Posted on 04/22/2003 10:40:02 AM PDT by sheltonmac
There is an important distinction to be made concerning a "national sales tax" as proposed to replace current taxation, and the method of taxing consumption as intended by the Founding Fathers. A national sales tax would give Congress an across the board percentage of our economy by laying an internal tax, whether such revenue is needed or not. The Founder's method of taxing consumption began with an external tax on imports at our water's edge, and was extended to reach internal consumption only if external taxation were found insufficient.
It is important to study our nation's first revenue raising Act to understand the wisdom of the Framers. The Act was "... in a certain sense a second Declaration of independence; and by a coincidence which could not have been more striking or significant, it was approved by President Washington on the fourth day of July, 1789." [See, Twenty Years of Congress, James G. Blaine, 1884, Vol. 1, page 185]
Madison, in discussing this Act before Congress, clearly pointed out a very important principal of American's original tax reform package:
"...a national revenue must be obtained; but the system must be such a one, that, while it secures the object of revenue it shall not be oppressive to our constituents."
The Act imposed taxes, not on American constituents, but on "goods wares and merchandise" imported into our Country by foreign nations, and not one dime was raised under the Act by any internal taxes. Internal taxes were frowned upon by the Founder's especially when a national revenue could be had by requiring foreign nations to pay for the privilege of doing business on American's soil!
Jefferson, in his Second Annual Message (December 15, 1802) states:
"In the department of finance it is with pleasure I inform you that the receipts of external duties for the last twelve months have exceeded those of any former year, and that the ratio of increase has been also greater than usual. This has enabled us to answer all the regular exigencies of government, to pay from the treasury in one year upward of eight millions of dollars, principal and interest, of the public debt, exclusive of upward of one million paid by the sale of bank stock, and making in the whole a reduction of nearly five millions and a half of principal; and to have now in the treasury four millions and a half of dollars, which are in a course of application to a further discharge of debt and current demands."
Imagine...all this in consequence of "external duties!"
In Jefferson's Second Inaugural Address (March 4, 1805), he points out:
"At home, fellow citizens, you best know whether we have done well or ill. The suppression of unnecessary offices, of useless establishments and expenses, enabled us to discontinue our internal taxes. These covering our land with officers, and opening our doors to their intrusions, had already begun that process of domiciliary vexation which, once entered, is scarcely to be restrained from reaching successively every article of produce and property. If among these taxes some minor ones fell which had not been inconvenient, it was because their amount would not have paid the officers who collected them, and because, if they had any merit, the state authorities might adopt them, instead of others less approved."
"The remaining revenue on the consumption of foreign articles, is paid cheerfully by those who can afford to add foreign luxuries to domestic comforts, being collected on our seaboards and frontiers only, and incorporated with the transactions of our mercantile citizens, it may be the pleasure and pride of an American to ask, "what farmer, what mechanic, what laborer, ever sees a tax-gatherer of the United States?"
The national sales tax idea would do ill to our nation as it is an internal system of taxation which ultimately increases the cost of goods manufactured on American soil; burdens the American Citizen in its collection; and, is to be paid BY the farmer, mechanic, laborer, etc. who will continue to see the intrusion of the "tax gatherer of the United States" if such a system is adopted!
It is also important to note how imposts and duties (external taxation) were successfully used to encourage domestic manufacturing and assist in building a strong industrial base. The first revenue raising Act imposed an across-the-board tax on imports which was higher for imports shipped in foreign owned foreign built vessels, and discounted the tax for imports arriving in American owned American built ships:
"a discount of ten percent on all duties imposed by this Act shall be allowed on such goods, wares, and merchandise as shall be imported in vessels built in the United States, and wholly the property of a citizen or citizens thereof."
This skillful use of external taxation gave American ship builders a hometown advantage and predictably resulted in America's merchant marine becoming the most powerful on the face of the planet. In addition, our national treasury was filled by foreigners paying for the privilege of doing business on American soil.
But this was when members of Congress, and those running for Office, put American interests first and would have considered NAFTA, GATT and the WTO as acts of sedition, and would have tarred and feathered those promoting such surrender of America's sovereignty.
A national sales tax plan which omits external taxation as a principal source to fill our national treasury, is in fact a surrender of national sovereignty to the advantage of foreign interests!
