Joe the Plumber's latest gig? Pimping the "Fair Tax," A.K.A. "National Sales Tax"

[Amerigo Vespucci]

'Joe the Plumber' speaks in favor of the consumption tax
Sunday, June 14, 2009 | 12:01 a.m. CDT



http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2009/06/14/joe-plummer-comes-boone-county/

Wurzelbacher came to Boone County more than eight months removed from the peak of his fame when he made national news and became John McCain’s symbol for the common man, challenging Barack Obama’s tax policy.

Still, his celebrity status got him an invitation to speak on behalf of "fair tax," a concept of replacing the federal income tax with a national sales tax, or consumption tax. John Putnam, co-director of the state's FairTax advocacy group and an organizer of the rally, said that Wurzelbacher was contacted to speak at the rally and to drum up support with his celebrity status.

He said the consumption tax is an important piece of representation for the "average man." He has used his celebrity status to draw crowds to similar events and conservative "tea parties," hoping grass-roots movements can sway people to action.

“Once you understand FairTax, it’s the only thing that makes sense," he said. “Anything to do with grass roots — that’s the only way anything’s getting done.”

[meegbear]

1. ...

... There’s even “Joe the Plumber '08” thong underwear selling online for $11.99 at cafepress.com ...

BWAH-HAHAHAHAHAHA!! :rofl:

[Cresent City Kid]

88. Get 'em now before the $10 sales tax hits

[PDJane]

2. A flat tax is regressive...........

Won't cover all lost revenue, and will hit the poor the hardest, like most regressive taxes.

It's an insane idea, and was NOT what the folks who instituted the tax envisioned.

[rally2xs]

10. A flat tax is regressive........... Yep, but this ain't a flat tax

>Won't cover all lost revenue, 

Yes, it will.

>and will hit the poor the hardest

It will leave the poor with a lot more money in their pockets
than the current, crushing income tax system which it
replaces.

>like most regressive taxes.

Its probably the most progressive tax you're likely to
encounter.

[devilgrrl]

13. "It will leave the poor with a lot more money in their pockets..." Poor, as in BILLIONAIRES?

Then I agree wholeheartedly!

:popcorn:

[rally2xs]

15. "It will leave the poor with a lot more money in their pockets..." Poor, as in BILLIONAIRES?

Nope. Poor as in "those at the poverty level." Those at the poverty level pay NONE of the Federal sales tax - the "fair tax" - because the government sends them the amount of money necessary to pay that tax in the mail before they pay it.

If the the poverty level is $12,000 a year, then the gov't sends every citizen, from your favorite street person all the way up to Bill Gates, $1000 per month multiplied by the fairtax rate - say 23%. Yes, I wouldn't mind getting a check in the mail for $230 to pay for American-made stuff that only costs 4% more in price because of the fairtax.

Its a win-win-win-win for everybody.

We can take back our position as a dominant economic force in the world with this tax. We can go back to a 60's lifestyle, where 1 guy can go to work in a factory, make good money, and support his entire family in relative plenty. This nonsense of having work-for-peanuts foreigners raping us into also working for $7/hr would be over... if we implemented the fairtax!

[zeos3]

26. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard

How would they know how much one would spend before they've spent it? Wouldn't it be more efficient NOT to collect this money in the first place instead of sending people money? Why would the govn't send everyone this money, even Bill Gates. That makes ZERO sense.

[Hugabear]

43. That's because this whole plan is the brainchild of Neil Boortz, conservative talk show host

That should tell you all you need to know.

[rally2xs]

48. Blindly Partisan Response

"That should tell you all you need to know."

Just opposing something because of who thought of it means you'll miss half the good ideas that are proposed. This is a _very_ good idea - I think it'll get 1000's of factories built here with foreign funds, Union Scale wages will be lower than average because the competition for workers will be so fierce that the wages will go up as industry competes for help that union contracts will be obsolete as soon as they're signed. "Yesterday's Wages" will likely be lower than today's wages, as we run out of workers to man the jobs coming into the USA from overseas, as the foreigners realize that this is th cheapest place on the planet to build their widget. We're going to have to make the illegal aliens into citizens just in order to have enough people to perform all the work. It'll be that lucrative. We'll get our electronics industry back, our textile industry back, our steel industry back, bring back prosperity to our auto industry, keep industry from offshoring intellectual jobs, etc. etc. Nothing like a 30% tax on what you're getting from offshore to change your mind about how cheap that help really is...

[Hugabear]

52. Neil Boortz is an "entertainer" on AM radio

He's the one who's written a couple of books about it, who's constantly pushing it on his radio show, and who practically wrote the legislation that his buddy Linder introduced to Congress. Boortz has made his feelings about his disdain for the poor and middle class very public on his show. So yes, considering that this is primarily his brainchild, I have every reason in the world to be alarmed over it.

[rally2xs]

54. Forget Boortz, Study the Idea

"He's the one who's written a couple of books about it, who's constantly pushing it on his radio show, and who practically wrote the legislation that his buddy Linder introduced to Congress. Boortz has made his feelings about his disdain for the poor and middle class very public on his show. So yes, considering that this is primarily his brainchild, I have every reason in the world to be alarmed over it."

Be alarmed, but don't shut out reasoned input. Go to the fairtax site, there's way more than just him that are for it. Its a good idea with a lot of well-reasoned, well-thought-out support. I believe it is the silver bullet that is capable of making our country the number 1 economic giant in the world (again) and thatif we _don't_ do it, I think the economy will continue down the decline it has been on for over 50 years. Our industries move away, and our parents live better than we do. Its 'cuz the income taxes are sucking the lifeblood out of our country.

[Hugabear]

56. Perhaps you don't quite grasp the concept of what a regressive tax is

Under our current tax system, the wealthy pay a higher percentage because, well, they can afford to pay a lot more. But under the UnFair Tax, that burden would be shifted more towards the poor and middle class, who spend a far higher percentage of their income. The wealthy can afford to cut back on their spending, those less fortunate cannot. I fear the middle class would wind up bearing the largest burden under this plan.

[HughBeaumont]

57. Not to mention the share the wealthy pay in relation to their cost of living REALLY isn't that much.

It's, in fact, the LOWEST top tax rate in 75 years. I don't get this whole "crushing burden" hyperbole, nor do I get his contradiction of "not letting the wealthy off easy" (which is what a Fair OR Flat tax will do) but at the same time, wanting to remove corporate/business taxes completely. We're not taxing the wealthy nearly enough and the Bewsh tax cuts should be rolled back now, not next year. A 4% increase will not make an iota of a difference.

[rally2xs]

60. Crushing Burden

Its not hyperbole. Look around. We've lost our steelmaking industry, our textile industry, our consumer electronics industry, and our auto industries are mostly bankrupt. We've lost Plymouth, now Dodge, Saturn has been sold, we've lost Pontiac, Hummer is supposedly being sold, etc. etc.

There should be large iron ore carriers on the Great Lakes, moving iron from Minnesota to smelters in Pittsburgh. There aren't. We mine iron, and send it overseas to be made into steel. The gov't conveniently blames mismanagement of the steel industry, while not mentioning that the crushing corporate taxes simply divested them of the money necessary to upgrade their ways of doing things.

Does it make sense that _ALL_ these industries were "mismamaged" and lost out to foreign competition? No, it doesn't. Some of them had to have some smart people at the helm, yet they are a shadow of what they could be. US Steel is... I think tenth in the world? Why is that? With all the iron we have, a great lakes system that makes necessary transport very cheap, and coal up to the wazoo for making coke to make steel? US Steel should not be 10th. It should be 1st.

Why is the "richest nation on earth" being unsuccessful in the marketplace? Just because foreigners work for peanuts is no excuse. We can compete with them, just by doing things differently. We can tax our consumption instead of our income and beat them at their own game.

Our industries move offshore for 2 reasons, mostly,- taxes and labor. Well, we can make our corporate taxes be zero. No other industrialized nation is doing that. In all liklihood, they can't - they can't finance that much spending with workers that are making so little money because that's their other big advantage. If they try to go to a consumption tax, it'll have to be so high to finance their gov't health care, etc. that they'll simply crush the people with the sales tax - because those people are getting paid peanuts, remeber.

But we, getting much of their industries fleeing their shores and coming here for the tax advantage, will have enough money to pay for this.

I really believe this is our path to prosperity - and that's prosperity for everybody, not just "the rich." I know if they pass it, I'll have a new Mitsubishi LaserVue big-screen TV next year ($7k) and a new Nikon D3x the year after that ($8K.) And, if I wait a few years, I can probably get them cheaper, because they'll be made in the USA too, by that time.

[ieoeja]

62. And we lost all of that after we drastically LOWERED income taxes. n/t

[rally2xs]

75. And we lost more stuff because...

ELIMINATING income tax is the answer, not lowering it.

[zeos3]

148. Wow...

That truly is your universal solution to everything, isn't it? You really have not thought this through.

[zeos3]

147. Once again...

They'll stay where the cheap labor is and simply use the US as a tax haven.

[rally2xs]

151. Once again...

"They'll stay where the cheap labor is and simply use the US as a tax haven."

Great. Let 'em try. When they try to import their television built overseas that is coming into the country at $200, and it gets hit with a 30% tax, it's going to cost $260, while the television that was built here and cost $230 before the income taxes were removed now costs $239.20 with the fair tax applied, then they're going to have a tough time selling that foreign-made television. People will buy the $20+ cheaper American television. And it'll be cheaper because of the "fair tax."

[Hugabear]

174. God, are you really that fucking naive?

So in order to save the 30% tax, they'll give up all the billions of dollars they're saving in cheap labor overseas? LOL right...

[rally2xs]

177. Think

They'll build a factory where they can build the cheapest product. They built them over there because labor is cheap and it made for a cheap product. They'll come back because taxes are cheap, and make for a cheaper product still.

[EOTE]

275. The answer you're looking for is yes.

Naive would actually be putting it very kindly.

[Art_from_Ark]

176. What television that was "built here"?

Zenith was essentially the last US-based television manufacturing company, and in 1993 they only had one factory that was still producing TVs in the US. And that plant, in Springfield, Missouri, was working with a skeleton crew and wasn't even running 40 hours/week.

[rally2xs]

178. What television that was "built here"?

Philco, Dumont, Zenith, RCA, and a whale of a lot of other TV's were built here before the income tax strangled profits, and chased them all out of business or overseas.

NOT taxing corporations will bring them back, or allow new industries to start up. Maybe we'll have Lockheed TV's and Texas Instruments TV's and Raytheon TVs when they can build them here cheaper than they can build them there.

[zeos3]

215. That's not true

You keep talking about this high corporate tax rate but these companies do not pay it.

"Over the three-year period, the average effective rate for all 275 (of Fortune 500 companies studied) companies dropped by a fifth, from 21.4 percent in 2001 to 17.2 percent in 2002-2003."

"In fact, in 2002 and 2003, the average effective tax rate for all of these 275 companies was less than half the statutory 35 percent rate. Over the 2001-2003 period, effective tax rates ranged from a low of –59.6 percent for Pepco Holdings to a high of 34.5 percent for CVS."

http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/mm2004/112004/mcint...

Boy, that -59.6% tax rate is just KILLING these companies!

""Eighty-two of America’s largest and most profitable corporations paid no federal income tax in at least one year during the first three years of the George W. Bush administration -- a period when federal corporate tax collections fell to their lowest sustained level in six decades." Corporate political power has led to lowered tax rates and creation of endless tax loopholes and subsidies. And the spectacular rise of offshore tax havens has made the tax avoidance business into its own industry."

Corporate Power Since 1980
http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/editorsblog/index.p...


In the 60's, corporations share of tax revenue was about 25%. That number had dropped to about 11% by 2001 so stop with the bullshit about these poor corporations being taxed to death. It's simply not true.

[pipoman]

96. The only people who believe that our current tax

structure isn't crushing are those who have their tax withheld by their employer, they don't feel it. Every person who is self employed and has to write the checks know that the burden is in fact crushing...especially for the middle class. If everyone had to write a check for their taxes there would be a tax revolt in this country.

[Hannah Bell]

123. If it's a crushing burden now, then how would a sales tax relieve the burden?

The only way to relieve a crushing burden would be to reduce spending.

[rally2xs]

136. Its Like This...

"The only way to relieve a crushing burden would be to reduce spending."

That's not the only way.

Another way is to get more people paying the tax. Then each person pays less tax for the same amount of revenue to the government.

The minority of us that are actually paying income tax right now will be joined by:

1) The criminals, every time they buy a Big Mac or a big screen TV, or a big new Buick! Criminals aren't usually the sort to save for the future - they go out and blow everything they get their hands on - having a good time, etc. Every shot of Jack Daniels, every retail thing they think they need for "high living" such as a new sports car or SUV, would help with our Federal tax. There's billions and billions of dollars here, because of all the illegal drugs and such, and these guys buy things - lots and lots of things.

2) The fat cats, that have an array of loopholes all carved out to avoid paying their taxes, but would get hit when they buy that new Beach Bonanza airplane, or that 75 foot yacht.

3) The illegal aliens, that just come and work, and take, whether it's food stamps or having kids in our hospitals and being unable to pay. They'd be paying for every Pop Tart and every new pair of shoes. Whatever they buy new, they contribute.

4) A brand new source of help for the Federal tax would be the tourists. Tourists largely get hit with sales tax from the states, but not so much the Federal Gov't. There's supposed to be 56 million people coming in, so if they spent $5K each, that would be 23% of $5,000 for each of 56 million people? Maybe they'd spend than much, maybe it'd only be $2,000. But still, its help we've never had before.

5) The 1.5 Trillion dollar "shadow economy" that has people who have engineered their lives to avoid income tax. it works, but that would be coming to a halt.

And then, there _is_ some government spending that could be reduced by getting rid of the $265 billion that it costs to collect the income tax. Yeah, there'd be some expense to collecting the Federal sales tax, but you don't have to deal with nearly as many people. Only the vendors that are selling things at retail and performing services at retail need be concerned with the tax collection.

[Hannah Bell]

172. "get more people paying the tax" = redistributing the taxes, aka getting the poor to pay more.

knew it.

[rally2xs]

181. get more people paying the tax" = redistributing the taxes, aka getting the poor to pay more

Completely wrong. Its getting the people that have figured out how not to pay income tax, to pay taxes.

[Hannah Bell]

206. Which people would those be?

[pipoman]

193. I'm not completely convinced that this,

at least as written, is exactly the answer, but all of the objections you raise are in fact addressed in this plan. As with most things it is best to study the subject before making a determination regarding merit.

[Hannah Bell]

205. My point is simple: if the tax raises the same amount of money as the present income tax,

it either keeps the distribution of tax the same as at present, or changes it.

If it changes it, someone takes the hit.

Who is that someone?

I asked the proponent of the tax to explain it to me.

[pipoman]

211. Much of the difference comes from

previously untaxed dollars. Money raised through drug dealing, prostitution, gambling, etc. The wealthy generally support a high standard of living, thus they will pay as much or more than they are currently paying with no loopholes to exploit. I really don't know everything about this plan, I do know that I have heard few real criticisms from people (even progressives) who have actually studied the plan. Again, my complaint is that the current system makes escaping taxes for the wealthy easy and compliance for the middle class difficult (nearly impossible). I believe it is in place to discourage competition by overburdening new businesses. I'm just looking for a system which provides the needed tax revenue without the miles and miles of blood red tape.

"I asked the proponent of the tax to explain it to me."

The problem with this is that it is an extensive plan, it must be to replace the hundreds of thousands of pages of tax code. To try to explain the plan in a few sentences will only raise more questions.

[pipoman]

192. I didn't say it would. Part of what makes

US tax code crushing is the cost of compliance. The tax code has so turned into a ridiculous hodge podge which is simply beyond the ability of people to comply with lest they spend all of their time trying to understand it. The tax code is in desperate need of revamping, people and small businesses shouldn't have to spend thousands of dollars on tax attorneys and accountants just to pay their taxes...simplification is sorely needed. Whether you agree with this plan or not, I feel people are making that decision without understanding the plan (reading the plan), based only on the source, is ignorant. I don't know of anyone else who is actually offering a possible solution to the burdensome current system, just nonobjective, uninformed rejection.

[BR_Parkway]

302. My partner and I are self employed and don't fnd taxes to be a

crushing burden - health insurance most certainly is.

