Posted on 02/08/2016 7:00:17 PM PST by kiryandil
**snip**
...Ted Cruz has endorsed policies that would fundamentally change who pays the federal government’s bills, and how.
Expect the establishment wing of the Republican Party to increasingly draw attention to this fact, especially when it comes to his tax policy. While on the one hand Cruz’s plan hews to Republican orthodoxy in its large tax cuts for the wealthy, he also embraces a European-style Value Added Tax, which is a lot like a sales tax, as replacement for all payroll taxes, and which would enable the elimination of all income tax outside a 10% flat tax for all earners...
**snip**
...The downside to this is that his plan is both very regressive - shifting the burden of paying for the federal government onto the middle and lower classes during a time when only wealthy Americans are seeing economic gains - and that it places particular pressure on older Americans living off of social security.
As my colleague Shawn Tully points out, the Cruz plan would increase the price of the things we buy everyday by a lot. Cruz would argue that this would be more than offset by his tax plan’s increase in take-home pay. But what about people who no longer earn wages, like retired folks living off social security? They worked their whole life paying income taxes, and if Cruz’s plan is enacted, will have the rules of the game change on them when they can afford it least. Their entitlement payments won’t go up, but the price of everything they buy will.
Since older Americans vote in greater numbers than any other demographic group, and senior citizens are now one of the Republican Party’s most reliable voting blocks, expect Republican hopefuls to increasingly attack Cruz on this point in New Hampshire this week and beyond.
(Excerpt) Read more at fortune.com ...
It starts out low and then the Left raises it again and again. It is up to 21 percent somewhere in Europe, can’t remember which country.
Right. Until the only "juicy" you can afford is the can of Alpo...
“Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.” - Frederic Bastiat
Sounds like our income tax.
A truly insidious, hidden tax that is nearly impossible to root out of the system once installed.
Prices go up on everything but the political pressure is subdued do to the fact PEOPLE are not taxed directly.
The Ted Cruz VAT that doesn’t get much coverage.
Seniors recouping VAT on an income tax return? So the income tax will continue?
I would be upset about this if I didn’t already know only Congress has the authority to tax, and Congress and Cruz are anathematic to each other.
The government doesn’t calculate the cost-of-living adjustment for seniors properly to begin with. They base it on the cost of things most seniors don’t buy, and ignore the costs of what they do buy. This plan will just further impoverish a large group of people (the rich will escape the pain, as always).
Where did you see my picture?
“Ted Cruz’s Business Flat Tax is a VAT - Forbes”
“Rubio is right. Cruz’s business flat tax is a subtraction-method VAT. Businesses play a flat 16-percent tax rate on the difference between sales price and the cost of inputs purchased from other businesses-i.e., value-added. If all businesses are subject to the tax, the business flat tax will add up to 16 percent of the final price of goods purchased by consumers.”
Forbes explains it more at the link.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/2016/01/15/ted-cruzs-business-flat-tax-is-a-vat/#51a9d8b4580f
This grammie will take her chances with Ted! Cruz or Lose! :)
By that definition, every business tax is a VAT.
:)
This hated writer, whoever he is - if I don’t like them, I don’t read them - is right; a VAT tax will have the effect of making everything retired senior citizens buy cost 10% more on the face of it - any fool can see that. What don’t you understand about a “fixed income”? And we can hardly afford to eat now.
And please, I don’t want any young snot to tell me SS is welfare, not after I paid for it for 40 years under threat of prison if I didn’t. No, I’m not going to go out and get a job (as if there are any) at the age of 75 and half blind. I did my time.
If I wasn’t already thoroughly disgusted with Cruz because of his chicanery, I would be now. Don’t know what other comments are - I’ve learned to get off these threads where it seems younger people end up denigrating and insulting their grandparents. NO VAT!
Thank you for the link, Leto. I did find one specific, “For a family of four, the first $36,000 will be tax-free.” But I didn’t find what the ‘first’ would be for a single or two-person senior household. Has Cruz stated the dollar figure the income/vat tax will raise to fund SS on an annual basis as opposed to what is being raised now? Would a 10% VAT tax translate to a 10% cut in SS buying power? If Cruz adds a VAT tax, would the ‘first $36,000’ actually result in a (vat) tax of $3,600 before income taxes? Lastly, under the caption, “provides opportunity,” third bullet point, the position stated is banks will collect the tax or part of the tax - will banks be able to hold and earn interest on this tax or do they turn it over, real-time -— and what triggers the bank to start garnishing tax from an accountholder in the first place? What perks do the banks receive to do the bookkeeping? Fortunately, Calif primary isn’t for a while, so there’s still time for Cruz to be a bit more specific about his tax plan before I vote.
OMG, I bet he wants to throw old ladies off cliffs too.
BS Alert
Those percentages based on Common Core?
Serious allegation dem, clearly you do so much to elevate the tenor here.
How many lies are repeated about Trump? C’mon, give it a rest, it’s getting so old.
Oh, and NO VAT, EVER.
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