Looking at tax alternatives

"That wasn't my question. According to the first paragraph of the article, many hours are currently spent filling out tax forms. Under the Fair Tax, this wouldn't happen. Therefore, since time is money, money would be saved."

Well, ok. Suppose I have, as a private citizen, a 1040 to fill out. So I begin in a bad mood and shortly read that if I had this particular kind of income I may have to fill out this other form, which then leads to another form, and another...all with instructions written in Hebrew. So I get on the phone and, after about 30 minutes get an actual person at the IRS who tells me he'll get back to me on one question but who can't answer more than one question per phone call. So, eventually, I am forced to go to H&R block and spend my money on someone else's time to figure out all this stuff. Then I have to put my signature on the form and be responsible for what is therein. The IRS wants to contest the form with a friendly audit. So I have to get a tax lawyer, or accountant, pay his time, take off work, (my time), go down and spend a few hours waiting to talk to a bored bureaucrat who just wants to steal more from me. I could have been watching Wheel of Fortune for free with at least some of that time or, more likely, I'd have been fishing.

The question of time being money is somewhat abstract if the time you spent doing taxes, or defending yourself, comes on time you might have been watching wheel of fortune. Some people are, however, more industrious. They might have been spending that time doing things that improved their house, or making investments, or improving their education or endless other pursuits that improve the quality of their lives. The time you "save" by hiring out tax help, either in the form of software or accountants is directly related to the money you spent to save that time. What might you do to further your business in the moments you are not trying to figure out how to shelter your profits from the IRS? I assume you don't sit at home watching wheel of fortune.

"They might have been spending that time doing things that improved their house, or making investments, or improving their education or endless other pursuits that improve the quality of their lives."

Oh, I don't deny that they might do that. But my money is on them watching Wheeel of Fortune.

This argument is very similar to another recent thread on FR that discussed how much money would be saved if we legalized marijuana. For example, if the budget for a police department is $1 million and 10% of the arrests are for marijuana, then the police department will "save" $100,000 if marijuana is legalized.

Ya think? Will next year's budget request be for $900,000?

Uh-huh.

Granted, the Fair Tax would eliminate filing a 1040 and all the time it takes to do that. What people will do with that free time is their business.

But, for the Fair Tax proponents to claim that filling out a 1040 "costs" the American public 14.6 bazillion dollars is just so much bull$hit.

YN "quotes" himself:
Rational like "making the federal government pay more taxes generates revenue"? That's really rational. 178 Your Nightmare
The quote is a statement he made before (hence the quote) that illustrates the Fairtax model for revenue neutral.

The Fairtax only shows the tax collected from itself but intentionally fails to show the same tax paid to itself. It, like the phony 23% sales tax rate, is an intentional trick to make the rate appear small. That's why, by law, the phony rate is for the first year only. After the first year the rate would be determined by Social Security bureaucrats and then reviewed/adjusted every year thereafter without a vote from Congress or the President.

Simply put, the Fairtax is a fraud from start to finish.

Sorry, no, robert ... it's true. There are all sorts of different "costs" in this world and not all of them involve people laying greenbacks on the table. Even so, there are some noticeable actual "costs" involved with income tax filing and calculation since over half of those filing now hire third parties to do their income tax preparation.

Let's see - out of the about 133 million individual income tax return in 2005 if half paid 3rd parties to do the deed for them and spent only $100 on the average, that would be an actual outlay of $6.65 billiobn dollars out of pocket. And that does not count ancilliary costs such as time spent filing, storing, and then gathering and organizing records and then meeting with the preparer (nor any travel costs involved). In addition, many of these folks no doubt have returns that cost them more that $100 out of pocket. I know one taxpayer who had to pay $625 for his.

Even those using tax prep software lay out a reasonable number of bux. Your notion is quite wrong.

So if you put your money on WOF-watching, you lose your bet. there are actual costs (aside from the strain and nervous energy of feeling like you may be persecuted for some "crime" you did not commit and/or did not intend to commit). And why go through all this expense and nonsense when there is a far better, cheaper, and less trauma-ridden method that will actually benefit most taxpayers and boost the US economy as well ,,, the FairTax?

He also loves (as does Looey) the Out Of Context quote together with his own skewed interpretation of it. Watch for that.
Nice try. None of your two faced lies are taken out of context. In fact you can't attempt to put them in context without lying about them.
His arithmetic is also questionable since both he and Looey have been in error by over 400% on arithmetic problems that they themselves devised.
Error being the operative word. Errors and two faced lies aren't the same thing.

You should talk about arithmetic errors. Your falsifying a spreadsheet then swearing to it's accuracy for illustrating "embedded taxes" isn't an error, it's a perpetual lie.

Nonsense, Looey. Making a 400% error is one thing, but then being confronted with the error (as you were when it was pointed out to you with a clear description of the error) and not only refusing to acknowledge it but continuing to claim it was correct is the same as lying.

The spreadsheet you refer to has never been shown to be in error at all - and it couldn't since it was only an indication of the embedded tax mechanism (the way it happens). Do you think the commercial spreadsheet packages have bugs in them allowing errors???

You are, as has been said, full of beans, Looey.

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