[rally2xs]

58. Perhaps you don't quite grasp the concept of what a regressive tax is

"Under our current tax system, the wealthy pay a higher percentage because, well, they can afford to pay a lot more. But under the UnFair Tax, that burden would be shifted more towards the poor and middle class, who spend a far higher percentage of their income. The wealthy can afford to cut back on their spending, those less fortunate cannot. I fear the middle class would wind up bearing the largest burden under this plan."

OK, yes, I know what a regressive tax is, but I believe it is really only significant if it taxes the income of the very poor in such a way as to cause them a hardship.

I think that the fair tax, if analyzed, will show that yes, the percentage of the tax will be somewhat higher in the middle class than it was.

Now, here's why I believe it won't hurt anyone in the middle class.

First, the individual burden of each person, rich or poor, will be less. While I might be in a group paying, say, 45% of the tax instead of 40% of the tax that same group was paying before, the individuals in that group will each be paying less tax.

How is that possible? Its because there will be a lot more taxpayers than there were, because a sales tax is harder to avoid than an income tax. There's 1000's of ways to hide income, but it's not so easy when you show up at your favorite mall to buy an iPhone. We're going to get taxes off the criminals and the fat cats that are living on untaxable income and the "shadow economy" that's supposed to be worth about $1.5 Trillion (that's 345 billion in sales taxes if that money is all spent - which combined with "losing" the cost of collecting income taxes, said to be $265 billion, we could have balanced the Federal budget not too long ago.)

And, as I said, I calculated my own personal situation as giving me a $6K - $9K / yr tax break with a "fairtax" as opposed to the tax I'm paying now with our income tax. I expect that the other people in my "class" will experience the same reduction in overall tax that I do.

Now, does the fairtax unduly burden the very poor? No. The Fairtax "prebates" _ALL_ the tax a person pays up to the poverty level. The poverty level for a single person is currently around $11K. So, if I'm single, I get $11K @23%, or $2530 every year, probably in monthly payments of $210 /month. And, BTW, everybody gets that money, everyone from your favorite street person all the way up to Bill Gates. (Why not - the money just goes 'round and 'round, from the gov't, back to the gov't in tax, from the gov't again, etc.

So, if it is "technically" regressive, but greatly benefits the lower classes anyway, which this does, I'm not worrying about it. If regressive tax is taking $10 from a guy that only has $20 left before payday, because he's below the poverty level and just can't do any better, then I'm steamed. But everything I read says this system will greatly improve the lives of almost everyone, because of a great many jobs that would come back from overseas, where they long ago fled to avoid our crushing income taxes. We're the 2nd higest corporate taxer on the planet, right behind Japan, who has had economic problems for the last couple DECADES...

This country rose from nothing to greatness in the time between 1776 and 1913, when it financed itself on a few excise taxes on booze, tobacco, and a few other things. I think we can get back to a situation of increasing prosperity instead of decreasing prosperity by going back to a system that created prosperity originally - a consumption tax, and getting rid of the income tax completely.

[Hugabear]

61. A sales tax is NOT hard to avoid

People avoid paying sales taxes all the time, and in completely LEGAL ways. If I purchase a used item, or from a private seller, I pay no sales tax on that. If I go to someone's garage sale, they're not collecting sales tax. Likewise, if I buy something over the internet, or from overseas, I'm not paying any sales tax on that.

And this doesn't even begin to take into account the black market that would surely blossom once you impose such a punishing sales tax across the board. You can dismiss that all you want, but it will happen.

[rally2xs]

73. And that's all LEGAL

If you study this proposal, you'll find that your ways of avoiding tax are LEGAL and EXPECTED in the plan. That is, there isn't SUPPOSED to be any tax on the used things, only the new things. It is assumed that mostly the more well-to-do people will choose to buy new, and those that are counting their pennies will buy a lot of used.

The poor, or simply those wanting to improve their situation, can buy used cars, houses (yes, you pay only on NEW houses), etc. Only NEW things are subject to the fairtax. The premise is that everything is taxed, and only taxed once - that is, when it is sold as new.

[zeos3]

145. Are you high again??

50 years ago the top marginal income tax rates were MUCH higher. By your logic, we should be living in a utopia now.

I'd say we've been on the decline for the past 30 years (since Reagan's term).

[rally2xs]

149. Are you high again??

We lost textiles way before Reagan, and the auto industry and the steel industry were going down the tubes in the 70's. That's when Chrysler went bankrupt the 1st time, remember?

The income taxes have been giving the advantage to foreigners for 50 years, at least. I've watched this all my life. Make no mistake, we are NOT going to recover from this recession in any form like we were in before we entered it. Everyone is going to have less. And it will continue like that until the NEXT recession, with prosperity will be ratcheted down some more. There is no end to the damage that the income tax is doing to our country until we achieve what I spoke of before - a country with very, very rich people, very very poor people, and nobody in between. Lou Dobbs hasn't been speaking of a "war on the middle class" all these years for no reason. Its happening, and the income tax is the biggest weapon.

[Xicano]

93. I have a question rally2xs

Since the whole bases for a consumption tax is based on the idea that everyone pay an equal rate of taxes instead of making rich folks pay a higher rate. How are we going to go about applying fairness in the repairing of wear and tear on our infrastructure which gets used more by the rich than the poor? And how do we factor in fairness with regard to who's getting the wealth extracted from our public lands?

The only way I know to be fair is a progressive tax.

[zeos3]

144. Are you high??

You've got quite a vivid imagination. There WON'T be a flood of industries returning to our shores from eliminating corporate income taxes. They'll stay where the cheap labor is. If anything, they'll set up their PO boxes here instead of the Cayman Islands. They'll have their HQs here but won't actually produce stuff here.

[rally2xs]

146. That's not what the analysts at fairtax.org calcuate.

They see $10 - $15 Trillion rushing to our shores to build factories.

What makes your opinion better than theirs? Is it just because you want it to be true? Why are you so in love with the income tax that has been killing our country for decades.

The income tax has been the 2nd biggest mistake in the history of this country, right behind slavery. If we allow it to continue, it will completely bankrupt all of us, and our country will resemble the economic landscape of Zimbabwe.

[zeos3]

150. Of course they do...

just like reducing the capital gains rate and the top income tax rate would produce more revenue and investment etc. :puke:

[rally2xs]

153. Of course they do...

"just like reducing the capital gains rate and the top income tax rate would produce more revenue and investment etc."

Well, it did, of course. The bad part is tht the revenue and investment was channeled oversaes, where the US income tax wouldn't suck the life out of it. H, thats what - what was it? GM? Just tried to do with the additional factories to be built in Europe and the little cars being shipped in. That is, until the union put a stop to it.

But US industry will try, at every opportunity it can, to take factories and jobs outside of the USA, for as far as you can see into the future, until you can get rid of the dang income tax. That's what's strangling our country.

[BlueMTexpat]

202. Is that you, Neil Boortz?

In some ways the US, which has the lowest tax rates among the industrialized countries, already resembles the economic landscape of Zimbabwe.

I currently reside in a country where your so-called "fair tax" would be laughed at, where tax rates are reasonable and progressive, where there is an exceptional standard of living and quality of life, where excellent infrastructure and mass transit are the rule not the exception, and where companies are literally begging to set up headquarters because a plethora of well-trained, well-educated, healthy, and multilingual individuals are literally at their beck and call. The US is simply being "left behind" in the economic dust.

So, whatever "it" is that has cost the US industries and jobs, it is NOT the US income tax system. One might possibly point the finger at unscrupulous business management at the highest levels, lack of business oversight, the raiding of pension funds, the general screwover of blue collar employees, and the Wall Street mergers and acquisitions that were intended to benefit those who got out first and fastest and who then hid the money in their offshore accounts. There are more directly demonstrated relationships to those actions.

Anyone who finds the US income tax system mystifying and who has a computer should simply invest in Turbo Tax. My tax situation is quite a complex one that involves filing in two countries and more than one state. Yet I am able to do it myself with Turbo Tax and the on-line system in my country of residence. I have run into no problems. Of course, it pays to be honest.

Taxes are the price we pay to have a civilized and well-functioning society. Unfortunately, in the US, we use whatever tax monies we have primarily to subsidize the industry of war rather than to invest in ourselves, so our society is in many ways dysfunctional. Spending trillions on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is taking a severe toll, financially and morally.

[girl gone mad]

225. It would destroy small business.

In order to be revenue neutral, the sales tax would have to be close to 50%. This would dramatically hurt sales.

You are so far off base in your analysis that I wouldn't know where to start. Americans are still the biggest global consumers. Any consumption tax is going to lead to reduced consumption. It would be like killing the goose who lays golden eggs.

We wouldn't be able to compete with the third world on wages, particularly as our consumption slowed (because this would lead to more corporate cost cutting). In the midst of a consumer driven recession, a national sales tax or the VAT tax are both stupid ideas. Your logic is very twisted.

[Contrary1]

86. What American-made stuff? n/t

[rally2xs]

95. What American-made stuff?

The American-made stuff that will be all over the store shelves after the companies realize that 1) American-made stuff will suffer no corporate taxes, and so can be sold 20% cheaper than it was before and 2) foreign-made stuff that cost $1.00 before the fair tax is going to cost $1.30 after it.

Industry will fall all over themselves and each other's feet, beating a path to an American locale where they can build a factory to make their product. It won't take much time at all, and there will be American-made stuff all over the place.

[wolfgangmo]

110. Wishful magical thinking

"Industry will fall all over themselves and each other's feet, beating a path to an American locale where they can build a factory to make their product. "

This will not "magically" cause american factories to reopen. The companies in question are no longer "American" companies, they are multinationals. What incentive will they have to relocate here.

You need to connect the dots rather than just repeating the same thing over and over and expecting us to "magically" agree with you.

[rally2xs]

119. Wishful magical thinking

Hmmm... I thought I covered this.

In short, we're talking about removing ALL income-based taxes, from personal income to corporate income and the luxury, capital gains, inheritance, gift, social security, medicare, and any other income-based tax I might have forgotten.

The idea is to replace it with a 30% (23% inclusive - the tax within a $100 gizwich for sale is $23), sales tax on new items only. The premise is that everything gets taxed, and taxed only once. Used items - houses, cars, clothes, whatever, are not taxed.

1) The company that builds here incurs no corporate taxes, and so can build their widget for 80% of what they could build it for before the tax was removed. That is, they can pass along that savings to the customer to capture market share. For instance, a $25,000 Jeep Liberty would suddenly cost $20,000 to sell on the export market.

2) If the now-$20K Jeep Liberty was sold on the domestic market, it would get taxed at 30%, so it would cost $26,000. IOW, it gained $1000 in price. Of course, all the Jeep workers, and indeed the entire rest of the country's workers, have the privilege of keeping ALL their money - no withholding. As I have pointed out several times, I've calculated my own situation as a gain in my favor of $6K - $9K. I can easily afford a Jeep that costs only $1k more than before.

3) Foreign goods to be imported will also get taxed at 30%, but they will get no price break by losing the corporate income taxes that were going to the US government, because they weren't paying for them in the 1st place. So, a Toyota FC Cruiser that was also priced at $25,000, and a direct competitor to the Jeep Liberty, would now, assuming it is made in Japan, cost $32,500.

If Toyota doesn't already have a factory here making FC Cruisers, I'd say it would be no time at all until they got to building one, or squatting in some existing building and immediately converting it. That's because they're not going to sell many Cruisers while the Liberty absolutely demolishes them on the price aspect.

Sooo... that is my basis for expecting that there will be an awesome influx of dollars from overseas to build factories here. We'll get our electronics industry back - yeah, it might say "Samsung" instead of Philco, but someone that wants to build a Philco probably could do so and compete with the Samsung, too. We still know how to build this stuff - there's plenty of people that are working in the defense sector on some pretty golly-gee-whiz electronics that could quit and find investment money, probably overnight, to build the next golly-gee-whiz consumer electronics gizwich - maybe a head-up display for your car that WORKS, and eliminates the entire dashboard, or somesuch, or at least the necessity to look at it, as an aftermarket thing.

[Hugabear]

124. Once again, you're relying ENTIRELY upon the kindness of corporations to pass that "savings" on

Why would these businesses pass that savings on to their customers when they could simply add it to their profits? After all, these businesses have their shareholders to answer to, and those shareholders are going to demand as much profit as possible. There may be a few businesses that will pass that along, but there is no guarantee that all - or even a large percentage - would do so. Therefore, we'll still wind up paying through the nose.

[rally2xs]

128. Because

Business has to be competitive, or they are out of business in short order.

If Jeep decides to keep the $5K, and continues to charge $25K for Liberty, and then the 30% is added, the Jeep will cost $32,500 like the Toyota. Plus, Ford will probably decide to pass along the savings, and will lower their formerly-$25K Explorer to $20K before its taxed. Then it's taxed back up to $26K, and you have Ford = $26K, Jeep = $32,500, and Toyota = $32,500.

What SUV do you think is going to sell more vehicles than its 2 nearest competitors combined? That'd be Ford...

[Hugabear]

129. So then why haven't they been passing along their tax cut savings?

BUSTED

[rally2xs]

140. Because...

First of all, who says they haven't?

And then, a tax cut is still not a tax elimination. For this to work, we need to drive corporate taxes, and all income-based taxes, to zero. Then, we can win the competition on the International market, and have people building industry back up in our country, rather than in some rathole foreign country.

[Hannah Bell]

171. corporate taxes as a percent of total collections have been halved since the 60s.

what the tax breaks bought was more jobs for india & china.

[rally2xs]

180. corporate taxes as a percent of total collections have been halved since the 60s

Corporate taxes are the 2nd highest on the planet, and have resulted in the gutting of all our major industries. Even the car companies are bankrupt, 2 out of 3.

Just great what we've done to ourselves, made commerce so impossible that all our stuff is manufactured elsewhere, people here experience high unemployment, and we let the world win the economics game because we're afraid of maybe someone else getting ahead. It's like a bunch of people that keep continually dragging each person off the ladder out of the pit, so they can start up the ladder, then someone drags them off, and nobody gets out of the pit.

This country is destined to be poor forever if we don't change what we're doing, and its the income taxes that are killing us.

[elmaji]

266. No they aren't

They are the lowest of any developed nation.

[zeos3]

161. I magically agree!

:evilgrin:
:toast:

[zeos3]

24. "This ain't a flat tax"???

How do you figure? If everyone's paying the same rate that's pretty flat isn't it? The problem is, the middle and lower classes spend most, if not all, of their money on necessities. The top 5% and higher have a lot more of their income left over after paying for the basics so, as a percentage of their income, they will pay far less than you and me. If this isn't a "flat tax" it is highly regressive.

[rally2xs]

27. "This ain't a flat tax"???

No, this ain't a flat tax. A "flat tax" is a single-number tax on income, to be paid by everyone. Attempting to change the traditional definition of a flat tax as an income tax is simply confusing to the argument. This isn't any sort of income tax. It is a consumption tax.

And, the criticism:

>How do you figure? If everyone's paying the same rate that's pretty flat isn't it?

No, because it isn't the same rate for everyone. Lets have a word about the "poor" and _this_ consumption tax.

_If_ the tax were 30%, then the poor person with that family of 4 making exactly the poverty rate would not pay a penny of Federal tax, because he would receive a check for $7,800 / yr, or $650 / mo for the amount of that tax _in advance_ of his spending it. So, he never get taxed until he make more than the poverty level.

That's a rate of 0%.

Now, if the family of 4 makes twice the poverty level, they get taxed at half the fair tax rate, because they got taxed at the 30% rate for half the amount of money they made, and 0% for the other (the 1st) half of the money they made.

That's a rate of 15%

And it goes from there - at 4X the $26,000 poverty rate, they're making $104,000 a year but only paying 3/4 of the tax, because they still "missed" paying for that 1st $26,000 that was taxed at 30%, or $7,800 for the ear.

And that's a rate of 22.5%. And that's only if the family spends every penny of that $104,000 that they make.

And it works like that for all of us, assuming we spend every penny we make. If we don't, we pay even a lower percentage of tax.

And, of course, there's still the fact that American companies have the embedded 20% - 22% of the cost of products as corporate taxes now that would go away, and so the prices of those American made things would be taxed at a price of, say, $78 for an item that formerly cost $100, and taxing that at 30%, we get a number that is extremely close to the original price of the item, $101.40. So, in the case of a 22% included corporate tax expense going away, the effective tax, as felt by the consumer, is 1.4%. Talk about lowering taxes!!! All ya' gotta do is "Buy American."