It is quite obvious the American People are fed up with the manner in which Congress now raises its revenue, and the system will be changed...one way or another. But if income taxation is abandoned and the Founders original tax plan is returned to, including the use of impost and duties at our water's edge as a principal means to fill our national treasury, a powerful group of international financiers and investors will have their gravy train cut off. Perhaps that is why a flat tax along with a national sales tax has been offered as "tax reform" by the establishment ... each proposal cleverly perpetuates a burdensome system of internal taxation as the principal means to raise revenue, and leaves the international gravy train in tact by not resorting to external taxation to meet the expenses of Congress as was intended by the Founders!
In closing, many of the same people who promoted the NAFTA, GATT and the WTO (the free trade crowd) are now promoting various forms of tax reform ... each proposal cleverly maintaining internal taxation as a principal means to raise a national revenue. Let us continually keep in mind the important distinction between internal and external taxation while working toward the elimination of income taxation and strive to return to the Founding Father's original tax reform package which provided the means allowing America to become the economic envy of the world.
BWAAAAAAAHAHAHAHA! If we could do that, we wouldn't be in this mess now.
But, seriously, how will you get the 50% of voters who pay no income taxes now to vote for someone who promises to tax them with a NRST?
Now that's a thought. Years ago in Texas, you had to be bonded to collect sales tax and of course, you paid for the bond. Then they decided that maybe you could only pay $10 - finally someone suggested a business should not be forced to pay the state just to be able to collect and remit their revenue - so no charge now.
Now that is optimism!!!! What recent occurence are you basing that assumption on? The lopsided trade agreeements, the suicidal border policies - what?
The NRST 'dreamers' are the only ones in the country with a practical plan. Everyone else has been reduced to the role of whiners and complainers with no hope and no solutions.
This sales tax just seems like a starting point for debate and change - not the end. Keep in mind the federal government is going to do nothing that will actually help the people. Whatever they do, they will do because it benefits them - personally. That is why I think it won't be a 'fair' tax either. They little pet industries will be protected - if not, there goes their 'income'.
I also think this is something that has been floated to keep our mind off the things that are happening in this country - unemployment, jobs leaving, illegal immigration. Actually, state taxes for a lot of us is a bigger concern than federal income taxes. I believe should we ever get a 'fair tax' that will actually help the people, then the 'so-called funded mandates' - will suddenly become 'unfunded' and here come more state taxes.
By electing more and more statesmen and less and less politicians.
We will only have the choice of the ones the money men put forward - or didn't you realize that in the last presidential election?
All retail sales (for items/services used by an individual for his/her own personal consumption), irrespective of country of origin, will be taxed at the point of final sale.
This is one of the major arguments that favor the NRST. The NRST levels the playing field in respect of foreign vs domestic products.
The big question for me however is that, why would congress scrap the income tax entirely? Americans living abroad still would have to be taxed and since they aren't spending in the USA they would have an income tax imposed. Liberals would soon see that even with a monthly check the sales tax wouldn't be progressive enough without imposing an additional income tax on the rich in society. For many of us if you want to know who the rich is just look in the mirror.
The ultimate solution is to go back to the US Constitution and tax Americans only for those federal functions that are the prime mission of the federal government. That is to facilitate commerce (roads, courts, FDA, USDA, etc.) and for national defence from enemies foreign and domestic. If states wish to tax for social programs in addition to the things states do that is fine. Redistribution of income from those who produce to those who sit on their butts is not a constitutional mission of the federal government. But how else can one buy votes?
Out of curiosity, how would a VAT be applied to imported goods?
Well, since our government now can't find the welfare frauds - the illegals working on fraudulent SS# - this seems like a growth industry to me.
The illegals already work on fake SS# - most businesses or manpower agencies file a 1099 with the federal government - few of the illegal step forward and report their income voluntarily - so while no money was collected, the government can't seem to catch this fraudulent activity. Now that would seem simple enough to me - if you have a 1099 and no filing to match it - you have fraud. If you have Joe Ramirez, 32, working on SS# xxxxx, you pull that up and it states it belongs to Suzy Brown, age 82, you know right off something is wrong. Bottom line, there has to be the incentive to collect the fraud, will that have it? Or will they just continue to tax the ones who are honest and not the others.
Since some sales are going to be exempt, as for business, or perhaps used, there will have to be something to denote that. In Texas, if you buy something for resale, you must sign a certificate stating that it is. This is really no big deal, although a lot of big time businesses won't do it for you - also what if you are buying used, the same. What if your business sells 50/50 new and used - boy it looks like a lot of bookeeping to me.
