Posted on 10/09/2007 5:27:15 AM PDT by Man50D
Ron Petrucci's Sept. 24 letter addressing Charles Firth is right on a number of points. We have been running more than an $800 billion trade deficit. That can't go on for very long. Ron says we're a debtor nation and we are.
Our manufacturing continues to move overseas to "more tax friendly" locations. We can't exist by providing each other services. Picture everyone doing their neighbor's laundry. We need to produce products to exist.
What Ron neglected to say is that the reason for that migration is our tax system. Federal taxes and associated compliance costs comprise an average of 25.9 percent of prices of our goods and services. Imported goods and services arrive at our shores essentially tax-free, because most foreign governments encourage exports by rebating their taxes at their borders. We don't do that.
When we try to sell there, they add their taxes to our prices, so our goods and services end up bearing double taxes. American companies have a raw deal both ways. That's why they have trouble competing.
There is an answer, though in the form of HR 25, The Fair Tax Act. That bill is in the House ways and means committee. It is the most thoroughly researched tax bill ever.
For the second time, a group of noted economists recently wrote a letter to Congress and the president, urging them to pass it and sign it into law.
The bill already has more cosponsors than any other tax bill in 80 years. It is a grass-roots proposal. It will pass only if enough citizens support it and tell their representatives. If passed, the current federal tax system would be replaced by a national retail sales tax applied at the final retail sale and collected by the states.
Net retail prices paid would be about the same. Revenue raised would be about the same. Collecting a sales tax is much more efficient than collecting an income tax, it provides a steady revenue flow and everyone would pay.
It needs to pass now, though, before this president leaves office, because no first-term president will entertain changing the tax system, and Social Security will run out of liquid assets at about the end of the next president's first term.
Check the proposal out at www.fairtax.org
maybe there should be a fair tax on used items. most people pay state sales tax on a used car.
The sales tax TAKES profits that the government had nothing to do with producing.
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all tax systems do that. Just in different ways.
In a nutshell a simple example is as follows:LOL! Simple but wrong. I hope you don't expect anyone else to think that that adds up to 22%. Using your idiocy if you added more suppliers you could exceed 100% embedded/price reductions.Supplier A 2% -> Supplier B 4% -> Retailer 16% -> NRST 0%
If all three pay 7.65% payroll tax is the total percentage of payroll tax paid 7.65% or 22.95%?
who pays you guys?
For me, and I suspect the bulk of America, I’ll pay far less tax under the FairTax than I do now, and legally. And the Fed won’t have it’s hooks in what I have or what I earn. Only what I spend. You can double the FairTax proposed percent and that still holds. The money in my accounts will be untouched by dirty Federal hands. That sells me.
The complaint that Congress will corrupt the FairTax is valid. However, no more so than with the current system. That we allow Congress to do this at all just boggles my mind. However, since that won’t change, barring some epiphany by America’s rather detached citizenry, I prefer the FairTax and the opportunity to make Congress start over again.
It sounds like you have a lot of your time and money invested in the current system and are afraid of the change. I welcome it with open arms. It brings me financial freedom.
The agreed-to figure is around 8% (for domestic corporations only), but even that may be high.
These folks up in Washington are gonna give up neither.
Millions of Americans have been clamoring for tax reform for years....NADA.
The feds shuffle, stir, flip over the same tax code over and over, but never a radically different plan. Why?
Because, the fed’s know that by enacting a fair tax rather than the income tax would give the people the power to pay taxes the way WE see fit.
For instance, if your layed off from your job...you naturally cut back on spending. If you wish to save more, you cut back on your spending.
I could name many circumstances that empower YOU instead of the federal government.
Secondly, the IRS has been used thousands of times as an enforcement entity against the citizens of the U.S.. Sometime justly, sometimes not.
Take political opponents of the Clinton's for example. Was it just a wild coincidence that many of this presidents critics / opponents suffered IRS audits during the midst of controversy?
It was not an accident at all. Juanita Broadwick, Jennifer Flowers, Paula Jones and more were subject to IRS inquiries while they were actively seeking to tell their stories. Some endured full blown IRS audits.
Despite what we may wish for, the power the current tax code has to manipulate and scare our citizens is an effective weapon when used in an illicit manner.
Sounds like conspiracy theory doesn’t it? It’s not, it’s real.
Nice picture. Can you post a well reasoned sentence?
You know that's not true. The sales tax is collected from your customer and passed on.
only when the sales tax is exclusive - not inclusive.
Under the current system, if you're laid off from your job, chances are that you will pay less in income taxes.
With the FairTax, if you are laid off from your job and your refrigerator dies, you will pay full tax on a replacement. Same with car repairs, food, utilities, water, laundry detergent, medication, etc. If you need to tap savings or borrow money to meet unexpected expenses, you will need 30% more for the FairTax.
With massive avoidance, its not hard to imagine that government will respond with intrusive legislation to plug the holes.
When government taxes itself, who pays the tax?
Thanks for the link.
It looks like the drugged out panhandler that I refuse money to will get $196/month in tax money no matter how much he spends. Certainly considerably less than $30K/yr. I was wrong in the amount but not the concept.
Now, why should I support a $196/month taxpayer handout to drug addicts living on the street?
You know that's not true. The sales tax is collected from your customer and passed on.Of course it's true, "collected and passed on" are the key words. If the product/service is worth the customer paying 30% more including the exorbitant tax, the business rather than the government could reap the extra 30% profit...
Then you must claim otherwise. Please provide proof that the government doesn't tax itself. IOW, what happens when the government withholds on its own employees?
Some sad, angry, and thoroughly discredited FTN’s seem to equate government payroll with “taxing itself” - however, elected official avoid SS taxes, - and the gross government payroll is just a very small part of the total budget. Government pays no taxes on assets, or non-payroll services, so it’s just another ruse to “fake up” the numbers.
if there was no taxes there wouldn’t be any government and we’d be like somalia
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