[zeos3]

34. Let's continue...

Let's say the family of four makes $2 million per year. Let's say they actually find a way to consume $1 million worth of stuff. When you do the math their effective tax rate is just a hair under 15%. How is that fair??

Where are you getting this 20%-22% corporate taxes figure? I laugh every time I see it.

[rally2xs]

39. Let's continue...

"Let's say the family of four makes $2 million per year. Let's say they actually find a way to consume $1 million worth of stuff. When you do the math their effective tax rate is just a hair under 15%. How is that fair??"

Why be so concerned that maybe someone is going to benefit more than you do? That's just "class warfare" at work. Fergedabouddit. It doesn't affect you. The thing that's going to affect you, and me, and everyone else is that I'm going to have $17,000 more money to spend, you're going to have whatever your tax was last year to spend, the American-made goods are going to go up extremely little in price, and we're all going to be able to afford more stuff. Its going to be easier to go to college, too - that's not taxed.

"Where are you getting this 20%-22% corporate taxes figure? I laugh every time I see it."

That's what the big thinkers on this subject say will be the price drop as a result of the removal of the Federal corporate taxes will result in. Hey, I'm not an economist - I pretty much have to take their word for it. You can dispute it, but unless you're an economist too, I don't see that simply your saying it will negate the experts' opinion that this will cause a 20% drop in retail prices from the Federal corporate taxes going away. Remember, we're charging the 2nd-highest corporate taxes on the planet, about 35%. I'm just surprised it's _ONLY_ 20% - 22%. What happened to that other 13 - 15%???

[Hugabear]

47. I love it when a rethug admits "who cares if the rich don't have to pay more"

No wonder you favor this scam.

[EOTE]

49. So you admit that it's a regressive tax.

Which means that the tax burden is shifted into those on the lower end of the pay scale. Yeah, that's exactly what this country needs now. You say "Why be so concerned that maybe someone is going to benefit more than you do?" That's not class warfare, class warfare is what has been destroying the middle class for the past 30 years and a tax like this would just quicken the outright destruction of the middle class. If the wealthy are now paying on average a far smaller percentage of their income in terms of taxes, that money has got to come from somewhere, right? This is nothing but a huge tax break for the already wealthy.

[rally2xs]

55. The Money Has To Come From Somewhere

Yeah, that's right - it has to come from somewhere, and it'll be from all the fat cats that are so adept at avoiding the present income tax, it'll come from the 56 million visitors to these shores that come here and spend, it'll come from the criminals that don't pay tax but live high on the hog buying luxuries the rest of us can't afford, it'll come from a whale of a lot of people that aren't even paying tax right now, but won't be able to avoid it when we start taxing everything they buy, we're going to get it from the illegal aliens that come here and take our jobs, take our medical care and bankrupt hospitals, take our food stamps, and take, take, take without paying a dime. We're going to be able to tax all those slackers without having to chase them down, 'cuz we'll ding 'em for everything from their fast cars all the way down to their Big Mac's.

IOW, we're going to get a lot of help from the current tax dodgers...

[EOTE]

59. No, it will only make it so they don't need to use lawyers to avoid paying taxes.

Listen, people making millions of dollars per year will only spend a small fraction of that. People making 50k a year tend to have to spend almost all of that. That means that the less a person makes, the greater portion of their income will go to taxes. That's called a regressive tax and it's the opposite of what we have right now and it's the opposite of what we need. We need to have a tax system that's more progressive than what we have now.

[rally2xs]

76. Some Rich People...

don't spend but a fraction of what they make, and save a pile of it instead. But not all.

If they all did that, then Michael Jackson would not have been in jeopardy of losing Neverland, and Mike Tyson wouldn't be running low on money half the time, and Doyt "the refrigerator" Peery (remember him?) wouldn't be so low on the totem pole now - I heard he's effectively broke.

Some rich people are smart, but a whale of a lot of 'em aren't that smart, and of the smart ones, some figure out how to use the money to live high and STILL not be on the edge of bankruptcy.

What would you do if you came into $100,000,000 by winning the lottery (and with the fairtax, you'd get all $100,000,000 in a lump sum, or at least the lump sum amount of the lottery commission's choosing, but it wouldn't have any Federal money held out from it.)

I'll tell you I'd save a lot of it, but I'd give a lot of it to my friends and I'd use the H out of it to buy fun stuff - cars I'd _really_ like to have and I've always wanted to live in Florda on a house overlooking the Atlantic ocean and... you get the idea - the Feds would get a LOT of sales tax from me. And I think I'm smart enough not to go broke doing it, too...

[EOTE]

106. You still haven't addressed the crux of the issue.

In that this is a REGRESSIVE tax. If you think that the wealthy are paying too much in taxes now, that's fine, but be honest in saying so. This is a left leaning site and just about no one here supports regressive taxation. Regressive taxation is what put us in this clusterfuck we're in right now. If you want to make things worse by enacting further regressive taxation, go for it. But your argument that the stupid rich people will end up paying more in taxes and that somehow balances out everything is a pretty dunderheaded one.

[rally2xs]

186. You still haven't addressed the crux of the issue.

Because this issue is not correct.

It is not a regressive tax. It appears so on paper, but it is not. The rich people will pay more than the poorer people. That is not regressive. And lots and lots of the rich will be paying taxes for the 1st time, since they have figured out how to avoid the income taxes. We're going along here all by ourselves, paying our taxes, just because we can't figure out how to accumulate 100 million dollars of mumicipal bonds that aren't taxed, and live off the interest. 3 - 5 million dollars a year from muni bonds gets spent by these guys, and we don't get a damned dime out of it. They dodge the tax quite successfully. We can put a stop to it, and get them to help pay for the country.

[zeos3]

216. It IS a regressive tax

As we've said before ANY FLAT-RATE tax is regressive! It appears fair on paper but it is NOT. The rich might pay more in dollar amount but the have MUCH MUCH more than us in dollar amount to begin with. As a % of their wealth they will be paying penuts.

Of course they have some tricks to avoid paying income taxes, but most of their wealth is not really income as you or I know it. If you want them to pay their fair share, you should be a strong proponent of the estate tax AND capital gains tax AND gift tax, etc.

[EOTE]

233. You've just proven that you don't know anything about our tax system.

You say "The rich people will pay more than the poorer people. That is not regressive." That proves how little you know. No, that's not what that means at all. You could have a flat or even insanely regressive tax code and the rich people might still pay more than poorer people. Are you not bright enough to see why that is? Of course they're going to pay more in taxes when sometimes they're making 1000x as much as those on the lower end. A progressive tax code doesn't merely state that the rich will pay more in taxes than the poorer people, it states that they'll pay a GREATER PERCENTAGE of their income towards taxes. THAT is where this tax plan fails and fails miserably. Anyone with half a brain can figure out how this tax will unfairly harm those on the lower end of the income scale and provide MASSIVE tax breaks for those who need it the least. I can't believe you're still trying to argue this, you've lost the argument. You're wrong.

[rally2xs]

238. Here's what we oughta do

I guess, just to satisfy you, we should pass a law that say nobody may accumulate more than a $200,000 net worth. If they do, then "wealth redistribution" will visit you and remove the excess, and give it to the street people and other similars. Would you be happy then?

(BTW, that's where we're headed if we don't stop industry from leaving here and going overseas to build everything...)

[EOTE]

239. Nice strawman argument there.

If you need to use logical fallacies to prop up your arguments, that just further proves how bereft you are of ideas. Rather than admit you are wrong, you suggest I support something ridiculous and have me defend that. Would you like to argue about something I actually said or actually defend your boneheaded positions? Or perhaps I can look forward to you asking me why I support baby rape next. My money is on the latter.

[rally2xs]

241. It just ticks me off...

that there doesn't seem to be any sort of tax plan that doesn't absolutely rape the rich that will be acceptable to pretty much all the present company.

I maintain that someone in poverty paying 0% Federal tax constitutes a progressive tax.

I maintain that someone paying a higher percentage of tax on what they buy when they have more than I do is a progressive tax.

But it appears to me that nobody's going to be satisfied unless the tax scheme somehow confiscates all the income of anybody over X - whether it's income or net worth or whatever.

This, by the way, I detect as simple, pure, evil hate. You hate the rich. You're objective is not to finance the country, it is to bring punishment upon those you hate. At least admit to that fact.

But I have no idea where you wish to start confiscating people's income.

I am totally against basing any sort of tax on someone's income. We've been doing it, and it has bankrupt the country, chased away our industries, and bankrupt many of those it hasn't chased away.

Its time to quit doing the same things and expecting different results.

[EOTE]

244. Hey, I'm just trying to get you to be truthful for once in this debate.

Don't blame me if you can't defend yourself without outright lying or throwing up ridiculous straw men. You do know that right now, someone is poverty already pays 0% federal tax, right? And it doesn't require the government to use its psychic powers to determine how much to send the person in poverty every month. Once again, you throw up a strawman by saying "But it appears to me that nobody's going to be satisfied unless the tax scheme somehow confiscates all the income of anybody over X - whether it's income or net worth or whatever." No one here is suggesting that, and you the fact that you need to throw out such ridiculous hyperbole shows how incredibly weak your arguments are.

What we all have a problem with is taking our current system of taxation and making it further benefit the wealthy. The wealthy don't need any help right now, they're doing just fine, thank you. If the tax system is to be revised, it should be revised by making it more progressive, not regressive as this stupid tax would do. You seem to be incredibly ignorant of tax history as well. Do you know that we once had a 90% top tax rate? The top tax rate has only gone down since then and during that time is when we've seen our industries go away as you lament above. By the very logic you espouse above, we should go back to that 90% top tax rate, because since then we've "chased away our industries". See how easy it is to use someone's own words against them when they don't think prior to posting? If you'd simply admit that you wish for our tax code to become more regressive, you'd at least have honesty working for you. Oh, and to throw a little invective your way, you hate the middle class. You hate the poor and you hate America. Your (note the spelling, no apostrophe)objective is not to finance the country, it's to bankrupt it for the benefit of the already wealthy.

[rally2xs]

246. Hey, I'm just trying to get you to be truthful for once in this debate.

"Don't blame me if you can't defend yourself without outright lying or throwing up ridiculous straw men. You do know that right now, someone is poverty already pays 0% federal tax, right? And it doesn't require the government to use its psychic powers to determine how much to send the person in poverty every month. Once again, you throw up a strawman by saying "But it appears to me that nobody's going to be satisfied unless the tax scheme somehow confiscates all the income of anybody over X - whether it's income or net worth or whatever." No one here is suggesting that, and you the fact that you need to throw out such ridiculous hyperbole shows how incredibly weak your arguments are."

Define what you want, then. You obviously want to screw the rich. I'm just waiting to see the definition of rich and how much you wanna screw them.

What is the purpose of screwing them? Even your own words implies that you don't want to see them do better economically, that you want to use the tax system to make sure that they gain no additional wealth and/or lose some of it, not sure which. That is simple hate. I'm just not supporting a tax system that is weilded for the purpose of implementing someone's hate against another class.

"What we all have a problem with is taking our current system of taxation and making it further benefit the wealthy."

Further "benefitting" them? Howzzat? They've got - what - a 35% tax bracket already? You're not satisfied with that? Geeezzz... glad I'm not Bill Gates. Or Warren Buffet. You'd hate me too, and attempt to punish me for being successful.

What's the real point of this? Is it _JUST_ the hate, or does it have some tangible purpose. Why be concerned about how well "the rich" fare unless you are not really driven by hate?

"If the tax system is to be revised, it should be revised by making it more progressive, not regressive as this stupid tax would do."

Again, why not just try to benefit the country, rather than use the tax system as some kind of blunt instrument against a class of people that you hate? The system as designed would replace every tax dollar currently collected with one from a National sales tax. The poor in poverty wouldn't pay a dime of it. People at twice the poverty level would only pay half the rate. People at 3 times the poverty level would only pay 2/3rds the rate. People at 4 times the poverty level would pay only 3/4's the rate. So, what's your problem? Not happy that the top rate isn't high enough? We could double it and I, personally, wouldn't pay any more tax than I do now? Is that what you want? 46%. Sure, lets do it - we might even be able to balance the budget, fix the roads, build some new highways, even.

Just tell me what you want, and I'm real curious as to why. Make it 90% - that'll fry the rich, alright.... They'll probably emmigrate to France.

"You seem to be incredibly ignorant of tax history as well. Do you know that we once had a 90% top tax rate?"

Yeah, I know it. It was incredibly unfair. Make a million, get to keep only $100,000. Meanwhile, I get to keep $87,000 after making $100K. What's fair about that? It takes a WHALE of a lot more effort to make a million than it does $100,000, but the guy that made the million, and who undoubtedly had to create maybe 30 - 100 jobs to do that since you can't do that alone unless maybe you're a rock musician, actor, or pro ball player, can only keep $13,000 more than I can - I who put in 8 hrs, go home every night and forget about work 'til the next day, while the million-dollar guy is devoting every waking minute to making his enterprise go? Or again maybe he's an actor that is sitting for makeup at 4 AM to be ready to shoot by 7 AM and the shoot goes 'til 11 PM 'cuz they've got this venue for 3 days only, etc, etc. But these guys only get $13,000 more than me for doing all that? That's still showing the hate, in my opinion.

"If the tax system is to be revised, it should be revised by making it more progressive, not regressive as this stupid tax would do."

Right. Give people more reason to either not make an effort at all, and just take mundane work and make almost as much as somebody who lives/breathes his work 24/7, or maybe even sit home and do virtually nothing since maybe they've made all the money they need - that won't create jobs either. Just dry up entrepreneurial activity. Sounds like we'll go from bad to worse.

"The top tax rate has only gone down since then and during that time is when we've seen our industries go away as you lament above."

Yep - somebody finally tumbled to the idea that it might make for more enterprise by the people who are so inclined, but they didn't do enough about corporate taxes, so it was still impossible, or near-impossible to make a buck, and the factories continued to leave.

"By the very logic you espouse above, we should go back to that 90% top tax rate, because since then we've "chased away our industries". See how easy it is to use someone's own words against them when they don't think prior to posting?"

See how easy it is not to make any sense while doing it, too?

"If you'd simply admit that you wish for our tax code to become more regressive,"

I wish for a tax code that will make us all more wealthy. This'll do that. Whether it is techically more or less regressive, I couldn't care less about. Its a simple technicality for you to complain about, while Joe Blow, who was making $25K at WalMart is now trained-up as a pipefitter and is working in a brand new steel mill that has been built due to the tax structure making it a good idea, and he's now making $69,000 a year, with overtime. And there's all the overtime available that Joe cares to perform. That's a perfectly plausible scenario, too. That sort of economic activity is something to be expected if we create the biggest tax haven on the planet, with some of the best, most hard-working workers in the world available.

"Oh, and to throw a little invective your way, you hate the middle class."

Like Anwar Sadat said when accused of being anti-Semitic, "How can I be anti-Semite? Am I against myself? I am Semite." Well, I'm firmly in the middle class. It is they whom I want to benefit. I believe this tax system would do that.

"Your (note the spelling, no apostrophe)objective is not to finance the country, it's to bankrupt it for the benefit of the already wealthy. "

And you're the one with no understanding of either myself or the proposed tax system.

[zeos3]

252. WTF???

"glad I'm not Bill Gates. Or Warren Buffet. You'd hate me too, and attempt to punish me for being successful."

HA!!! Listen, I'll be Bill Gates or Warren Buffet and you can "punish" me for being successful all you want and hate me all you want. It'll be A LONG time before I run out of thousand dollar bills to dry my tears with.

BTW, Bill Gates AND Warren Buffet are IN FAVOR of keeping the estate tax. Did you not read Buffet's quote elsewhere in this thread about how if there IS a class war, HIS class is waging it and they are WINNING?

[zeos3]

254. WTF??? part 2

"Yeah, I know it. It was incredibly unfair. Make a million, get to keep only $100,000."

These are marginal rates. In this scenario, anything OVER a million would be subject to the 90% rate NOT the whole thing.

[zeos3]

255. WTF??? part 3

"It takes a WHALE of a lot more effort to make a million than it does $100,000, but the guy that made the million, and who undoubtedly had to create maybe 30 - 100 jobs to do that since you can't do that alone unless maybe you're a rock musician, actor, or pro ball player, can only keep $13,000 more than I can - I who put in 8 hrs, go home every night and forget about work 'til the next day, while the million-dollar guy is devoting every waking minute to making his enterprise go?"