It does shift the bookeeping, receipt keeping, etc., on to businesses.
As I said, it seems like a place to start debating - but certainly not the end.
I think any new taxation system should be coupled with (1) the complete repeal of any federal taxes (2)a reduction in government personnnel and spending by a good percentage - not just token, (3) last, by not least, some serious changes in the way the federal government government forces people to support the illegal aliens in this country. It is true, we in some states are going to be hammered one way or the other - but given the choice, some states might have the backbone to cut it out. Don't tell me this will make the illegals pay taxes - there is no way it is going to happen - no way.
As far as returning to the Constitution, I'm all for that! It would be nice to live in a country where the federal government was forced to subsist on a few billion dollars as opposed to several trillion.
If the FairTax is 23%, my state (Illinois) sales tax is 6.25% (8.75% if you live in Chicago), plus excise taxes could put the total sales tax near one-third the price of the product. That translates to $300 on a $900 TV.
I'll pay the tax if it's 50-60 bucks, but $300? Now I'm going to start to look for someone to give me a deal, if you know what I mean.
This "dealing" will go on 365 days per year, rather than just April 15th. And that 23% will increase to compensate for the cheating, which will increase the cheating.
If a product is manufactured overseas, imported, and sold at the local K-Mart, it would be exempt from a National Retail Sales Tax?
Absolutely not. All goods and services sold in the U.S. are subject to the NRST. Only our exports would be totally free of taxation making our goods substantially more competitive on the international market while insuring that imports have the same U.S. tax burden as domestic production in the U.S.
The current tax law in the US creates a situation where we are at economic disadvantage in foreign trade, under the NRST tax treatment of foreign goods is equal to that of domestic goods unlike the effect of embedded income/payroll taxes that we operate under today.
Furthermore getting rid of corporate taxation would encourage the return of companies and to the U.S.
Rep. Bill Archer, Chairman, House Ways and Means Committee:
- "A recent survey was done, in Europe and Japan, of the major corporations and I was astounded at the results. They were asked, 'If the US abolished its income tax and went to a sales tax, would that have any impact on your decisions?' Eighty percent of the corporations said they would build their factories in the United States of America. Twenty percent said they would move their international headquarters to the United States of America."
Reversing the trend of flight of capital and jobs that we now are undergoing.
By opening their eyes to the truth--that they ARE paying them NOW--but that the taxes are hidden for the purpose of keeping them in the dark about what they are paying.
If the FairTax is 23%, my state (Illinois) sales tax is 6.25% (8.75% if you live in Chicago), plus excise taxes could put the total sales tax near one-third the price of the product. That translates to $300 on a $900 TV.
Under current tax law, you pay 30% taxes over what you pay for goods and services before you are able to spend the first dollar. In addition the price of goods an survices are burdened with 20-25% embedded taxes and the costs of tax compliance.
The price of a $900 TV under the income/payroll tax system would be less than $700 under the NRST while you would also be receiving your full gross pay with no tax witholding or any income tax payments whatsoever.
The net with an NRST is more dollars in your pocket to purchase goods and services, and lower prices to boot. The total cost to you in taxes paid plus price of goods will be the same or less than you currently must pay.
Consider, for every 100 dollars you have in takehome pay with which to buy that $900 TV, you have previously paid $30 in taxes before you even get to the store to buy it.
The bottom line in regards to your $900 TV.
Under the current tax system you pay
$270 in individual federal income/payroll taxes,
$ 56 Illinois 6.25% sales taxes
$200 embedded tax costs and costs of tax compliance in the price of the TV,
$700 for the intrinsic tax free price of the TV.
==================================
$1226 total for the TV.
Under the NRST you pay,
$210 in federal sales tax
$ 44 Illinois 6.25% sales tax
$700 for the intrinsic tax free price of the TV.
==================================
$954 total for the TV.And you have $272 left to help the economy and your own standard of living grow.
I'm basing that optimism on the fact that every election cycle we continue to elect more conservatives are every level of government.
This sales tax just seems like a starting point for debate and change - not the end.
Debate and no action is not something I'm interested in. The NRST is the most revolutionary concept of our generation politically, economically and in terms of restoring our liberty.
Keep in mind the federal government is going to do nothing that will actually help the people. Whatever they do, they will do because it benefits them - personally. That is why I think it won't be a 'fair' tax either. They little pet industries will be protected - if not, there goes their 'income'.
