If you check up on this thread you'll find that I'm willing to consider the notion of a NRST, but there are serious concerns that need to be addressed, including the concerns of retirees and people halfway through their careers. How is this going to impact them?
You may wish to look at my reply to valkyrieanne #505 & 506. Your response is invited.
Also, at one point I invited Wille Green to post a summation of his objections to the NRST, which he was kind enough to do. His summation included some very reasonable concerns.
Willie Green only offeres two primary objections in his summary:
The primary criticism of a sales tax is that sales taxes are inherently regressive.
Not a characteristic of the the Linder NRST, on one hand Willie deplores the family consumption allowence that is designed to remove such regressivity from the NRST, and then complains that NRST's are inherently regressive. Yet has no compuctions about the graduated aspects of personal exemptions and deductions in income taxes.
Another inherent effect of a sales tax is that it discourages consumption of the item being taxed.
Income/payroll tax systems discourage consumption to even a greater degree by limiting income to begin with, as well as the effects of embedded costs of compliance and corporate taxes on prices. The simple fact is the NRST removes the tax burdens and cost associated with them (65 cents for every tax dollar collected) providing for competitive price reductions offsetting the 23% NRST. Net result is virtually no change in overall price price paid (NRST plus new shelf price) of consumption goods and services.
Both have been rebuted many times as well as his other more specific diatribes against the NRST.
Please note that Willie Green's concept of his ideal tax system is a combination of 20% tarrifs (to replace corporate income taxes leaving payroll taxes in place) and individual income taxes with a $10k per person exemption. Neither does away with the intrusive nature of the income tax, and the former is a formula for death of foreign trade and hides taxes from the view of the electorate, while the later is just more of the same ole tax the rich but not me style of taxation that we should be trying to get rid of.
- "There has been a shift in the relationship between individuals and government, he argues, such that fewer and fewer are paying taxes at the same time that more and more are receiving increasingly generous benefits. If it becomes the case that most voters do not bear a financial burden for this largess, then there will be little to restrain--and significant political incentives to encourage--the continued growth of government. And at that point, DeMint warns, we have reached a major crisis in our democracy."
Milton Friedman as quoted by Northwest Florida Daily News, 10-16-2000:
Walter Williams, World Net Daily, 10-25-2000
If you're among those who pay little or no federal income taxes, what do you care about tax cuts? Moreover, if you think tax cuts pose a threat to government handout programs, you might be openly hostile and support Al Gore's silly "risky scheme" talk. So many Americans paying little or no federal taxes makes for a natural spending constituency. It's like me in the restaurant: What do I care about extravagance if you're footing the bill?
To remove visibility of taxation from the individual, is to remove the goad which assures accountability of government to the electorate. Federal tax rates are high because a majority of the electorate do not share proportionately in the burden their demand for largesse imposes on the minority of citizens.
The siren call for representation without taxation is the formula that got us where we are at today. The ability to hide or disguise taxation from the view of large sectors of the electorate allows the Congress to get away with the creation of the evergrowing monster that it fosters.
Liberty and freedom have a price, responsibility. If that price is avoided there are no brakes on the growth of government, the ultimate result is the end of freedom through creeping socialism.
Right now the bottom 60% perceive little to no "Individual Income Tax" burden,(in many cases even a handout) and 70% of the voting public clamors for more from government looking for the top 40% of income earners/producers to foot the bill. That perception continues to grow ever stronger by eliminating even more participants from the Federal Individual Income Tax rolls as proposed in the tax reduction proposals through changes in personal exemption limits and other mechanisms such as the EITC.