For a small business you DO spend every waking moment thinking about your business. If you're the head of a big corporation, not so much. You make sure that the board is comprised of your friends and you sit on the board of their corporations and then you just give yourselves salaries and bonuses that REAL businessmen only DREAM of.

As far as creating JOBS, do I really have to come back here with a list of companies and their CEOs who SLASHED the workforce of the company and were REWARDED?? Give me a break with this bullshit!

Don't you get tired of genuflecting to your corporate masters?

[HughBeaumont]

267. Ah . . . the "Punishing success" meme. I didn't see THAT coming.

You do know that the 35% the rich currently pay (well, in theory. With their creative accountants, they really don't pay that amount at all) is the easiest they've gotten away with in 3/4 of a century, right? ONCE again, periods of great wealth inequality lead to great economic ruin. It's as historically accurate as time and tide.

"Punishing", Jesus Christ. It's called "paying their fair share based on their Cost of Living burden". Once again, taxes are for MAINTENANCE, not prosperity. You take away the instrument that keeps the wealthy in check and assured they'll comply by business standards set in place since the 30s, and they'll have absolutely no reason to be benevolent. NONE. Periods of low taxation lead to profit-taking and wealth hoarding. The simple reasoning is "Hey, you're giving me all this cash, and I'm making mega-profits without all that pesky "hiring people" or "expanding my business" crap? HELLS YEAH! I'll take it!!" History has proven ME right. Sorry if you don't like that.

You say that there would be no incentive to strive or achieve anything, which goes back to another favorite Republican assumption that "no one, and I mean NO one, works or worked harder than the very best, richest and brightest to get where they are today".

I always resented the implication that all of us are poor simply because we "don't work hard enough". Many of us spend half to 3/4 of our day doing something work related; whether it's commuting, the job itself, added work from the job or schooling to improve our career prospects. We're trained to be cubeslaves almost from the time we set foot into elementary school. We're not trained to think creatively (unless it benefits your employer), but merely to regurgitate feasible solutions within an hour's time. Love of learning doesn't factor in, because the schedule given and the kind you'll have in your future fabric box doesn't allow for it. Being able to attend college is only going to get more difficult as life goes on, what with no liquidity for student loans and companies cutting tuition reimbursement.

This is why I don't believe in "If you work hard and you're really determined, you'll go FAR in life" anymore. NO. That is bullshit. That is a cliche. My dad worked hard for 40 years. All he got out of it was two kidney operations, three layoffs, a defibrilator, shaky hands, tons of meds and a soon-to-be-cut-in-half pension.

I believe hard work is about a 5% determinant of a person's success in life; with personality, connections, luck and family fortune having far more to do with it.

You say we hate the rich? I say you hate the middle, working and poor classes so much that you would want to foist this punishing system on them.

[zeos3]

279. Good

Let's also mention that the rich use much more of the commons than us middle class folk. The courts are there to enforce their contracts. They use the roads more thatn we do to move their goods. Police, firefighters. electric grid, gas lines, etc all get used much more by big companies than by regular people.

It's not punishment, it's fair share.

[HughBeaumont]

288. Common Dreams wrote an article about the so-called "Entirely Self-Made Millionaire".

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/11/07/5075

To see what's wrong with this idea, it's easiest to start with criteria that ought to disqualify a person from claiming to be "entirely self-made." After we've applied these criteria, we can see who's left in the pool. So, then, let us scratch from the list of the self-made anyone whose accumulation of wealth has been aided by any of the following:

* Laws concerning property or contracts, and the public agencies that enforce such laws
* Public schools or employees educated in public schools
* Employees or customers who rely on public transportation
* Roads, bridges, airports, sewers, water treatment plants, harbors, or other utilities built and maintained at public expense
* Mail systems built and operated at public expense
* Public hospitals and government-licensed physicians
* Health and safety regulations created and enforced at public expense
* Police and fire protection provided at public expense
* Public libraries and parks
* Any public amenities that add value to commercial or residential real estate
* Government contracts
* Government-provided business incentives
* Regulatory agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission or the Securities and Exchange Commission, that sustain trust in the stock market
* The Internet
* A form of currency legitimated and backed by a stable government
* Social welfare programs that keep the poor from rebelling
* The U.S. military

If we use these criteria to determine who can legitimately claim to be "entirely self-made," the Forbes number drops dramatically. It's not 270 out of 400. In fact, it's precisely zero.

If not for the legal and political arrangements that we create and maintain as a society -- with contributions from us all, costs to us all, and benefits to us all -- and if not for what we call "the public infrastructure," nobody could accumulate wealth. In short, there can be no private wealth without common wealth.

[zeos3]

292. Thanks for this n/t

[EOTE]

268. Wow! Just wow.

Sorry, I'm still trying to recover from laughing so hard. My sides still hurt.

First of all, I entered into this argument with you with the assumption that you had at least a basic notion as to our our CURRENT tax system works. I should have figured it out earlier, but you know what they say about assuming, right? But anyway, here's a little grade school economics lesson, you'll want to pay attention. OK, our current system of taxation uses these things called "brackets". Once you start earning enough income to move into the next tax bracket, all income you earn ABOVE that level is taxed at that particular tax rate. This way you always have an incentive to work because the more money you earn, the more money you get to take home, ALWAYS. It's hilarious that you claim to provide the panacea to resolve the financial mess that this country is in when you don't even have a clue as to how our CURRENT system of taxation works. It's no wonder that you'd think our current system needs to be replaced so badly, because the way that our current system exists in your mind (I.E., not even remotely close to how the system is actually implemented), it's an even more boneheaded scheme than the "fair tax" you propose. In the imaginary system that you've brewed up in that head of yours, people would actually have a DISINCENTIVE to put themselves in the 35% bracket (over 250K per year) because as soon as they do, they're actually making less than they would when they were in a lower tax bracket. It's a good thing that things don't exist as they do in your head because this country would be far more screwed now if they did.

Secondly, it's hilarious that you accuse me of hating the rich when you have no idea the type of tax system that I'd propose, only that I wish to make it more progressive, rather than more regressive as you wish to do. I guess you're just using those same psychic powers that will be used to determine the size of everyone's government checks every month. You say I hate the rich, yet you have no idea if I'm rich myself. You do know that there are plenty of rich democrats who believe in more progressive taxation even though it means that they'll be taxed more because it will be better for the country and they know they'll be doing better because the country is doing better. I'm sure you had no problem with the tax system becoming more regressive during Bush's years and didn't accuse him of hating the poor because he shifted the tax burden away from the wealthy, right? But undoing some of the damage that Bush did over those 8 years by Obama implementing a %35 top tax rate is just more class warfare, right? Obviously Obama hates the rich even though he is rich himself, right?

Now I'm going to post one of your paragraphs verbatim because it will give me a good laugh and show everyone what type of confused mind it takes to support something like the "fair tax":

Yeah, I know it. It was incredibly unfair. Make a million, get to keep only $100,000. Meanwhile, I get to keep $87,000 after making $100K. What's fair about that? It takes a WHALE of a lot more effort to make a million than it does $100,000, but the guy that made the million, and who undoubtedly had to create maybe 30 - 100 jobs to do that since you can't do that alone unless maybe you're a rock musician, actor, or pro ball player, can only keep $13,000 more than I can - I who put in 8 hrs, go home every night and forget about work 'til the next day, while the million-dollar guy is devoting every waking minute to making his enterprise go? Or again maybe he's an actor that is sitting for makeup at 4 AM to be ready to shoot by 7 AM and the shoot goes 'til 11 PM 'cuz they've got this venue for 3 days only, etc, etc. But these guys only get $13,000 more than me for doing all that? That's still showing the hate, in my opinion.

I know I've already gone over this, but it really stands to be repeated. Do you REALLY think that this is how our tax system ever worked? Do you know that if we were to adjust in real dollars the income required to be taxed at that rate, not one penny of that million dollars would be touched at that 90% rate? Did you know that under the tax rate as it existed back then, in today's dollars a person with a gross million dollars of income would actually be netting about $600,000 annually? The HORROR! Meanwhile, you'd be keeping more like $75,000 of your $100,000 gross. Oh me, oh my! I think I've got the vapors. This hypothetical job creator only gets to net eight times the income of your hypothetical employee grossing $100,000 a year. That poor man, working his butt off and not even making an order of magnitude more than Mr. Six Figures. You do realize how incredibly bone-headed everything about that paragraph is, right? I mean, if you can't admit that, there's really no point of continuing this conversation. You do realize that by you simply saying something, that doesn't make even remotely plausible, right? In fact, going by your previous posts, it most likely means that it's incredibly far removed from the truth.

There are far too many lies (I'm saying lies because what you say is demonstrably false, so you're either lying or insanely ignorant of how things really work, I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt) to address in this one post, so I'm just going to finish by addressing another of your more ridiculous points.

You initially suggest that the reason that industry has been leaving this country is because the top tax rate has been moving too high and that's been scaring away businesses. Not surprisingly, your "facts" were completely wrong and I had to explain to you that during this period of time that industry has been abandoning the U.S., the top tax rate has actually been dropping precipitously. So rather than admit that you were wrong and now need to reconsider things, you instead say that the reason that industry has been leaving the country is because the top rate hasn't been dropping ENOUGH. You remind me of Reagan when he said that trees cause more pollution than automobiles do. Anyone with a modicum of sense would realize that's a ridiculous statement, but you take an addled mind and a very poor grasp of the facts and it's easy to make the insane seem plausible. Most people would look at the correspondence between greenhouse gases and global warming and realize that we should cut down on greenhouse gas emissions. Not you though, you'd look at those charts and say "Well, it's pretty obvious to me that we've been cutting down greenhouse gas emissions when we've actually been needing to release as much greenhouse gas as possible!" Doesn't make any sense, but I'm sure the people at the Cato and Rand Institutes would eat it right up.

Also, don't try and tell me you can't hate the middle class while being a member of it. There are plenty of self loathing people out there, just look at the Log Cabin Republicans. I was being a little silly though, I have no idea what your real opinions regarding the middle class are, I just know that you support policies which would devastate the middle class. You probably don't know that though, you're just trying oh so hard to get on the good side of Mr. Boortz.

Please don't try and change the subject to another dozen or so falsehoods until you admit that you've gotten everything wrong up until this point. If you'd like to start off fresh, that's fine. Just don't ignore that I've shredded to pieces every feeble argument that you've made up until this point.

[zeos3]

280. Thanks for that

:toast:

[rally2xs]

287. Its precisely this:

"You initially suggest that the reason that industry has been leaving this country is because the top tax rate has been moving too high and that's been scaring away businesses. Not surprisingly, your "facts" were completely wrong and I had to explain to you that during this period of time that industry has been abandoning the U.S., the top tax rate has actually been dropping precipitously. So rather than admit that you were wrong and now need to reconsider things, you instead say that the reason that industry has been leaving the country is because the top rate hasn't been dropping ENOUGH. You remind me of Reagan when he said that trees cause more pollution than automobiles do. Anyone with a modicum of sense would realize that's a ridiculous statement, but you take an addled mind and a very poor grasp of the facts and it's easy to make the insane seem plausible. Most people would look at the correspondence between greenhouse gases and global warming and realize that we should cut down on greenhouse gas emissions. Not you though, you'd look at those charts and say "Well, it's pretty obvious to me that we've been cutting down greenhouse gas emissions when we've actually been needing to release as much greenhouse gas as possible!" Doesn't make any sense, but I'm sure the people at the Cato and Rand Institutes would eat it right up."

Its not that the top tax rate was X, or that it hadn't dropped enough, but the problem was / is that the tax is not zero.

We have a unique situation in the world. We have the highest cost of living, and we have some of the most stringent pollution standards in the world (the diesel requirements for clean fuel in 5 of our states has caused the economic unfeasiblity of importing the 63 mpg cars tha GM makes in Europe, because it takes them all 50 states to make the necessary profit to do it. VW and Merceedes seem to think they can make it work, but only with a very, very limited line of cars. We have high labor costs, we have high safety requirements in the workplace and on the highway, and we have a big country that is most conducive to large cars that can cruise the highway for hundreds of miles per day and not beat you up with a small-car jiggly suspension or otherwise the rock-hard suspension that some of the others have.

We have a lot of problem, and what we really need in order to keep industry here is something to combat foriegners low wages and low cost of living and the subsidies that the foreign industries get via paid-for health care for their workers. The current administration is about to attempt to do health care wrong, and cost us more than we can afford, when what we really need is the French system of having the doctors work directly for the government, with no need for private health insurance which siphons off health-care dollars for "profit", and we need to get the medical malpractice lawyers the H out of the mix. No more medical malpractice "jackpot" lawsuits. But all the bad stuff will still be in the health care system after the current effort is done, so it will cost us more, not less.

So, the only thing left to us is the ability to eliminate the corporate income taxes, and indeed all the income taxes. Gone, zero, finis. That's what we need, and that's the only thing that will work. Everything else has been tried already, especially anything to do with jiggering around yet another version of income tax of any sort. It's like Reagan said, "if you want less of something, tax it," and the income tax is simply a tax on prosperity. And boy, do we have less of it.

Anyway, the writings at www.fairtax.org are quite specific, quite well-researched and quite well considered. The fact that some here find them inconvenient is perplexing, since I'd have thought that additional prosperity in the middle class is what everyone wanted. But it seems that what everyone here wants is simply to ensure that "the rich" don't get ahead by a dime or a dollar, and are willing to throw out the baby with the bathwater in order to achieve it.

[zeos3]

293. This is precisely where you are wrong

"Its not that the top tax rate was X, or that it hadn't dropped enough, but the problem was / is that the tax is not zero."

You could not be more wrong on this point.

[EOTE]

306. Once again you trot out those discretited arguments.

Even though all logic and sense would dictate that the economy suffered as the top tax rate was reduced, your problem is that it wasn't reduced enough. There's a word for that type of argument. Idiotic. And once again I have to point out that you've demonstrated that you know absolutely nothing about how our current system of taxation works. Don't you think you should educate yourself on how our current system works before you go about using your dedicated mind to try and replace it? I mean, how can you possibly suggesting scrapping a system and replacing it completely when you're clueless about how it works? Seriously, it seems ridiculous that you'd denigrate something without even knowing anything about it. And for you now to start talking about health care is even more laughable. If you know as much about health care as you do about our tax system, then any health care system you espouse would leave the country sick and broke within months. Please, if you want to continue this any further, admit that the great bulk of your arguments have been conclusively proven false. Without doing that, you seem just like a spoiled little kid who just can't admit he's wrong.

[zeos3]

251. Agreed! n/t

[wolfgangmo]

71. And let's not forget the welfare mothers ...

... driving around in their mercedes and cashing their welfare checks while having lots of babies.

Call it a fair tax if you want but it is just FlatTax2.0 and it is a regressive tax. It shifts the tax burden down.

Who do you work for? Forbes?

[zeos3]

154. Yup...

It's like talking to concrete, brother.

[EOTE]

269. Tell me about it.

I think I've got about as much chance of making him understand as I do turning that concrete into water, but I don't like to give up hope so easily.

[zeos3]

281. He's a persistent bugger

...you gotta give him that. Imagine how much better off the world would be if he was this persistent with something useful.

:evilgrin:

[zeos3]

152. You are absolutely right!

It IS class warfare at work and you're a traitor to your class if you think the fair tax is such a great idea! You are voting against your own economic interests.

"Why be so concerned that maybe someone is going to benefit more than you do? That's just "class warfare" at work. Fergedabouddit. It doesn't affect you."

It DOES affect you and me both. When the very wealthy pay less in taxes, the difference is always made up on the backs of the lower classes. Wake up and smell the class warfare instead of repeating "Thank you sir, may I have another."

Even Warren Buffet agrees: “There’s class warfare, all right,” Mr. Buffett said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/business/yourmoney/26every.html

[rally2xs]

156. You are absolutely right!

"It DOES affect you and me both. When the very wealthy pay less in taxes, the difference is always made up on the backs of the lower classes."

No, no, no, no, and no!

In this case, the taxation scheme has MANY more people paying the tax than do now, since people are so very good at dodging the income tax. We're going to tax the criminials for the 1st time, we're going to tax the tourists for the 1st time, we're going to tax the illegal aliens for the 1st time, we're going to tax the fat cats hiding their money either in numbered Swiss bank accounts, or non-taxable bonds for the 1st time, we're going to get a whale of a lot of new money out of this taxation METHOD. IOW, we're going to have a lot of help, and each person's expense, like 15 people in a van splitting the parking fees, each person will pay less for parking than if the driver were simply paying to park his own car all by himself.