That statement is far too cynical and defeatist, IMO.
I also think this is something that has been floated to keep our mind off the things that are happening in this country - unemployment, jobs leaving, illegal immigration.
This is not just now being 'floated'. This is a movement that has been building for the last decade or more.
Actually, state taxes for a lot of us is a bigger concern than federal income taxes. I believe should we ever get a 'fair tax' that will actually help the people, then the 'so-called funded mandates' - will suddenly become 'unfunded' and here come more state taxes.
Then fundamental reform at the state level is needed. Easier to make happen than reform at the federal level.
We will only have the choice of the ones the money men put forward - or didn't you realize that in the last presidential election?
LOL...I know the facts of how elections work in this country better than most. You are right as far as it goes. But if the people get off their butts, there is no reason that has to be the case.
"The national sales tax idea would do ill to our nation as it is an internal system of taxation which ultimately increases the cost of goods manufactured on American soil; burdens the American Citizen in its collection; and, is to be paid BY the farmer, mechanic, laborer, etc. who will continue to see the intrusion of the "tax gatherer of the United States" if such a system is adopted!"
Reality is exactly the opposite of what the author would have you believe. In the first case, it is not foreigners who pay the tax, it is the purchaser of the imports-all Americans. In the second instance, the number one tourist money attraction in the world is the United States. More money is spent in America by tourists than in any other country. A sales tax would extract a lot of foreign capital. In addition, all illegal aliens would be paying taxes on every nickel they spend while illegally in our country.
And I can't let the authors comments on NAFTA or other free trade proposals go unchallenged. Free trade lowers the cost of living for everyone. All barriers to free trade increase the cost of living for everyone for the unfair benefits of a few. If American workers can't compete in the labor market for certain kinds of jobs, then those jobs are better done by others and American workers need to find jobs whose pay suits them better. And if our manufacturing skills cannot make our labor force more productive to compete then we need to be looking at ourselves with askance and not at Chinese workers. What makes America work, is building a better mouse trap, building those better mouse traps cheaper, and selling more of them. If we can't compete on that basis, then maybe we should spend more time figuring out why we can't, not how to keep someone else from building or selling mouse traps. This is the perfect example of having your head in the wrong place.
We definitely need to scrap the income tax code and reform how and how much tax we collect in America. But the real key to fixing America is to end the political class in Washington and our state capitals. If the United States is to survive, we must have TERM LIMITS.
Total bolonga!
The store's cost of the TV from China, Japan or Mexico will be unchanged. The commissions paid to the salesmen will be unchanged (although the amounts split between the salesman and the state&feds will change), and the overhead (rent, utilities, supplies, etc) will be unchanged. The store may (that's may) save some time from their bookkeeper not having to fill out tax forms (say 1 hour a week = $15.00).
So, the cost of the TV goes from ($900 + $56 tax) to ($900 + $263 tax). Which would you rather pay?
Why would one want, more bad apples. Tax reform looks for a change in paradigm not just a cosmetic adjustment to the same old system.
Any real paradigm shift will have to be accomplished through a Constitutional Amendment. Any lesser measure will not prevent the revision from being corrupted by the same influences that have corrupted the existing tax system.
Evasion is encouraged when risk is compensated with potential economic gain. Lacking the gain, the incentive is reduce. Simple supply and demand economics. Your mistake is in not recognizing economic at work in tax evasion.
I've worked in tax enforcement. I have a pretty good grasp of the economics at work in tax evasion. The factors are gain, ease, and risk. This is true of any crime. Even if the gain is low, ease and low risk can contribute to crime. Just look at music piracy over the Internet. It is so easy and the risk is so low that people who can afford a $20 CD and would never dream of stealing one will happily pirate the music off of a peer-to-peer server.
That said, the NRST has problems in all three areas. Remember that the 23% FAIR tax rate is "tax inclusive" and is closer to what we would think of as a 30% sales tax the way sales tax is normally calculated ("tax excluded" or base price + (base price X tax rate) = sales price). Add in a state tax of 10% "tax exclusive" and you are talking about adding $4 in tax to a $10 hair cut. So there is substantial gain involved in cheating. The "ease" involves simply not reporting transactions and can involve either not collecting the tax at all or not remitting the tax to the government. The risk is the key deterrent, then, which is why my questions revolve around how easy it will be to detect fraud and how much will have to be spent to discourage it.
