Forbes is a great idea! He can use the position to campaign for tax code reform.
Yah, like the VAT he was pushing during the 2000 campaigns.
Here's how tax rates come out for the Armey/Shelby/Forbes Flat Tax, a flat individual/corporate income tax, which leaves all SS/Medicare, Federal Unemployment, excise taxes and tariffs in place and unchanged.
http://www.library.unt.edu/govinfo/subject/vital.html
- "The chart below shows a hypothetical set of flat tax rates and allowances that would result in revenue neutrality. This model, produced by the Congressional Budget Office shows that all federal income tax revenues could be fully replaced by a system with a flat tax rate of 13.1 percent and no deductions. Allowing total deductions for a family of four to reach $36,800 (more than double the amount allowed in 1995) would require a 19.9 percent rate."
Joint Economic Committee
Revenue Neutral Tax Rates for Alternative Allowances and Exemptions Under a Flat Tax Standard Allowances Option 1 Option 2 Option 3 Option 4 Option 5 Single $13,100 $13,100 $ 6,550 $ 6,550 $0 Joint $26,200 $26,200 $13,100 $13,100 $0 Head of Household $17,200 $17,200 $ 8,600 $ 8,600 $0 Dependent Exemption $ 5,300 $ 2,650 $ 5,300 $ 2,650 $0 Revenue Neutral Tax Rate 19.9% 19.4% 16.8% 16.3% 13.1% Source: Congressional Budget Office, 1995.
Under the Armey "flat" tax, as it is currently proposed,(HR1040 introduced 3/15/2001) a single person would pay:
7.65% ---- 7.65%(SS/Medicare) tax on wages/salary income below $13,600,
26.65% --- 19% + 7.65%(SS/Medicare) tax on wages/salary and other taxable income from $13,600-$75,000
20.45% --- 19% + 1.45% Medicare tax on wages/salaries and other taxable income from $75,001 up.
0% -------- on savings & bond income and stock dividends.
And that single person's business/employer pays,
19% ------ on earnings (Gross Receipts less allowed business deductions, exemptions and credits)
13.65% ---- 7.65% on SS/Medicare employment excises + 6% federally mandated unemployement excises levied on each employee's on wages up to $75,000.
7.45% ----- 1.45% on Medicare employment excises + 6% federally mandated unemployement excises levied on each employee's wages greater than $75,000.
Plus additional selective excises and tariffs dependant upon the nature of business engaged in.
Note: The base "Flat Tax Rate" is subject to meet revenue neutrality requirements under the Budget Enforcement act. The 19% rate stated in the Armey/Shelby Flat Tax proposal does not meet these requirements and would of necessity be adjusted upwards, and/or personal exemptions and business deductions be reduced to meet revenue neutrality criteria for enactment.
Further the Flat Tax is a VAT in the manner in which it transfers tax onto the consumer from business which is taxed at all stages of production and passed on to the consumer hidden in price of retail goods an services.
http://waysandmeans.house.gov/fullcomm/106cong/4-11-00/4-11kotl.htm
"Robert Hall, one of the originators of the proposal(Flat Tax), who describes his Flat Tax as, effectively, a Value Added Tax. A value added tax taxes output less investment (because firms get to deduct their investment.)"
"The Flat Tax differs from a VAT in only two respects. First, it asks workers, rather than firm managers, to mail in the check for the tax payment on that portion of output paid to them as wages. Second, it provides a subsidy to workers with low wages."
The Flat Income Tax (FIT) proposal, H.R. 1040, has two elements: a Flat Income Tax on an individual's earned income, and a VAT on businesses. The Flat Income Tax on businesses, is, by admission of Professors Robert E. Hall and Alvin Rabushka, who "wrote the book" on the FIT, a subtraction method Value Added Tax.
Quoting Hall and Rabushka ("The Flat Tax," Hoover Institution Press, 1995, pp55,56):
"To measure the total amount of income generated at a business, the best approach is to take the total receipts of the firm over the year and subtract the payments the firm has made to its workers and suppliers. This approach guarantees a comprehensive tax base. The successful value-added taxes in Europe work this way. The base for the business tax is the following:
Total revenue from sales of goods and services
less
purchases of inputs from other firms
less
wages, salaries, and pensions paid to workers
less
purchases of plant and equipment."