[EOTE]

270. Do you ever get tired of spouting nonsense?

Collectively, we've called you out on every single one of your lies. Rather than thinking about that, or perhaps admitting how incredibly wrong you are, you instead change the subject every single time. I've proven quite conclusively that you don't even know how our current tax code works. So the points you seem to be making are as follows:

1) This tax plan will account for lost revenue and it does so without favoring the wealthy.
2) This plan isn't regressive, rather it's a progressive tax and it benefits EVERYONE.
3) OK, maybe this tax plan does favor the wealthy, but why would you concern yourself with that? Why do you hate the rich? You're waging class warfare!! Whaaaaaaaaa!!!

Also, must you simply copy and paste everyone's titles? Is it that difficult to make one up of your own?

[rally2xs]

272. Its simple really

1) This tax plan will raise just as much revenue as the current one, without causing the lower classes to pay more. In fact, it will cause lower classes to may much less tax, and have much more spending money.

2) It benefits everyone. If you're worrying that it might benefit someone else more than it benefits you, you're just being greedy.

3) The tax plan _doesn't_ favor the wealthy. It adds loads of currently-wealthy, currently-successfully-tax-doging individuals to the taxpaying roles.

Good grief - this plan gives unions what they've wanted for 50 years - protection from overseas competition via a tax that works a lot like a tariff but is not a tariff, so the furriners can't bitch about it either. Its perfect. You're just whining because some Republican may have thought of it first.

[EOTE]

274. Sigh. You saying something doesn't make it true.

In fact, as I've pointed out above, you saying something means that it's most likely untrue. You need to address the myriad issues you've already gotten wrong before you can start trodding out your tired talking points again.

Though as a quick rebuttal:

1) This tax plan is NOT revenue neutral. It will cause a dramatic reduction in tax revenue.

2) This plan does NOT benefit everyone. It benefits people who have a very low marginal utility of the dollar (I.E., the wealthy) because they will be spending a far smaller percentage of their income on goods and services.

3) The plan DOES favor the wealthy. See above. And you should probably educate yourself the slightest bit about how the current tax system works before you go about advocating for a new one. If you are so ignorant as to not even know that, anything else that you have to say about taxes is laughable. Really man, this is getting embarrassing. You're just whining because you can't find anyone here stupid enough to fall for that schmuck Boortz's idiotic and regressive scheme. I'm all about giving credit where credit is due, but the republican party hasn't had anything decent to offer the country since the 70s (I'll give Nixon credit for the EPA even though he wanted nothing to do with it).

[rally2xs]

277. You're Making "Wrong" Into A Hobby

"1) This tax plan is NOT revenue neutral. It will cause a dramatic reduction in tax revenue."

Those at fairtax.org that study this and formulated the plan say it will. They studied it, you're simply making assertions without actually reading it or understanding it, so I believe them, not you.

"2) This plan does NOT benefit everyone. It benefits people who have a very low marginal utility of the dollar (I.E., the wealthy) because they will be spending a far smaller percentage of their income on goods and services."

Wrong again, at least if you're talking about Americans. No, it doesn't benefit overseas manufacturers who have been raping us for decades, but as for Americans, yes, it benefits all Americans.

"3) The plan DOES favor the wealthy. See above."

Gimmie a <*> <*> break! I DON'T GIVE A <*> whether you think it does or not. I'm focused exclusively on the benefits to the people I know, the people that are having a hard time, the people that need help. This plan will cause so many good jobs to come back to the country that there will be no one that will not benefit, all up and down the economic spectrum.

You are focused like a laser beam on whether some particular sector of the economic spectrum might possibly benefit more than another. That is driven by pure hate - there is no other explanation. Your tone of writing betrays this fact, and you discount the obvious benefits of creating the world's biggest and best tax haven which would attract trillions of investment dollars to these shores. This recession? It would be just a memory in 6 months if we could pass this today.

[zeos3]

283. Ugh!

fairtax.org is funded by right wing ideologues and all they've "studied" and "formulated" is how to lower taxes for the wealthiest members of society (their base).

We are NOT jealous that the republicans came up with this bullshit plan, we are simply not surprised.

Believe them if you will, even though history proves you wrong.

You keep telling us that we hate the rich but you are always talking about getting the "fat cats" to finally pay taxes. You can't have it both ways so stop with this nonsense. We are being realists about what would happen if this stupid plan becomes law.

[EOTE]

305. You talking about hate is hilarious.

Once again, you have NO IDEA what my tax plan would be like. Talking to you is like talking to a wall. A very dumb, thick wall. I support progressive taxation because the whole country benefits. We've already gone through reaganomics (what you espouse) and it failed MISERABLY. Much like your pathetic attempts to have a debate. When the middle class fails, America fails. Your tax plan would destroy the middle class regardless of what your pathetic links from fairtax.org say (Hmmmm, fairtax.org, that sounds like a organization completely without bias). Don't you understand? Reaganomics FAILED. It failed miserably. It's not going to work if you try it again under a different name. Listen, did you forget that you don't eve know how our current system of taxation works? Aren't you a little embarrassed about that? Do you really think you're qualified to suggest a replacement for our current system of taxation when you don't even know how our current system works? Shouldn't you familiarize yourself a bit with that first before going on to talk so passionately about something else that you know nothing about? I'm asking this question in all honesty.

[rally2xs]

313. I Just Went Back

I found myself delayed in getting to work, so used the time to go back and read everything you've written so for.

I find that you've confused this fair tax plan with Reaganomics, wrongly stated that the gov't would have to chase around to determine who to send checks to, and 1 or 2 other things that show unequivocally that you haven't a clue about what the proposed tax is about.

One of your posts even laments that I would criticize a tax system without knowing what its all about. Well, right back at ya', fella.

Look, I'm no tax lawyer, have extremely little interest in our tax system other than how it affects me, at least in with respect to the ins and outs of how the rich get taxed. Do I want a tax system that makes it tougher for the poor? Of course not. But I firmly believe that the proposed tax system will result in fewer poor, as economic activity dramatically increases and gives them good jobs that lift them out of poverty.

What I do know for a fact about the current tax system is that I paid $17K in taxes for last year. What I know about this system is that I would pay dramatically less than that. I also know that I'm firmly planted in the middle class whether I like it or not, and I know that if I had made somewhat more or somewhat less money, I'd have saved a pile of money in taxes.

Another thing I know is that there are a whale of a lot of people that point their fingers at the current tax system as favoring the exportation of American jobs overseas. Why isn't that true? I don't know, don't care either way, since I know that a whale of a lot of American jobs have gone overseas while the present tax system has been in effect. IOW, the present tax system hasn't PREVENTED those jobs from going overseas. Sooo... I don't see much reason to study the present tax system, since if it isn't a CAUSE of the current situation, it ceratinly isn't a SOLUTION, either.

So, I intend to keep studying the tax system that at least has a reasonable chance of HELPING everyone make America great again. The fair tax system would definitly have that chance. It is reasonable to believe what the proponents claim for it just by examining your own reasonable reactions to the situations that would be created by it.

But of course you can't do that, because you refuse to learn what it is all about. You can't fathom the fact that you'll have dramatically more spending money, that you'll notice virtually no increase in prices of American-made goods, that you'll see dramatically higher prices for foreign goods, that such a situation will cause those attempting to import foreign goods to fail to harm us in our attempts to build up American industry to give jobs to Americans and get them OUT of poverty, and on and on.

So, anyway, I will continue to study the fair tax, learn even more about it, and consider studying the current tax system to be about as useful as studying Latin. The current tax system has FAILED to keep America prosperous and has FAILED to keep American jobs from going overseas, and that is enough for me to loathe it. Time to try something different.

And I don't give a rats behind whether the proposed tax is technically regressive or not, when it gives the poor a much better chance of becoming not-poor. I don't care to dwell on the history of failed tax systems. The founding fathers wrote the constitution such that taxing citizens was prohibited. The 16th amendment changed that. Well, the FF's were right, and this tax system has shown itself to be incapable of keeping the country prosperous. IOW, if it isn't the cause, it certainly isn't the cure.

So, lets just go back to the tax system that the FF's proposed, taxing goods and services, and leave people and their paychecks alone. That's all I'm saying.

[Hugabear]

309. PROVE it or get the fuck off this board.

PROVE that this new scheme would raise as much revenue as the current one.

Even IF the consumption tax raised as much revenue as the current personal income tax (which I still want PROOF of, I'm not letting you off the hook), how do you replace all the lost corporate taxes?

If you cannot provide concrete proof, then you're just talking out of your ass, spreading discredited libertarian bullshit.

[rally2xs]

312. OK

"PROVE that this new scheme would raise as much revenue as the current one."

OK, here 'tis:

http://www.fairtax.org/PDF/FairTax-Fundamentals_and_facts-070122.pdf

Stuff there is all footnoted, but is unlikely to be on the web. If you want to spring for the backissues of these periodicals with the original research, or spend time haunting the library of congress to find the original research, be my ghost - I don't even have time to answer people here tonight, or probably tomorrow nite or on thru the weekend. You see, it's ham radio field day. Maybe some hams here. If so, they know what a fun weekend is coming up, and I'm not missing it, even if this here is fun too.

[girl gone mad]

226. It is obvious that you're not an economist.

You keep repeating the lie that we have the "2nd highest corporate tax rate". That's complete bullshit.

[rally2xs]

271. Wrongo, Bison Breath...

"You keep repeating the lie that we have the "2nd highest corporate tax rate". That's complete bullshit."

Is not:

http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/22917.html

[EOTE]

273. Care to educate yourself?

http://www.smartmoney.com/investing/economy/high-corporate-tax-rate-is-misleading-22463/

Also, do you care to own up to everything else that you've gotten wrong? Or are you just going to continue to fling countless pieces of crap in the hopes of something sticking?

[rally2xs]

282. Still Unbelievable

Although I was shooting from the hip with the 90% analysis, and gave it not much thought at all, it still seems that you would like to have a 90% tax rate at some point. I still don't know where you would like that point to be - $250K, $1M, $10M, or whatever.

Its unbelievable that you'd even consider this, it is so unfair that it is just nauseating. The government has no right to ANY of that money, it's just necessary that they acquire some of it to run the country on. It should be the absolute minimum that can be gotten by with.

But you seem to wish to make it unprofitable to exert much additional effort to make more $$$ above a certain, unspecified point, because you'd only get to keep 10% of it anyway. I mean, why bother? My Dad used to complain bitterly about his paycheck, after working overtime most Saturdays, some Sundays, sometimes late in the week, and then the next-higher-tax-bracket that he would achieve in witholding would kick in, and although he only had a 6th grade education, he still knew he was getting screwed by the government. A blind man could have seen it.

And then others around here suggest removing the cap on SS and medicare taxes, adding an additional 7.65% onto your 90%, so at some point the poor schmuck would be getting 97.65% of his money confiscated.

Yessir, the government knows much better than he does what to do with his money. Give it to "the poor", and not help them a d*** bit by actually providing jobs that could be had by changing the tax system.

Hey, lets have the state he lives in jump in with, say, a 7% income tax, and then for every $1M he earns after your unspecified point where 90% income tax kicks in, and the 7.65% tax from medicare and SS that others want extended all the way up, and then for every million this guy makes, he'll owe $1,046,500. Not even a as easy as the standard joke of, "How much did you make? Send it in!
"

Oh, as for your URL, it says at least in part:

"Part of the answer is that big U.S. companies have become expert at hiding profits in tax havens overseas" Yeah? No kidding? They went overseas to effect a tax avoidance? Well, that's exactly what I've been saying, and exactly what we don't want them to do. We want them to stay here, and provide jobs here, but they can't - they're taxed out of the borders of the USA. Thanks for proving my point.

Y'know, Rush has said of democratic leaders that they WANT to create poor people, and keep the middle class poor and depending on them and on Goverment, so that they can dole out "help" and keep these people grateful to them for the help and thereby buy votes. Now, is that what's going on here? Would prosperity threaten your voter base? I never really gave a lot of consideration to that line of reasoning, but the attitude here toward a promise of prosperity for the middle class is met with a cold shoulder. That speaks volumes, although it's hard to come to the conclusion that it seems to be pointing to - its just too ugly.

[zeos3]

284. YOU are unbelievable

The 90% rate worked for the time it was in effect. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that high a rate now but give me an income for which it would start and let's talk.

BTW, nice job of taking points from several other posts and combining them into one ridiculous argument. Yes, you're right, we here at DU want everyone to send every penny they make to the government. I'm glad that's the ONE thing you've learned from this thread.

As far as rush and keeping the middle class poor and dependent, let me say this: If I didn't trust the republican party (...and I DON"T), I would think that this prebate bullshit is a way for them to realize their fantasies about the poor being dependent on the government.

The prebate flies in the face of republican beliefs by giving EVERYONE a government hand out. For the rich, this prebate means nothing. For the poor, the republicans want them to see the republican party as their benefactors. The right thinks they can BUY the support of the lower classes (as they tried with bush's $600 rebate checks). It's a misdirection which they can use to say they are helping us, meanwhile, they are truly helping the rich and screwing all of us. Reagan did this when he cut income taxes and then raised payroll taxes.

Now, you tell me, do we hate the rich OR do they hate all of us??

[rally2xs]

290. Absolutely Unbelievable.

"The 90% rate worked for the time it was in effect."

Worked? How'd it work? Did it keep jobs in the USA? Did it keep numerous US companies from going out of business because they were unable to compete with foreign industry? Did it somehow raise the standard of living of the middle class? No, because none of that has occured for about the last 50 years.

"I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that high a rate now but give me an income for which it would start and let's talk."

Don't look at me, I'm for a zero percent income tax rate.

"BTW, nice job of taking points from several other posts and combining them into one ridiculous argument. Yes, you're right, we here at DU want everyone to send every penny they make to the government. I'm glad that's the ONE thing you've learned from this thread."

Naw, you don't want everyone to send all their money to Washington, you just want anyone who has made a certain amount of money to not be able to make any more money at all. Either you take it all above a certain amount, or you take so much that further effort to make more isn't worth that effort, so a reasonable guy doesn't even try, and the outcome is the same.

"As far as rush and keeping the middle class poor and dependent, let me say this: If I didn't trust the republican party (...and I DON"T), I would think that this prebate bullshit is a way for them to realize their fantasies about the poor being dependent on the government."

I wouldn't have thought that there was ANYWHERE I could go to get the sort of twisted logic that declares that giving someone money on a regular basis is somehow bad, yet here it is.

"The prebate flies in the face of republican beliefs by giving EVERYONE a government hand out."

Its simply not taxing the poor. That's not so foreign to the Republican party. The prebate money is given, it's collected back up when they spend money, then its given back to the poor, then its collected back up when they spend, etc. etc. Its like water circulating in a hose with both ends spliced together. Doesn't cost the government much money at all.

"For the rich, this prebate means nothing."

Yep, for the rich, it means that they effectively pay the top tax rate, which is 23% of everything they buy.

"For the poor, the republicans want them to see the republican party as their benefactors."

The demcratic party could change that simply by out-promoting this tax out from under the Republicans. Bill Clinton was great at seizing Republican ideas and making them his own. Whazzamatter with you guys?

"The right thinks they can BUY the support of the lower classes"

Yep, you bet your bippy. When Joe Sixpack can go into his retail crap job at some big box store that is paying him $25K a year and tell them to shove it because he's going to be a machinist at the new shipyard for $55K/yr that is making ore carriers to ferry iron ore from Duluth to Cleveland, he's going to feel real good about the Republican party, and maybe vote Republican. If he sees y'all as attempting to keep him poor and dependent upon you as a political ploy, I think it is REALLY likely that he'll vote Republican.

"Now, you tell me, do we hate the rich OR do they hate all of us??"

You-all seem to hate the rich so intensely that you won't reasonably consider a good idea that would rocket our economy to be the envy of the world, just for the reason that you're opposed to the people you hate possibly getting more money than they had before. That's the way it looks to me.

[zeos3]

299. Are you serious??

"How'd it work? Did it keep jobs in the USA? Did it keep numerous US companies from going out of business because they were unable to compete with foreign industry? Did it somehow raise the standard of living of the middle class?"

Yes, yes, and yes. By almost any measurable standard. Kennedy later dropped the rate to 70% but tightened the loopholes. The real problems started with Reagan about 30 years ago when he dropped the rate to 28% and increased payroll taxes for the rest of us. You don't see any negative effects with dropping tax rates to zero but the evidence is clear. What was it that you said about doing the same thing over and over??

