Posted on 02/28/2008 12:15:16 PM PST by Man50D
The IRS is not only the most feared of government agencies, it also is one of the biggest and most expensive. The agency has more employees than the Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Drug Enforcement Agency combined, and its budget makes it a bigger consumer of tax dollars than the Departments of Commerce, State, or the Interior.
The Numbers Speak for Themselves
New Evidence
12,000 = The number of additional IRS employees needed to answer phone inquiries from confused taxpayers during tax filing season. Because taxpayers will have nothing to file under a national retail sales tax, additional personnel will not be needed.
$1,000 = The hourly collection quota placed on IRS agents auditing individual taxpayers in the San Francisco office. Although collection quotas violate the law, the current system is so complex that the IRS assumes mistakes will be found on every return. There will be no errors with a national retail sales tax because there will be no returns to examine.
62,000,000 = The number of lines of computer code required by the IRS to manage the current tax code. A national retail sales tax will ease the IRS's ongoing computer problems dramatically.
1,420 = The number of appraisals of works of art that an IRS panel performed in order to tax the assets of dead people. Because double taxation under a national retail sales tax does not exist, the absurdity of having the IRS value art would disappear with the death (estate) tax.
3,200 = The number of threats and assaults IRS agents experienced over a five-year period. A fair and simple tax system will reduce taxpayers' frustrations dramatically.
(Excerpt) Read more at scrapthecode.com ...
12,000 = The number of additional IRS employees needed to answer phone inquiries from confused taxpayers during tax filing season. Because taxpayers will have nothing to file under a national retail sales tax, additional personnel will not be needed.
$1,000 = The hourly collection quota placed on IRS agents auditing individual taxpayers in the San Francisco office. Although collection quotas violate the law, the current system is so complex that the IRS assumes mistakes will be found on every return. There will be no errors with a national retail sales tax because there will be no returns to examine.
62,000,000 = The number of lines of computer code required by the IRS to manage the current tax code. A national retail sales tax will ease the IRS’s ongoing computer problems dramatically.
1,420 = The number of appraisals of works of art that an IRS panel performed in order to tax the assets of dead people. Because double taxation under a national retail sales tax does not exist, the absurdity of having the IRS value art would disappear with the death (estate) tax.
The point is that when the FT rate (or prebate) is manipulated, it cannot be preferential to a specific income group, and will therefore not be manipulated without great care.
This was my point of referring to it as a ‘financial WMD’. It’s sort of of like the “mutually-assured destruction” theory in nuclear arms.
Sure the rate can be altered, but because any alteration affects the entire population, not just a minority, the consequences are sure to come back at the ballot box.
See post #60
This defeats one of the planks of the FairTax: No need to reveal assets to the government.
The entire Treasury dept budget for FY 2007 is $38.50 per capita (taxpayers) - and is the lowest of the G8 - BTW: Canada is the highest.
Folks just go to http://www.thomas.gov look up “fair tax” and select HR 25.
It is all there in its unvarnish ugliness.
The draconian NewIRS.
The government mandated registration of EVERYONE who does business within the society.
The governement control of what is or is not “a family” (hint: mariage is not man and woman required under HR25)
The criminal RECIEPT PENALTIES.
You are right there. The FT is just words that sound sweet, but the sower part is it will not be anywhere easy to regulate. Government will not surrender control. That is the first realization the FT people do not understand. I must admit the bill is well written but full of loopholes that will never be completely closed without huge regulation with a huge agency. And it is useless to try to explain. Flat tax would be the next to reasonable system with much needed simplification.
You will no doubt notice that ALL of these folks who have a vested interest in maintaining the communist inspired income tax NEVER offer any scholarly refutation of the FairTax material.
Nothing whatever to show that any of it is wrong other that their automatic pronouncements of bias!
It is a 30% sales tax no matter how you slice the tomato.
...and when you hold their feet to the fire, the insults, and the “communist this” and “Marxist that” start flying. I guess that’s why so many people are dying to get in to the US, and so few are dying to get out.
You have NO IDEA what you are talking about. Read the books.
Burn the books - read the bill itself.
Not exactly. If it was only for fraud, it would not be set so low. I think the currently rate would be around 4% and it can fluctuate substantially each month. This raises huge amounts of tax, and effectively makes everyone's mortgage an adjustable rate.
You may be an income tax lover if you:
1. …believe that taxing the creation of wealth is better for the economy than taxing the wealth when it is spent.
2. …believe that returning people’s tax payments to them is welfare.
3. …have no problem with a tax code that is wordier than the Bible.
4. …believe the IRS is a good department and does a good job.
5. …believe that the worst thing you could do is tax the wealth of old geezers who are living off of the sweat of the younger workforce.
6. …love to tell everyone you see that the FairTax was created by Scientologists.
7. …believe that what Bruce Bartlett says is the gospel and that scores of other credentialed economists are only paid shills.
8. …have a habit of going to online chat rooms and posting insults about the “Fairy Taxers.”
9. …think that calculating a tax the same way as the tax it is replacing is dishonest.
10. …think the economy has always been fine under the income tax.
11. …call the FairTax a “cult” because you can’t think of anything else to say.
12. …believe that cutting one tax by 25% and raising another by the same amount is inflationary.
13. …think inflation is caused by high taxes.
14. …think Milton Friedman is an idiot.
15. …have a soft spot in your heart for European style VAT’s.
16. …wrote the ten planks to the Communist Manifesto.
17. …think the prebate is Marxist but not the Communist Manifesto.
18. …sell some sort of tax advantaged product.
19. …claim you clamor for tax reform but have no earthly idea how to do that.
20. ...howl in outrage when the BATF violates the 2nd Amendment but have no concerns when the IRS violates the 1st, 4th and 5th Amendments.
21. ...believe that having the bottom 50% of income earners pay little or nothing to the government has the best chance of limiting that government.
23. ...think that people give to charity just because there is an income tax.
Under FT you wouldn't file any 1040 so there isn't any individual audits.
Need further elaboration?
Read the bill, CHAPTER 8--FINANCIAL INTERMEDIATION SERVICES to be specific.
Yes, the income tax is wonderful and it makes the sky blue and prevents baldness too, I guess.
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