I’m all for the 1st part as well, but I fail to see how a (STILL) involuntary, ‘loose net’ (nothing ‘under the table’, no ‘poor’, no ‘retired’, no unemployed, etc.) is somehow BETTER than a tax at the consumption level (where EVERYONE pays...old/young/poor/rich AND completely VOLUNTARY)
Aside from the pre-bate, the ‘Fair tax’ (yeah, I concur), which I don’t like, the rest of your concerns are taken into account.
- 16th would FIRST be repealed
- IIRC - the tax is at the final point of sale. No ‘re-sale/used/ taxes either. Barter/trade would come into play as well I’d hope.
- The tax is noted on each receipt (unlike the income/flat tax), so people are more informed. Though, IMHO, the 23% (revenue neutral) is too high since gov’t is extra-constitutional already.
Better, the employed get a GROSS payday (again), NO exemptions, no carve-outs, no special interests and no more bureaucracy of ANY type (sales x % = $$).
And, BEST of all, any up/down in the % affects EVERYONE; so there will be a LOT more watchful eyes from the voting populace.
What I and many others propose is a TRUE flat tax, 10%-15% of income, no “fairness” exceptions with the ONE possible exception of a poverty line below which no tax is required. No other exceptions. Throw out the 75,000-page tax code. EVERYBODY pays a flat tax of, say 10%, whatever is codified (not greater than 15% IMO). And NO FORCED WITHHOLDING - I also agree with that.
The “consumption” tax in theory might even be better if it were simple and no loopholes, but repealing the 16th Amendment seems so far fetched to me that pushing for the consumption tax seems like a trap of another layer of taxation.
Besides that, getting agreement on “the final point of sale” also seems elusive and somewhat confusing. Many think it should be value-added. That would be a disaster. Your view is a “final point of sale” tax. But what is the final point of sale? What about a manufacturer that sells to both both private consumers and private companies where some companies consume the product and some resell and some do both? What about R&D purchases by a company some of which are consumed by the company and others go to beta sites who pay for it?
That’s just scratching the surface. I mean I know there are state sales taxes which seem to work I guess. But the difference between what the states do and what the feds could potentially do is like day and night. The feds will look for every loophole they can find and some of those “consumption” taxes could be very well be hidden to the average Joe because it was upstream.
I honesty do not know how the states do it and get around these issues. Nevertheless, the first hurdle, which I think is the game breaker, is repealing the 16th Amendment, which is a long, long shot at best. Because of that, I don’t think we should even be talking about this “consumption tax.”
Instead, I think we should be focused on a Constitutional Amendment that would require a SIMPLE, FLAT, NO-EXCEPTION, income tax, FIXED at somewhere around 10% for EVERYONE except those below a FIXED poverty line, which poverty line could only be amended by Congressional act.
Start with that. Then if at some point you could somehow get enough true votes to repeal the 16th Amendment and something was in place that barred the exceptions and loopholes and was a truly simple one-time-only “point of sale tax”, I’d be willing to listen.
I think though that if the proposed flat tax were implemented (preferably by Constitutional Amendment so an equivocal, self-interested Congress couldn’t change it in a few years) there would be such a economic boost to the average American in a short time, with the added benefit of nuking the current hopeless tax code and eviscerating the IRS, that there might be little support for the other. At least for awhile.