You are overlooking the considerable gains from lowered costs of tax compliance for business. A retail sale tax impose a much smaller burden on busines than does the accounting, planning, litigation and reporting cost of any income tax whatever its rate structure.
Fair enough. But I was talking about savings on the government side since I assume that part of the idea is to shrink government and reduce compliance costs.
The complexity of a tax system does not come from the nature of the rate schedule, it come from the complexity of defining what is to be taxed. The Flat Income Tax does little to allieviate the costs attendent with determine the basis of the tax.
I never claimed that the Flat Income Tax was a perfect solution, either. I don't think there is a perfect solution.
The legislation has the FCA in for sound reasons to compensate individual on the taxes that would otherwise be placed on merely sustaining life, in that it place a roll similar to the personal exemption of the income and flat tax systems.
Oh, I fully understand why it is there. And I think conservatives need to admit that progressive tax rates, even in the more natural form of rebates or exemptions, really are necessary to avoid clobbering the really poor. My point is simply that it is a rebate. And rebate mechanism can be used to redistribute wealth. How?
Unless you constitutionally prohibit the government from asking questions about age, race, income, and assets on the FCA filing, it is a trivial matter to make this information a requirement over time. How does that allow the system to be abused? Easy.
Pass a law requiring this additional information on the FCA form. You don't want to give out that information? Fine. But now you aren't getting a rebate. And here is where the fun starts. Pass additional laws to raise or lower the rebate based on age, race, income, or assets as a way to redistribute wealth. If you don't file and FCA form, that's fine. They take all of your taxes and give it to someone else who does file, which is exactly what they want to do anyway. Don't think this can happen? Look at how New Jersey's homestead rebate program has been used as a handout to various special interest groups even though it started out as a general rebate for property taxes. This is how good tax laws go bad. And without a constitutional amendment prohibiting it, all of these changes simply require a majority in Congress and a president's signature.
The alternative is either taxing life, an unalienable right, or allowing exemption of specific goods and services, opening the door for endless special interest haggles we now go through with the income/payroll tax exemption rules.
That haggling will simply be moved to the rebate mechanism. Why? Because not filing an FCA form will simply mean that you get no rebate and they get to keep all of your tax dollars instead of giving you any of it back.
Your choice, I'll take the FCA over the current political fight over defining every special interest's favorite product as a necessity. Under the NRST every person pays the same rate, every person receives the same amount of FCA. Every individual is treated in precisely the same way with no exceptions or exemptions, and no special class of goods or services excepted on the basis of political whim or favor.
And how do you guarantee that "every person receives the same amount of FCA" and that "every individual is treated in precisely the same way with no exceptions"? Think about how the income tax happened and apply it to the FCA.
"Isn't it awful that we send filthy rich people a rebate for their necessities every month. They don't need it. So we are going to ask that you report your personal worth and/or income on your FCA rebate form and we won't give rebates to the very rich who don't need the rebate. If you don't want to report your income, you simply won't get a rebate anyway." Next step? "If your income is exceptionally low, we'll give you an added rebate to help you get by." Next step? "If you are elderly or on a fixed income, you should get a bigger rebate." And so on. Be creative. Your legislators will be. Special interest groups will be. Don't expect the special interests and wealth redistributors to run away and hide. Imagine how they might abuse whatever system you come up with. You may think my examples are absurd but my question to you is, "What could really stop this from happening?"
System already exists, its call Social Security Administration and that is who is charged with the responsibility to administer the FCA by the legislation.
And that administration will suddenly be responsible for handling payments to a much wider base of people. Are they up to it or will they need to be beefed up?
That's your choice certainly, but you don't speak for me and many others.
I'm not trying to. I'm simply saying that I don't find this a compelling selling point. Your mileage may vary.
Personally I'd rather not allow the government any more legal hook into my life than I have to. One of the problems with the income tax and required individual reporting is that it places every individual under legal jeopardy of audit and other coercive hooks into our lives. That is an unecessary intrusion and point of potential abuse and civil control over the individual that should not be accepted in a free society.
