the tax. Those economists who actually have examined the FairTax (including academics from Harvard, Stanford and Boston University) agree that 21 percent to 25 percent is the right range. As for the merits of wholesale tax reform, both the flat tax and the sales tax are simpler than the current tax system, and both are neutral toward savings and investment. I support a national sales tax over the flat tax because the sales tax achieves these goals as well as others that the flat tax does not. The sales tax more visibly discloses the true cost of government than does the flat tax, by showing the tax every time a good or service is purchased. Additionally, research out of Harvard argues that we already pay a 22 percent sales tax on top of our income and payroll taxes. That is the estimated embedded cost of the current system at retail. Every company that touches any product or service that we buy has income taxes, payroll taxes and attorneys and accountants to help it avoid the taxes. These dollars do not come out of a secret drawer; they are reflected in price, and you and I pay it. That burden would be eliminated with a sales tax but perpetuated by the flat tax because the flat tax leaves corporate income taxes and payroll taxes in place. The sales tax relieves most Americans from the aggravation of having to file tax returns or keep tax records. April 15 would be just another spring day. For businesses, the cost to comply with a sales tax would be a fraction of the cost today. While the FairTax would dismantle the income tax apparatus, with the flat tax, all of the income tax apparatus would remain in place, and unfortunately, it would be relatively easy to regress to our current state. (Remember the much-vaunted 1986 tax simplification that reduced the income tax burden to two levels with the top rate being 28 percent? It has since been amended nearly 6,000 times and expanded to five levels, with the top rate being 39.6 percent. Only on the top 1 percent, of course.) The FairTax also levels the playing field in the global economy. Imported goods come to our country with the majority of their tax component rebated to compete with our domestic competition, burdened with a 22 percent tax component. That would be eradicated under the FairTax, and imports to our shores would be taxed exactly the same as domestic products at the checkout counter. That would not be the case with the flat tax. The FairTax would send our exports overseas with no tax burden on their shoulders to compete in the world market. That would not be the case with the flat tax. The FairTax would make all Americans voluntary taxpayers, paying exactly as much tax as we choose when we choose. No government agency would know or care how much money we make or how we make it. That would not be the case with the flat tax. Finally, the flat tax was introduced about two decades ago and has been promoted aggressively since then. It has failed to capture the imagination of the broader public. The FairTax was introduced just six months ago, and we have found that it already has attracted more support than the flat tax in the areas Mr. Peterson and I have visited. In short, the FairTax is more likely to be passed. Sales tax proponents and flat tax supporters should direct their fire toward the common enemy, the current tax system. Either approach is better than the current system. Unfortunately, the effort to achieve fundamental tax reform is ill served by unfounded, ad hominem attacks by the Bruce Bartletts of the world - who misrepresent the facts for their own purposes. Rep. John Linder |
It's about individual freedom .Independent: what am I going to do about it? Many people have chosen to educate themselves and some go on to educate others. Letter campaigns, town hall participation from constituents to elected official
Thats an easy one Geez....
Not all the players are corrupt BUT ALL the umpires are..
ANY decisions by THEM will be jaded ultimately FOR the wrong TEAMs benefit..
Really Geez do you used face paint when you go to these games.?..
and a silly hat.?.
You have just laid out good and sufficient reasons to replace the umpires.
After all we are the ones who put and keep these dunderheads in office, time to take the effort to remove them from the game. So it would seem to me.
And by the way, I don't wear funny hats nor paint my face for games, though my ancestor's have when the times warranted such. (Boston tea party was a grand time donch'ya think?)
You don't read history good do ya...
"We've" tried that for over two hundred years..
and "we" havnt removed them yet..
The founders of this here republic foresaw this problem..
and gave us the 2nd amendment..
What they didnt foresee is that we lost the cold war with socialism and are presently being socialized, quickly, by REPUBLICANS YET, currently.....
Proof: the second amendment has become NOW is just for doing target practice and artifact ownership.. Not for the orginal purpose of it.. which was to make revolution LEGAL...
Americans don't have much stomach for revolution these days.. would ruin the beer drinking and football games.. not to speak of stopping them precious SSI checks.. No America is way too soft for using the 2nd amendment to way it was orginally intended..
Admit it.. Geez.. the only balls left in america are in Iraq or on folks too old to even feel them anymore.. The geldings whinny is just for food anymore..
Pretty smart of Bush and others to move Americas balls to Iraq and Afganistan.. The chances of a revolution then are pretty remote.. A revolution of geldings would be quite funny.. if it happened at all.. it would merely be a riot anyway.. not a balls to the wall revolution..
The Fair Tax is the/a geldings anwser to the 2nd amendment.. FREEDOM ALWAYS costs BLOOD.. always.. Fiduciary tricks are a cowards gambit..
More.....this comports with my recollection of the case:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Scientology#Church_or_business.3F
The Fair Tax is the/a geldings anwser to the 2nd amendment.. FREEDOM ALWAYS costs BLOOD.. always..
Guess, you're in for a bit of a disappointment then.
The issue comes down to who represents us in the end, I don't see anyone around of the stature of George Washington and the gang I would trust a revolution to myself. Guraranteed lacking leaders of the moral fiber of those who established this nation, the result of your blood letting would end in the much more likely route of anarchy ending in dictatorship.
No thanks I've seen more than enough of that in my lifetime, I'll go for the legislative answer provided for in the Constitution by the founders myself.
I fixed the attempt to disguise your agenda. Almost everyone read that.
You have the order precisely backwards. And until you reverse it, you will never get any traction.
The government is the people's servant. It's not as you imply that government is the master. Learn from your error or proceed at your own peril.
I see.. So then the 2nd amendment is NOT provided to make revolution LEGAL.. The 2nd must be so that we can have a RIGHT to HUNT and have target practice and to defend ourselves from the kids of the people thats taken our government over..
First you become socialists THEN you become FRANCE.. all done very legally..
Frenchmen are also cowards.. arrogant pedantic cowards..
I never implied any such thing. It's a shame your arguments are so weak you need to resort to lies and obfuscation. Learn from your error or proceed at your own peril.
I see.. So then the 2nd amendment is NOT provided to make revolution LEGAL..
Revolution is merely a high risk last ditch option and always will be. Legal has nothing to do with revolution nor does "legal" have anything to do with unalienable right to defense.
The 2nd must be so that we can have a RIGHT to HUNT and have target practice and to defend ourselves from the kids of the people thats taken our government over..
The second amendment provides for the defense of the citizen against any against any malevolent agency, at the citizen's own risk of course. In the nature of any unalienable right, one may exercise it at risk of failure nevertheless one my always exercise it.
Exercise revolution at your will, or not, as you may choose. Of course others are more likely to be the ones to determine the final result of the exercise of such an option. But then that is the essential feature of natural law. One is free to fail as well as succeed in an endeavor. Wisdom lay in choosing a course of success rather than one bound to failure.
First you become socialists THEN you become FRANCE.. all done very legally..
Frenchmen are also cowards.. arrogant pedantic cowards..
You have your gun, you have your choice, that is the nature of an unalienable right. Choose carefully grasshopper, the outcome of revolutions have little to do with the desires of cannonfodder.
No one, and I mean no one, ever reads your cut and paste posts.
You obviously do LOL.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.