50 years ago, corporate taxes were about 33% of total tax revenue now they are about 9%. You don't see a problem with that?? Who do you think made up this difference?? You want to lower your taxes? Have the corporations pay their fair share.



"...you just want anyone who has made a certain amount of money to not be able to make any more money at all. Either you take it all above a certain amount, or you take so much that further effort to make more isn't worth that effort, so a reasonable guy doesn't even try..."\

By that reasoning, a single person wouldn't want to make more than $8,350 so they don't move from the 10% to the 15% bracket. If you think I'm full of shit for saying this then you realize dollar amounts make a difference. By this I mean, you'll get no pity from me for someone making millions and is complaining about high taxes.



"I wouldn't have thought that there was ANYWHERE I could go to get the sort of twisted logic that declares that giving someone money on a regular basis is somehow bad, yet here it is."

You didn't have to go any further than rush. All he talks about is how giving people money on a regular basis is bad. Perhaps you should read my comment on that again.


"Yep, for the rich, it means that they effectively pay the top tax rate, which is 23% of everything they buy."

You mean the 30% which you constantly call 23% (which will definitely be more than 30% anyway)?? You should have said they pay that rate on the money they SPEND which is a LOT less than what they make. One survey showed that the higher income levels save as much as 50% of their incomes.
http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/re...

BTW, the 400 richest people in America are worth 1.57 TRILLION dollars. Why should those poor souls have to pay estate, gift, capital gains taxes???
http://www.usatoday.com/money/2008-09-17-forbes-richest...

[EOTE]

308. I just have to shake my head a bit more regarding your very shaky logic.

"Worked? How'd it work? Did it keep jobs in the USA? Did it keep numerous US companies from going out of business because they were unable to compete with foreign industry? Did it somehow raise the standard of living of the middle class? No, because none of that has occured(sic) for about the last 50 years."

Exactly. The past 50 years is what has seen that top rate decline dramatically. I'm guessing you didn't think that one out (as you are prone to do). But go on, tell me that the reason is because income tax wasn't completely eliminated. That industry would suffer and suffer as the top rate declined and then all of a sudden magically rebound 10 fold as soon as that rate dropped to zero. Do you see how completely ridiculous that argument is? No? I shouldn't be surprised.

[EOTE]

307. Once again making up things to bolster your argument.

I simply said that at one time the country HAD a 90% top tax rate. I said nothing about what tax rate I would like the country to return to. And with regards to "Although I was shooting from the hip with the 90% analysis, and gave it not much thought at all," That seems to be your problem, you don't give anything much thought at all. And you say "The government has no right to ANY of that money". I'm glad you finally came out and said it. So why is it that the government has the right to tax goods and services, but not the right to tax income? I know why that is, it's because taxing goods and services benefits the wealthy and hurts the poor and middle class. It would provide a drastic reduction in revenue, it would discourage spending amongst the middle class and it would destroy what little industry we have remaining. And for you to make up insane statistics like the prospect of someone having 97.65 percent of his income confiscated is just mind boggling. Once again, LEARN HOW OUR CURRENT SYSTEM OF TAXATION WORKS BEFORE TALKING ABOUT HOW MUCH IT NEEDS TO BE REPLACED. You sound like some wannabe gear head telling me my engine needs to be replaced when I've got a dead battery.

Once again, I'm going to repeat your words just to have a good laugh:

Hey, lets have the state he lives in jump in with, say, a 7% income tax, and then for every $1M he earns after your unspecified point where 90% income tax kicks in, and the 7.65% tax from medicare and SS that others want extended all the way up, and then for every million this guy makes, he'll owe $1,046,500. Not even a as easy as the standard joke of, "How much did you make? Send it in!"

Wow. Just wow. I really suggest you read up on how our tax code existed back then and how it exists right now. With every post, you provide further evidence of how little thought you've given this. Are you capable of intelligent debate? Intelligent debate requires you to concede points when it's absolutely clear that you're wrong. You've been wrong far more often than you've been right, yet you still haven't conceded a single point. Until you do, there's no reason to continue this debate.

[hfojvt]

64. you might wanna brush up on your fundamentals

here ya go
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/55

most progressive tax. :rofl:

Of course, they seem to have tweaked it some since I wrote that. Now they claimed to be able to replace the FICA tax as well as the income tax. IF that is true, and their numbers definitely need to be checked, then it would leave the poor moderately better off in some cases. But not nearly as well off as the rich.

[rally2xs]

77. Fundamentals

Hi,

I read your stuff. Here's my analysis.

I too do not know where the group declaring that the couple with $20,000 income for a family of 4 gets their data that declares they would currently be taxed at 11%. I know that the social security tax and the medicare tax, together, are a straight 7.65%, with NO relief for those making small amounts of salary. These two taxes, BTW, would completely go away under the fair tax.

Anyway, $20,000 * 0.0765 = $1,530. That is a subject for national shame, I think. That shouldn't be going on.

Additionally, the employer pays a like amount, so that is another $1,530 paid _for_ them by the employer. But, in reality, we know that nobody pays taxes for anybody else. The employer just used the money they made for him when he went about his business, and instead of giving it to them in a higher wage, instead held it back as an "employer contribution" portion to the combined social security and medicare taxes. That's 15.3%, BTW, not 11%. Disgraceful.

Now, consider the fair tax. The family of 4 today faces a poverty level of $26,000. The fair tax "prebate" gives everyone an advance payment for all of their sales taxes that they will pay all the way up to the poverty level. Sooo... This couple which is part of a family of 4, would get in the mail, every month, 23% (the projected fair tax rate) multiplied by $26,000 per year which is the poverty level, divided by 12 months per year, which results in $498.33 arriving as a check or a bank deposit every month.

And, of course, since this family of 4 is below the poverty level, they will pay only the tax that they can buy with their $20,000, which is $4600, or dividing that by 12, $383.33 per month.

Note that the amount of $$$ they get from the government to pay for the tax that they are likely to spend under the fairtax exceeds the amount of $$$ that they're going to pay per month just because that's all they have to spend. The rest will have to come from Food stamps.

Now, lets not forget that whoever is working in this family and making the $20,000, is going to get... $20,000 in their paychecks, not $20,000 minus this and $20,000 minus that... etc.

I think the fairtax wins this round - the couple and their kids get taxed by the social security and medicare taxes, and lose $1,530 per year that way, while the fairtax ends up paying them an amount of money that is more than they're going to spend on retail items that will match what they received. IOW, the couple and their 2 kids end up getting free money.

I still like the fairtax here.

I would urge everyone that is discussing this to analyze the fair tax with respect to what a particular group of people are going to GAIN from the fair tax. You can't really evaluate it correctly without doing that. That's because the 23% tax rate has factored in the fact that there's going to be a whale of a lot more taxpayers paying taxes than we have right now. They are the currently untaxed who make anywhere from a little money to a lot of money - the illegal aliens, the criminals, the tourists (56 million of those I believe I read, and if they drop $5K apiece here... that's $64,400,000,000 or 64 billion dollars), and the member of the "shadow economy" that has been set up to avoid the income tax and effectively done so (23% of 1.5 trillion dollars is $345 billion, and then there's the $265 billion that it costs to simply collect income tax, which would be greatly reduced by use of a much easier to collect sales tax.

And, realize too that comparing how much money some rich person might save doesn't matter as much when you've got many more people paying the tax. IOW, if the rich person saves $5,000 more than he otherwise would have, it doesn't mean some poor person has to make up the $5,000.

What it really means that there is another rich person, or maybe a not-so-rich person paying federal taxes for the 1st time, that is/are going to make up that $5,000, because they're getting hit for their share of running the country that they got out of paying before - the criminals, the tax cheats, the loopholers (getting all their money from legally untaxed sources like Muni bonds), and so forth. We're all going to have a lot more help paying for the country's expenses.

[hfojvt]

78. you forgot Poland

er, I mean the EIC. Earned income credit, as I mentioned the $1530 in my Fundamentals post.

"Currently the $20,000 a year couple pays NO income taxes - zero. In fact they get an EIC (Earned Income Credit) of $3,641. They do pay $1530 in payroll taxes, assuming all of their income is wages (and above-board. Face it, many people have side jobs of cutting grass, or painting, or other contract work or a hobby (antiquing or arts or crafts) that they get paid in cash and never report or pay taxes on). Their employer also pays another $1530 in their name, and although that could goto them in wages, to a degree that tax is NOT coming out of their pocket. Even including that, their net tax is ($581) or -2.9%. I repeat, I have no idea where the 11% figure came from, but it is way off."

That couple already gets back $3,641 from the Federal Government, which more than offsets their FICA taxes. I recently learned I was calculating the child tax credit wrong, so that might be refunded to them as well. Also, now you can add the $400 Obama credit, which means they get back another $800 per couple.

Also, you neglect something else - the couple is going to spend the prebate too. So their total spending will be $25,980 and NOT $20,000. Thus they will pay an UnFairTax of $5975.4. Meaning they have a net gain of $4.6 from the Federal Government compared to the $1,381 they get back under the current system.

It looks to me like the UnFairTax loses this round.

As far as international tourists filling the gaps. Well, adding 30% to the cost of a trip here seems like it would logically reduce the amount of tourists you get, or how much they will spend. Many of those people you think are untaxed are probably not untaxed. Tourists, for example, are gonna pay state sales taxes, probably a local room tax, and other taxes if they rent a car and buy gasoline, etc.

I did analyze the gains for the wealthy and find them to be very substantial. The free lunch idea that somehow everybody can gain is not convincing to me. If the rich are big winners, that shows me who will benefit.

[rally2xs]

81. OK, Poland Rocks!

Yeah, this couple does get a pile of money back. That's great, and the only thing I can offer on this angle is that, in all liklihood, there is going to be a great economic increase from all the investment coming to our shores from all the foreign companies rushing here to build factories in a land with no corporate taxes and a workforce with the best work ethic on the planet.

I'm not a tax guru, but I took the tax situation thru TurboTax, creating a fictitious couple, Joe and Jane Blow with a couple of kids, and it looks like with the child credit they get $6,578 back over the amount of tax they paid. I'll take your word for it that they get ANOTHER $800 from the Obama credit, that I admittedly having been paying attention to.

Anyway, I learned something about low income tax computation just now, so this conversation has been quite useful. Thanks. I can't say that on the face of it the fairtax would be best for these people, because clearly, if nothing else changes, that's not true. But I do believe that it will change, and get dramatically better from the USA being the best place on the planet to manufacture things, considering our vast and underutilized workforce, natural resources, work ethic, and infrastructure.

The bottom line is that I think that Joe would have a MUCH better job in a world where we had a fairtax instead of the income tax.

[wolfgangmo]

111. I must have missed that press release.

The one where all the big multi-nationals got together and said that they would flock back to the US if we got rid of taxes.

ON the other hand they sort of did say that when they moved factories to countries with no taxes and an easily bought military to silence anyone who even thinks about starting a union.

Yup. THAT'S the future I want for America. (ahem - that was sarcasm in case you missed it)

[zeos3]

158. Do you mean to say you don't trust them?

What have they done in the past to make them untrustworthy?? :evilgrin:

[zeos3]

157. Wrong!

"The bottom line is that I think that Joe would have a MUCH better job in a world where we had a fair tax instead of the income tax."

Wrong! Joe would have a much better job if the corporations paid their fair share of taxes. If they were actually taxed at such a high rate (as you love to say) and the tax havens were made illegal, they would need to reinvest in expanding and creating more jobs and maybe even paying their employees more in order to reduce their tax liability.


"You may have heard: U.S. corporations face one of the highest income tax rates in the world, though the mention of "rate" is often enough excised, so that what comes through is the assertion that corporations pay too much in taxes. This is simply untrue if your basis for comparison is the developed world. The truth is that while the 35% corporate income tax rate is high indeed, the creativity and global reach of U.S. corporations make them among the most lightly levied."

http://www.smartmoney.com/investing/economy/high-corporate-tax-rate-is-misleading-22463/

[rally2xs]

159. Wrong!

"Wrong! Joe would have a much better job if the corporations paid their fair share of taxes."

What corporations? Those corporations that left long ago, or went bankrupt trying to pay for expensive labor and expensive pensions and expensive health care and crushing income tax bills?

Joe will have to go live in SE Asia to get that job.

Now, even Microsoft is talking about offshoring a significant portion if its jobs. And, the beat goes on.

Zimbabwe economic landscape for the USA, if we don't do something about these crushing taxes.

[elmaji]

229. Crushing taxes?

The only crushing taxes are those on the poor in America.

The corporations get away with murder.

Let us not forget taxes on corporations and rich individuals were THREE TIMES the amount they are now under REAGAN of ALL PEOPLE.

I don't remember big corporations exactly dying out under Reagan.

[Hannah Bell]

230. oh, you're going to get rid of SS & medicare, too?

[rally2xs]

234. Yep!

"oh, you're going to get rid of SS & medicare, too?"

The specific taxes for it, anyway. SS and medicare will be around forever, just financed so that they don't go broke like what will happen now.

[Hannah Bell]

235. scam.

[rally2xs]

236. My guess...

is that you don't know a think about it, and are going on pure emotion and partisanship.

I'm betting that if the aliens landed, and happen to give Newt the cure for cancer, you'd vote against it just 'cuz it was Newt, too.

[Hannah Bell]

237. my guess, from the various outright falsehoods you've posted, is...scam.

[zeos3]

256. Here's a fair tax fo ya...

How about you start talking about lifting the (approx) $105,000 cap on SS and Medicare taxes. Everyone would pay the same rate then. Wouldn't you think that's fair?

[EOTE]

276. No! That would be declaring class warfare on the rich!

And the rich are suffering most of all in times like these! Why do you hate the rich? Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!! Won't somebody please think of the rich?

[rally2xs]

278. I Simply Object

"And the rich are suffering most of all in times like these! Why do you hate the rich? Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!! Won't somebody please think of the rich?"

I simply object to the rejection of a system that would bring trillions of dollars into the country and create good-paying factory jobs that would greatly benefit the middle class, JUST BEAUSE SOME RICH GUYS MIGHT GET A LITTLE BENEFIT OUT OF IT.

I want EVERYBODY to benefit, just as long as they are AMERICAN. "American" is my only qualification for my wanting them to benefit.

[zeos3]

286. We're rejecting bullshit assumptions

It's not because some rich guys might get a little benefit out of it. They'll get a LOT of benefit and it will be made up on our backs.

You want to help everyone? How 'bout we lift the cap on payroll taxes then maybe we can lower the rate a bit for everyone. This would benefit small businesses and average working people the most, don't you think?? Is it a NO DEAL because some rich guy would have to pay a bit more in taxes??

This would bring in GAZILLIONS to the country!!1! I'm no economist, but I THINK GAZILLIONS is more than the trillions the fair tax would bring!!!@!
(To my fellow DUers, sorry, couldn't help myself)

[zeos3]

285. Oops, you got me!

(shaking fist) OH how I HATE those rich!!!!11!

:evilgrin: :toast:

[zeos3]

155. good info here, thanks eom

[struggle4progress]

87. The national sales tax rate would have to be about 50% to cover federal spending

Just take the federal budget and divide it into annual sales

Current minimum wage earners collect about $13K annually. A single minimum wage earner who merely takes the personal exemption and doesn't otherwise itemize currently pays about $1000 in federal tax. Such a person has essentially no options for savings and will spend everything. If half the income goes to necessities such as food and clothing, the person under a national sales tax scheme would spend about $3750 in sales tax. That doesn't sound like putting money into the pockets of the poor to me

[rally2xs]

91. The national sales tax rate would have to be about 50% to cover federal spending

Yeahbut... this isn't a "balance the budget" scheme, it is a tax collection METHOD that I think is better than what we have.

We're NEVER going to balance the budget unless we get people into jobs that pay a LOT more money, so we have people rich enough to pay enough taxes to actually do that. I think the fair tax has a good potential to do that, but we need to stop spending so much, too.

Or not... there's a whale of a lot of stuff that isn't even getting done, that needs doing, too. Infrastructure - we have to build a pile of new bridges, 'cuz the old ones are getting tired. Otherwise, there's gonna be more bridges fall down like the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis. And we can't go raping the military to balance the budget, either - every buck we take away, some poor soldier doesn't get body armor or gets it too late, or his high-tech weapon doesn't get a software update and it walks off time and becomes inaccurate after being kept at the ready for several days (patriot missile) and, well, any money cut from defense yields more dead American soldiers. I'm against that.