Under a Flat Income Tax, the burden of an audit could easily be shifted to the IRS (prove that the person made income that should have been taxed) instead of the taxpayer, which is largely due to the taxpayer having to defend deductions. This is a problem with how income taxes are currently handled, not a problem inherent in the basic idea. I think the bigger danger which NRST advocates should mention is that by knowing a person's income, the government has the information needed to try to redistribute wealth. Without income reporting, there would be no way for the government to identify the rich or poor for special favors (in the pure form of the NRST, barring the scenario I mentioned above). I find that a much more compelling selling point.
The fact that you have lowered your prices sufficiently to compensate the risk in your eyes will be more than enough to alert the state tax authority to take a closer look at your business operations.
Yes, but "taking a closer look" and proving or stopping cheating are two different things. When I was doing motor fuel enforcement, I could tell with a glance which stations were paying taxes and which stations weren't simply by looking at their costs (if wholesale diesel prices are 60 cents a gallon and state and federal taxes are 40 cents and the station is selling diesel for 80 cents, something is obviously wrong). But proving that they were cheating wasn't as easy as you seem to think it is because it is possible to cover up evasion with paperwork. Consider a farm market that receives $1000 in produce a day and reports only $1000 in sales. Are they cheating or is business bad? Are they selling more produce than they are reporting or are they (A) selling produce to restaurants and other businesses that they don't need to pay taxes on or (B) do they have a slump and dump a lot of the produce due to spoilage? How do I find out that they are receiving $1000 in produce a day? And if everyone is cheating, or if they are simply pocketing the tax as extra income, how can I tell? And this problem is only worse with services where there is no inventory from which a tax agency can estimate sales. Short of watching every transaction that a business performs, it is almost impossible to prove cheating unless you perform a lot of sting operations. You seem to think that tax enforcement and proving evasion on sales tax is easy. It isn't.
But then again who am I to worry over your cheating on taxes, it done in the income/payroll tax system and it will be done under the NRST. I argue only that the dollar volume of such cheating will be the same or less under the NRST and that enforcement efforts will be more efficient for a smaller pool of tax collection points to investigate, not that tax evasion will magically go away.
You need to worry about the cheating because if it isn't easy to detect, it won't be the same or less under the NRST. Every tax dollar lost to a cheat is just one more dollar that the government will try to collect from an honest taxpayer and that's just bad news all around when evasion rates get substantial, as they did with motor fuels. Remember that motor fuel taxes and cigarette taxes are exactly the sort of sales tax that you are talking at similar rates and evasion has been substantial.
Frankly, from my perspective, such evasion is a healthy thing keeping government on its toes.
Do you know what happens when government has a problem collecting money? Hint: They don't just let the money go and laugh it off. They either institute more intrusive and draconian tax collection methods (part of the motor fuel tax evasion solution), spend a lot more of your tax money on enforcement to get more money (which will harass and hurt small businesses -- that may not bother you but it bothers me and bothered me when it was my job), or they will look for other sources of revenue. How do you think we wound up with so many taxes and fees in the first place?
And guess who loses when people evade taxes? The honest taxpayer, who winds up having to pay more to cover up for the lost revenue. And the rebate mechanism makes this particularly insidious because people who are not paying taxes to crooked retailers and who are benefiting from the lower cost of goods are also getting money back from the government courtesy of those who are paying their taxes.
I wrote: "How will they be aware that I'm collecting the tax but not sending it in? And if I send in at least some portion of the taxes I collect, how can the government prove that I'm evading the tax? Note that this is a problem with existing taxes."
Which makes it a strawman argument. I do not argue that evasion will disappear only that it will be the same or lower in dollar volume than the current system.
If an NRST is easy to evade, the evasion won't be the same or lower. That's the problem and that's why this issue matters.
One can imagine anything.
Yes, one can.
In your example, I'm in the store looking at a $954 TV. I'm thinking, $254 is alot to pay in taxes. I'm also thinking, maybe I tell the manager that I'll give him $800 for that "used" TV (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) and Uncle Sam don't need to know.
He makes an extra $100, I save $154, and everyone's happy.
It wouldn't cross my mind to do this if I were only paying $50 in taxes. My point was that this kind of money tempts people into trying. If you don't believe that, then explain payroll deduction in lieu of mailing the government a monthly (or annual) check.
Forgive me for butting in here but, as I read AG's post #75 he is mearly trying to show what a VAT is and that the NRST as proposed in H.R. 25 is NOT one.
perhaps you missed the following sentence from that post.
"Since it is levied only on the final retail customer added seperately from price and detailed on customer's receipt as an addition to shelf price, it is a single stage tax and not a VAT."
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