As for the poor guy that pays $3750 in sales tax at minimum wage, do realize that the goods and services he's going to buy will be bought from companies that have lowered their prices by 20% because their corporate tax just went away, and they _can_ (and if they don't, their competitor will and 1) they'll lose market share and 2) the poor guy can go buy from that competitor) and then the fair tax applied at 30% will result in a price of the goods and services that the poor guy buys being 4% more than it was, not 30%. So, although the poor guy technically pays this tax, he doesn't pay that much tax IN ADDITION to what he was spending before. It the $3750 in sales tax is computed at 30% above, then the additional $$$ he pays is 4%/30% X $3750 = $500. So the poor guy will be paying an extra $500 more than he was, but will actually, and for-real get the "prebate" at the calculated rate for a single person at the poverty level of $11K * 23% = $2530.

And, of course, of the two things that you mention the poor guy actually buying, food and clothing, the clothing could be bought at 2nd-hand, or "thrift" stores and he doesn't pay any National sales tax on those, either. There's no "fair tax" on used stuff.

[struggle4progress]

92. This sounds like pure fantasy to me. Lots of corporations pay essentially no tax,

and poor folk won't be buying used food at thrift stores

[rally2xs]

101. This sounds like pure fantasy to me. Lots of corporations pay essentially no tax,

Corporations don't pay any tax anyway, they just collect it from their customers.

"and poor folk won't be buying used food at thrift stores"

No, but they can buy food produced here, which means that the cost of production will allow the price to dip by 20%, whereupon the fair tax runs it up to about 4% higher than what it was. Not too bad, for getting to keep every penny you make. And if you're one of the suburban, non-subdivision people, you can do even better with a garden and maybe some chickens. Mmmmmm... fresh eggs. Plus of course the occasional chicken stew. Mmmmm... untaxed chicken stew...

[wolfgangmo]

113. This will kill small businesses.

Kill them. It is a great plan if you are a corporation. For the rest of us it will cause us to be priced out of the market. I don't have the bigger profit margins that the big boys have because of their economies of scale.

What do you have against main street?

[zeos3]

162. I agree

More people will be buying from big box discount stores or buying second hand stuff. Say goodbye to American entrepreneurship.

[trotsky]

99. Uh, if it isn't a "balance the budget" scheme, then what's the freaking point?

Just keep borrowing and borrowing? Head toward multi-trillion-dollar deficits each year?

My goodness, the shortsightedness and pie-in-the-sky idealism of the un-"fair tax" disciples.

[rally2xs]

103. Uh, if it isn't a "balance the budget" scheme, then what's the freaking point?

The point is to get our industries back - textile, consumer electronics, steelmaking, a HEALTHY auto industry, stop outsourcing software development to India and China and Russia, etc. etc.

Yeah, with that sort of economic activity, you just MIGHT get enough people working and paying taxes by buying things that you COULD balance the budget, but that isn't the point of instituting the fair tax. The point of instituting the fair tax is to avoid the economic train wreck brought about by the exodus of American industry to foreign shores. The economic train wreck brought about by the government spending (which may or may not have been necessary) is a different train wreck to solve.

[trotsky]

104. You have admitted elsewhere on this thread that this tax system...

will encourage people to buy used or produce whatever they can themselves.

Explain to me exactly how this will bring our manufacturing industries BACK, if consumer spending on new manufactured goods will go DOWN.

Jeebus Fracking Cripes, you un-fair taxers don't even think this shit through.

[Hugabear]

107. Not to mention that the "revenue neutral" argument is a bald-faced LIE

These UnFair Tax people love to claim that the UnFair Tax is revenue neutral, that it would bring in the same amount of tax revenue that the current system does. But what's going to make up for the all the lost revenue from corporations no longer paying taxes? Where is all that lost money going to come from?

[trotsky]

108. See, that's where the Magic Fairies come in again.

It'll work, because they just KNOW it will!

[Hugabear]

109. Maybe we should start calling it the "Magic Fairy Tax"?

After all, it does seem to rely on a bunch of assumptions about the benevolence of corporations for it to work - like the assumption that corporations will suddenly put aside their corporate greed and magically reduce their prices.

[HughBeaumont]

120. Or pay their workers better.

You know, something corporations HAVEN'T been doing despite having their taxes lowered with every administration since 1980 (with the exception of Clinton, where we had to suffer through a massive economic EXPANSION). Bust out the WANDS, boys, cause the magic is a-COMIN'!!

Teh stupid, it BUUUUUURRRNNNSSS!!

[zeos3]

164. POOF!!! WOW!!!

[zeos3]

163. They just repeat the mantra

and everything will be alright.

[wolfgangmo]

112. more wishful thinking

"companies that have lowered their prices by 20%"

Wow. Really. You honestly think that companies will "magically" decide to drop their prices?

[sabbat hunter]

97. no it wont

Fairtax's plan will tax everything, food, medicines, electricity, rent, gasoline, NG, oil, etc etc. Everything a person buys or uses would be taxed. Which means that even with a "prebate" the poor and middle class will end up paying a greater percentage of their income in taxes than they do now, and will wind up behind.

[Greyhound]

187. I'm sitting here trying to decide if it is worth the time to point out the numerous

flaws and false premises that this scheme relies upon to lend it an air of sanity...

Let me know if you're interested.

[HughBeaumont]

197. Rest assured . . . .

. . . the troll will answer each point with a meandering, directionless monologue that feels your trapped in an Atlas Shrugged tar pit.

[rally2xs]

200. But not today...

" . . the troll will answer each point with a meandering, directionless monologue that feels your trapped in an Atlas Shrugged tar pit."

Naw, I'm about to give up here and get on the road, rape the environment, and drive up from here in Virginia and to New Jersey to run a road rally with the Sports Car Club of America.

You guys are the sort that look gift horses in the mouth, y'know that? Hey, maybe you're not, since you won't / obviously haven't read the proposal and what people are saying about it.

[zeos3]

218. We've read the proposal

and we tell see a Trojan Horse when we see one. You see it as a gift and you couldn't be more wrong.

[rally2xs]

201. Well...

"I'm sitting here trying to decide if it is worth the time to point out the numerous flaws and false premises that this scheme relies upon to lend it an air of sanity..."

"Let me know if you're interested."

Oh, yeah, I'm interested. That's one of the reasons I've been talking about this here is that I've been waiting for someone to come across with some REASONABLE logic as to why it wouldn't work. I have to thank hfojvt for pointing out what the current tax system is doing for the very poor. There are certain credits for child care, etc. that I didn't know existed, that actually does make the current system better for those people that have kids and are struggling.

While that is not enough reason to completely scuttle the system in my opinion, I would really like to see a companion program to address that sort of shortfall. I don't want anyone that is REALLY needy to be adversely affected by this.

What I do want is to have fewer people needing welfare, and I firmly believe in the arguments put forward on the www.fairtax.org site that show how this thing works. I really, really, really believe that it would supercharge the economy, and put us in a MUCH better situation that will solve a LOT of our problems.

I know I would personally be richer. I believe that everyone I know would be personally richer. I want to keep more of my money. I what everyone else to be able to do the same. I believe that if this existed when my parents were UAW members, they would have been more successful than they were, and would have had more money. Corporations can abuse people right now when they hire them because there are few jobs left - they know that their employeess are not going to just "go down the block" and find another job like they used to. Well, I think we can bring back the days of being able to go down the block and find another job at yet another factory.

I want to empower workers. I want this country to quit getting poorer and poorer. People say, "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer" like it's some kind of natural state of things. It isn't. Before we had the income tax, the rich got richer, but the poor got richer too. People started will little cattle ranches and built them into empires. People started with an idea, and built it into an awesome car company like Ford. Etc. etc.

But nobody does that now. You can't, really - the tax structure prohibits it. If you want to build something, you're crazy for doing it here if you can do it somewhere else.

This either changes, or we're going to ne a bankrupt nation on its way to 3rd world status. We're going to look like Zimbabwe. Nobody will have any money, and that will be the end of having a good life.

I'm 62. With any luck, I won't live long enough to see that, but I think it's coming if we don't do something differently. I think this is that "something" that will turn things around.

[Greyhound]

227. What the hey, here goes...

First and foremost, this is a consumption, or http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c108:1:./temp/~c108Bs5i5i:e9083:">sales tax that is to replace all of the other income taxes, including but not limited to income, inheritance, and gift taxes. This is on it's face the single most regressive form of taxation, IOW, the lower the income the greater the proportion of that income is consumed in the tax. The bill states that the initial rate is to be set at 23%, however simple arithmetic shows that that will not be sufficient to cover current government expenditures and inevitably this amount will have to be significantly and eternally increased. Look at the situation we have today as an example, approximately 80% of Americans still have their jobs and generally still are earning the same amount they have earned, but they are simply not spending. In such a case revenues will decrease as expenditures increase and the only alternative is to raise the tax rate.

Assets already held are not subject to any taxation which further accelerates the accumulation of assets, while consumption generally remains stagnant, which will require even further increases in the tax rate. Presto, millionaires become billionaires and billionaires become trillionaires while you, the working sucker through consistent inflation and the increasing rate, are hit with more and more tax to maintain your already meager lifestyle. Steve Balmer can only spend so much and already has everything he could ever want so his consumption, and therefore the tax he pays, is insignificant and continually declines while you will pay ever more to make up the difference.

Corporate competitiveness has nothing to do with the wages of the American worker. Europeans and the Japanese already make more, and as it's standard of living increases India is feeling the squeeze from China and other slave labor nations. What the corporations that have and are leaving seek is a compliant (desperate) work force with no labor standards, no worker protections, no environmental protection, preferably in a totalitarian military state that they can buy to exterminate any resistance to their endless avarice. We do have an ostensibly high tax rate, but none of the major players pay anything near that published 35% and http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN1249465620080812">most pay nothing at all.

You say you want to "supercharge the economy", if that is so then the answer is tried and true and very simple, nurture small businesses. That is the engine that created the American economy, that is the sector that employs Americans, and that is the arena that drives competition and innovation.

Every business has a life cycle, large corporations are in the stage where they are already producing sufficient product to meet demand and becoming larger shows less return because they have simply saturated the market (almost everybody that wants a Chevy is driving a Chevy), therefore the easiest way to increase profits is to begin to shed jobs. Your parents worked for the auto industry and were probably there to see the inevitable results of this evolution. Just look at the http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/uaw-membership-drops-to-post-wwii-low/">numbers of UAW workers from the 70s to the present, 1.5M in 1979, less than 500 thousand today.

I sympathize with your desire to fix this mess, and the tax code is a horrendous labyrinth that absolutely nobody understands and therefore is subject to the opinion of whatever "authority" is in play at any given moment. The rich pay their authorities to fight for their opinion against the IRS and their opinion and you and I are just fucked. This is no accident, "In complexity lies the cover for duplicity" and the US tax code is a model of duplicity. But this "Fair Tax" scheme is nothing but a scam to get you to pay for the free ride of the parasite class. Just look at the "answers" in the http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_ask_expert">ask the expert with a skeptical eye, my favorite is the answer about simply excluding food and medicine from the tax. The very idea that what the rich pay for food is at all significant should give you the answer as to who benefits from this fraud.

[rally2xs]

248. Whew... That Took A While

"First and foremost, this is a consumption, or sales tax that is to replace all of the other income taxes, including but not limited to income, inheritance, and gift taxes."

Yes. Your sales tax link didn't work - it is apparently part of some Library of Congress search which was not saved by their servers. No biggie - I know what a sales tax is.

"This is on it's face the single most regressive form of taxation, IOW, the lower the income the greater the proportion of that income is consumed in the tax."

Hmmm… the tax rate of those at or less than the poverty limit is effectively zero. The tax rate of those at twice the poverty level is 1/2 the stated 23% tax rate. The tax rate of those at 3 times the poverty level is 2/3rds the stated 23% tax rate. The tax rate of those at 4 times the poverty level is 3/4ths the state 23% tax rate. That doesn't sound all that regressive to me.

"The bill states that the initial rate is to be set at 23%, however simple arithmetic shows that that will not be sufficient to cover current government expenditures and inevitably this amount will have to be significantly and eternally increased."

There's no question that it won't cover current expenditures. It is meant to be simply revenue neutral with respect to the taxes that are being collected now. So, we have a 2 trillion dollar deficit now. We would have a 2 trillion dollar deficit with the fair tax. Nothing about that changes, although I have calculated that my own situation with respect to the fair tax would give me $6K - $9K more money in my pocket than I have now. Again, I'm squarely in the middle of the middle class, so if this is so regressive, howcum I and getting more money in my pocket?

"Look at the situation we have today as an example, approximately 80% of Americans still have their jobs and generally still are earning the same amount they have earned,"

That is absolutely not true.

They may have "jobs" but they are not earning what they were earning. For decades, the good jobs, those being factory jobs, have been chased overseas. The jobs that those factory workers were forced to take, just to have any jobs at all, paid far less. This recession, I think, is one of a long series that we will experience, as the economy winds down like a flywheel without a running motor attached. We're just coasting. Eventually, we're going to have no good jobs at all, since they will all have moved to Korea, Japan, Russia, India, and anywhere-but-here.

And it's the income tax that is squeezing the life out of our industries. They cannot pay 1) Good wages and 2) all that tax. They're competing against foreign companies that not only have access to cheaper labor (usually), but also subsidization by their governments in the form of nationalized health care which relieves those companies of a lot of expense. Simply, our sum of taxes plus wages plus health care expenses that is placed on corporations is greater than that same sum that is extracted from foreign companies. So, the foreign soil is the best place to build factories right now.

And if you want to count since last September or so, there still have been a lot of job losses where the people involved took whatever they could find. How many do you think actually found work that was equal to or better than what they were getting before, with a down economy and a buyer's market for labor? Probably 1 in 1000.

"but they are simply not spending."

Of course they aren't. They're scared. They think they're going to need a nest egg. They're probably right. What they have is also unlikely to be sufficient to the impending disaster. This thing ain't over. There's still a necessary round of really nasty inflation that must occur due to all the spending money we don't have, causing borrowing. We're still in really, really deep. Things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. The last Great Depression took about 3 years to achive an 89.2% fall in the DOW stocks. We're only into this by about 9 months. Buy gold.

"In such a case revenues will decrease as expenditures increase and the only alternative is to raise the tax rate."

Normally, that's what happens, all things being equal.

A new tax collection method such as this one, however, would not be "equal." It would be far superior.

With the hidden taxes contained in all goods manufactured here going away, anything that is manufactured here would fall by about 22% (according to the latest stuff I was reading about earlier today.) The, if this same stuff manufactured here is taxed at 30%, to yield an embedded tax rate of 23%, doing the math yields a selling price of 1.4% higher than that item was before. So, for domestically manufactured stuff, the tax is virtually invisible.

Meanwhile, everybody paying income taxes of all kinds gets to start keeping that money. IOW, everyone is richer right away.

Then, you must consider the foreign sales. All that stuff that had its price lowered by 22%, will sell at that lower price overseas, or even in Mexico and Canada. Let NAFTA work for us! With no tariff, we can roll into Mexico and Canada with cheap goods - a $19,500 Jeep Liberty when it used to cost them $25,000, and let Toyota FC Cruiser from Japan continue to sell for $25,000, since they experience no tax break from the US Gov't income taxes going away, since they weren't paying it in the 1st place.

Finally, consider the foreign goods brought here. They get taxed at a 30% tax rate, yielding that 23% embedded tax rate that we've been talking about. So, the Toyota FC Cruiser that was $25,000 here is now $32,500 here. IOW, unsellable.

So, how long do you think it will take Toyota (and Nikon and Yamaha and Samsung and Lenovo and etc.) to realize just what a great idea it would be to manufacture their vehicles, cameras, electronics, and computers within the USA? About 5 microseconds.

Those at www.fairtax.org that study this stuff estimate about a $10 - $15 trillion influx of foreign investment to do just that - build factories. Why? Because they have to if they want to access the American market.

So, that's why Joe Blow will have $69K / year job pipefitting in a brand new steel mill. And there will be _tons_ of "Joe's" throughout the nation, doing everything from working our vast iron mines that have maybe 1 shovel running right now, to having dozens of them to provide ore to load onto carriers that ply the Great Lakes once again, carrying ore to the newly-constructed steel mills in Pittsburgh, still near all that cheap coal necessary to smelt it into steel. And, the "Joe's" will also be making large coin building the ore-carrying ships, as well as sailing them.

That's what I'm talking about. Get our industries back here where they belong. It why I'm totally unconcerned about whether the fair tax is or is not technically a regressive tax or not. Sit the "Joes" down and tell them they they're going to have a job that pays them nearly 3 times what they're making now, but is technically regressive and maybe some rich guy will benefit more than he does now, or tell the "Joes" that there's going to be a new, more progressive tax but they have to keep their $25K / yr WalMart jobs from now on, and which do you think they'll choose?

"Assets already held are not subject to any taxation which further accelerates the accumulation of assets, while consumption generally remains stagnant,"

Why do you say consumption remains stagnant? The people are getting to keep every dime they make, while goods manufactured here increase in price by only about 1.4%? Why would the consumption not increase, if people have more money and the prices stay about the same?

"which will require even further increases in the tax rate."

The tax rate either goes up, or the Federal spending goes down, and neither is a reality of _just_ the fair tax - it is something that will have to happen whether we change the tax system or not.

"Presto, millionaires become billionaires and billionaires become trillionaires while you, the working sucker through consistent inflation and the increasing rate, are hit with more and more tax to maintain your already meager lifestyle."

Its just not gonna work that way when we have $10 - $15 trillion coming into the country from foreign sources to build factories that are going to necessarily offer much batter jobs than can be had in a service economy. Business schools teach that there are only 3 means for increasing wealth - agriculture, mining, and manufacturing. The agriculture is all we really have left, since the manufacturing largely leaving has greatly diminished the need for the mining. We still do both of the latter 2, but not anywhere close to what we could or should.

"Steve Balmer can only spend so much and already has everything he could ever want so his consumption, and therefore the tax he pays, is insignificant and continually declines while you will pay ever more to make up the difference."

No, its not going to work that way, either.

What "the rich" do not pay does NOT have to be made up by the rest of us. Why? Because there will be many, many more people that were formerly going completely untaxed on the Federal level either because they were good at loopholes, or not legally required to, or were criminals that never ever report their earnings from such things as illicit drug sales. Those are the people that are going to make the difference, because they are going to pay their taxes every time they walk into a big box store and buy the latest bauble. Criminals especially are good at living "high" and will get nailed when they buy their new supercars, or big-screen TVs, and even all the way down to their Big-Macs. They're finally going to become taxpayers whether they like it or not.

And that's why it is not all that relevant what the rich pay. If they get richer, good for them, if it gives me an opportunity to get richer.

Oh, I almost forgot the tourists. When THEY come here, in numbers recently estimated at 56 million a year, they are going to probably drop $5K in domestic plane fares, taxis, car rentals, motel stays, flights into the Grand Canyon, Disney tickets, etc. etc. But remember, all the stuff they buy here will cost about the same as it used to, so they won't even hardly notice, and therefore will have no reason for hard feelings toward us. Win-win situation. And, if 56 million people drop $5K apiece, that's 64 billion, 400 million dollars - not bad for a new source of revenue!

"Corporate competitiveness has nothing to do with the wages of the American worker. Europeans and the Japanese already make more, and as it's standard of living increases India is feeling the squeeze from China and other slave labor nations. What the corporations that have and are leaving seek is a compliant (desperate) work force with no labor standards, no worker protections, no environmental protection, preferably in a totalitarian military state that they can buy to exterminate any resistance to their endless avarice. We do have an ostensibly high tax rate, but none of the major players pay anything near that published 35% and most pay nothing at all."

I don't agree. What they are seeking is what they always seek, and that is a bigger profit. If we are able to provide it, because we charge no corporate tax, we will see all our factories that left come back, or if not, then some enterprising American will build a similar factory and beat the foreign competition to death with it.

If the tax rate was unimportant as you imply toward the end of your paragraph, then why do corporations go to places like Ireland, with a 16% corporate tax rate - this was in an article I read recently.

Here's a paragrph from Wikipedia about it:

"Over the past decade, Ireland’s corporate taxation system has been a source of controversy with some of Ireland’s fellow-member states in the European Union. The French government has over the past decade, most particularly during the premiership of Lionel Jospin, consistently condemned and criticised the Irish corporation tax system. This criticism is based on the belief that the low corporation tax rates enabled Ireland to compete unfairly in attracting international investment. However, despite the French critique of the Irish corporate tax system, the Irish example has won many followers, with many ‘emerging’ and Eastern European economies following the Irish example."
Seen here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Ireland_corporation_tax

"You say you want to "supercharge the economy", if that is so then the answer is tried and true and very simple, nurture small businesses."

Yep, and that iron mine where I found exactly 1 shove running during my vacation in 2005, despite there being iron mine as far as you could see, would be just such a business, based on the number of employees they have. Doesn't take many people to run a shovel and a few dump trucks.

Give them somewhere to sell their iron - the new steel mills all along the great lakes, from the existing ones you can see from an Amtrak train near Gary, Indiana, to brand new ones that would need to be built in Pittsburgh as the demand for our new, cheaper steel rises, and we are able to provide it, because the tax rate is zero.

"That is the engine that created the American economy, that is the sector that employs Americans, and that is the arena that drives competition and innovation."

Yes, and it is best aided by letting it sell its products at the lowest price that it possibly can. And the easiest way to do that is to get the crushing corporate tax rates off the backs of these businesses.

"Every business has a life cycle, large corporations are in the stage where they are already producing sufficient product to meet demand and becoming larger shows less return because they have simply saturated the market (almost everybody that wants a Chevy is driving a Chevy), therefore the easiest way to increase profits is to begin to shed jobs. Your parents worked for the auto industry and were probably there to see the inevitable results of this evolution. Just look at the numbers of UAW workers from the 70s to the present, 1.5M in 1979, less than 500 thousand today."

The reason that Chevy is not doing as well as it could is because of a lot of factors, with the tax rates as number one. Other reasons are that the pollution standards have unequally affected them, since they are the 800 lb gorilla of big cars. Nobody builds big cars as good as Detroit. Nobody builds big cars as big as Detroit. Go ahead, try to find a foreign equivalent of a Lincoln Town Car. You won't. The LTC, for instance, has a trunk capacity of about 19 cubic feet. There was an Infinity a few years ago that thought they might compete, and got trunk space up to about 14.8 cu. Ft if I remember right, but that model was discontinued, and their big car now has a trunk around 12 cubic feet.

The foreigners can't compete with the Ford F-150 truck, the best-selling vehicle on the planet, bar none, but these kinds of vehicles were hit hard with the high gas prices last summer. And, of course, due again to the high taxes, as well as the pollution requirements and now the economy requirements, coupled with safety requirements that ALSO were harder to meet with bigger cars, kept Detroit from ever having the reserve capital necessary to retool to make small cars.

That's why their most recent bid to go "small car" was a proposal to build them in Europe, where GM in particular is making a small car that gets 63 mpg (diesel, which can't be imported into 5 of the 50 states due to (unreasonable) fuel cleanliness requirements) but the unions stopped that (as they should, I think.) So now GM is finally going to build some small cars here.

But if we wanted them to build a LOT of small cars here, we'd get them out from under the corporate taxes, and let their prices fall for overseas export, as well as giving their workers a lot more money to buy their employer's product.

"I sympathize with your desire to fix this mess, and the tax code is a horrendous labyrinth that absolutely nobody understands and therefore is subject to the opinion of whatever "authority" is in play at any given moment. The rich pay their authorities to fight for their opinion against the IRS and their opinion and you and I are just fucked. This is no accident, "In complexity lies the cover for duplicity" and the US tax code is a model of duplicity. But this "Fair Tax" scheme is nothing but a scam to get you to pay for the free ride of the parasite class."

No, actually the parasite class is the criminals, who are going to get hit with taxes for the 1st time, and there won't be a d*** thing they can do about it. The next-biggest parasites are those that sit with a pile of muni-bonds, and live off the tax-free interested from them. They're gonna get "hit" too. Lotsa leeches are going to start paying their fair share for the 1st time, without being required to like it.

"Just look at the "answers" in the ask the expert with a skeptical eye, my favorite is the answer about simply excluding food and medicine from the tax. The very idea that what the rich pay for food is at all significant should give you the answer as to who benefits from this fraud."

Rich, poor, tourists, criminals, fat-cat loophole users are all gonna pay for their Big Macs. I'm all for it. It'll even nick the illegal aliens - I knew I was forgetting somebody… Oh, yeah, a couple more - there's the members of the "shadow economy" that has been designed to avoid paying income taxes at all, and is very successful, being estimated at $1.5 trillon. 23% of that is significant, too. Then there's the cost of collecting the tax, about 265 billion for the current income tax, which will be much lower for a sales tax since the point-of-sale terminals are already installed in about 80% of retailers, and would only need a small software modification to collect federal as well as state taxes.

[zeos3]

259. Stop with the BS already

"And it's the income tax that is squeezing the life out of our industries."

How many times, all over this thread do we have to point out that corporations don't actually pay high (or in many cases ANY) income taxes?!?

These companies are leaving our shores for the reasons stated in Greyhound's previous reply.

You agreed with me, before, that the 23% rate you keep referring to was an obfuscation so why do you keep propagating this lie??

"What "the rich" do not pay does NOT have to be made up by the rest of us..."

Again, this has been refuted. ...and why do you want to repeal the estate tax...etc...black market (more "criminals")...how many tourists will come to pay 30% (most likely MORE) more than the old prices...etc???

[rally2xs]

304. What BS?

"And it's the income tax that is squeezing the life out of our industries."

"How many times, all over this thread do we have to point out that corporations don't actually pay high (or in many cases ANY) income taxes?!?"

Yeah, they go overseas to avoid the tax. It was even in a link someone here provided (I don't have that good a memory, and don't have time to go find it - gotta get on the road to work, y'know?) But that's not what we want - corporations going overseas with their dough in order to avoid US corporate income taxes. That is the PROBLEM we're trying to solve, at least one of them.

"These companies are leaving our shores for the reasons stated in Greyhound's previous reply."

That may be the one that contains the link that states that corporations are putting their money in tax havens overseas. That's the PROBLEM. Making our country a better tax haven will solve that problem.

"You agreed with me, before, that the 23% rate you keep referring to was an obfuscation so why do you keep propagating this lie??"

The fairtax folks say 23% embedded tax. I don't like using the embedded tax as a talking point, since I think it's misleading. But nevertheless, a 23% embedded tax included in the price of American goods that have been reduced in price by the amount of the corporate tax that is removed from the cost of the product when that corporate tax goes away and then taxed back up to the selling price, or the 30% tax taken on the the American-made product that has been reduced by 22% due to the aforementioned loss of the cost of the corporate tax. Either way, its the same tax, and the item that cost $10 before the tax will cost $10.14 after the tax.

"What "the rich" do not pay does NOT have to be made up by the rest of us..."

"Again, this has been refuted."

Like hell. It has not been refuted at all. The taxation of a vast number of people that are not now paying taxes will more than make up for any supposed gain that "the rich" may derive out of the proposed change in taxation methodology.

" ...and why do you want to repeal the estate tax...etc...black market (more "criminals")"

What about the black market? Oh, the black market that is composed of criminals that make millions of dollars and spend it living high, and will CONTRIBUTE TO THE TAX BASE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THEIR LIVES???? That black market? Well, that's what I've been saying...

"...how many tourists will come to pay 30% (most likely MORE) more than the old prices...etc???"

As illustrated above, an American-made item will be reduced in price by 22% due to the loss of the cost of the corporate taxes, then be taxed back up to the selling price by the imposition of a 30% tax. That means a $10.00 photo of the Grand Canyon tha the tourist buys will cost him $10.14 after the tax. Sooo.... what is the foreign tourist going to baulk at? 14 cents? Hmmm...

[zeos3]

260. You call this superior???

"A new tax collection method such as this one, however, would not be "equal." It would be far superior."

This stupid tax does NOT get rid of the IRS, it just changes it to a different tax collecting authority. It actually actually EXPANDS the workforce of the taxman. Your lawyer, doctor, accountant, and small business owner are now ALL federal tax collectors.

H.R. 25 (the fair tax act of 2005)

Check out sections 501-505.

Every DAY is tax day for the consumer. The 15th of every month is tax day for every business, doctor, landlord, etc. Funds must be kept in a separate account with fees and minimums being the responsibility of the collector (ie your doctor).

Large sellers (any entity that collects $100,000 or more in taxes per year) must maintain a surety bond in the amount of the taxes owed.

Any person liable to collect this stupid tax must register with the "sales tax administering authority."

Every person registered must designate a "tax matters person" to deal with the administering authority.

Every person registered must keep the tax records for 6 years.

Failure to register would bring a temporary restraining order, an injunction, or other appropriate action to enforce registration. AND THERE'S A $500 PENALTY.

Fail to collect the tax or have an invalid exemption? $500 or 20% (whichever is higher) of tax not collected and/or up to 1 yr jail.

Fail to remit the tax? $1,000 or 50% (whichever is higher) of tax not collected and/or up to 2 yrs jail.


You'd still need an entity to administer and enforce compliance with the tax only now you've made a LOT more people tax collectors. What to you think it'll cost your doctor or landlord or neighborhood bar owner to comply? How much will the price of these goods and services go up to cover these costs?

[zeos3]

262. (sigh)

"With the hidden taxes contained in all goods manufactured here going away, anything that is manufactured here would fall by about 22% (according to the latest stuff I was reading about earlier today.) -snip- BLAH BLAH BLAH -snip-
Meanwhile, everybody paying income taxes of all kinds gets to start keeping that money. IOW, everyone is richer right away."

The "hidden" taxes you are referring to are the payroll/income taxes of the employees. If this money now goes to the employees, the cost of the goods will NOT decrease because the companies expeditures remain the same.

If this money does NOT go to the employees, the cost of the goods may come down (most likely it won't because the corporations will just pocket it) but the employees are taking home the EXACT same pay as before this stupid tax. Now, they are really screwed because the cost of EVERYTHING just went UP and their take home pay DIDN'T.

[zeos3]

263. WTO

"Finally, consider the foreign goods brought here. They get taxed at a 30% tax rate, yielding that 23% embedded tax rate that we've been talking about. So, the Toyota FC Cruiser that was $25,000 here is now $32,500 here. IOW, unsellable."

Didn't you mention getting kicked out of the WTO in an earlier post?? How are you planning on getting away with the 30% tax on foreign goods??

[rally2xs]

265. 'Cuz

"Didn't you mention getting kicked out of the WTO in an earlier post?? How are you planning on getting away with the 30% tax on foreign goods??"

'Cuz its a tax on ALL goods, and therefore not an import tax (tariff.) It doesn't fall under WTO interest.

Just 'cuz the foriegners have had the advantage of cheap labor for the last 50 years with which to rape us doesn't mean we have to do everything the same way forever so they can continue to do it.

[zeos3]

289. I'm sorry,

I think I must have hallucinated you saying that we would tax ALL IMPORTED GOODS 30% and that's why these companies would come running back to us. Yup, I must have hallucinated that multiple times!

...all this time, I thought you weren't making sense...hmpf...:shrug:

[rally2xs]

291. We will

tax _ALL_ goods at 30%. Its just that the American-made goods we tax at 30% have already had their prices lowered by 22% from the "hidden taxes" from the corporate taxes being applied that are now removed, while the foreign goods experience no such lowering of their prices before the 30% tax is applied, so they get hit real good.

But its not a tariff. It just turns out that it works like a very effective one.

There's no reason that we should continue to allow the foreign industry to rape us, just because they've been doing it for the last 50 years or so, and now this proposal provides a means to keep them from doing it any more. Its like giving a Smith and Wesson to a woman about to be raped. That's what this tax method is - its our Smith and Wesson, a couple good friends, that will keep us from being harmed any further by the unfairly low waged, subsidized foreign competition.

It hasn't been a level playing field for most of my life. Now I'm ready for it to be an un-level playing field some more, only this time in OUR favor...

[zeos3]

301. What are these "hidden taxes"??

As far as I know, companies don't pay tax on raw materials used to produce their goods. The big companies get tax BREAKS for opening a store/warehouse/factory in a given city/state.

If you're referring to payroll taxes, then the price of stuff will NOT be reduced because if that money goes to the employees it is STILL an expense for the company. If the money DOESN'T go to the employees, their take home pay REMAINS EXACTLY THE SAME.

[Greyhound]

294. The dead link was to the Thomas.gov listing for the bill, I forgot that each query is

unique can't be linked.

"the tax rate of those at or less than the poverty limit is effectively zero. The tax rate of those at twice the poverty level is 1/2 the stated 23% tax rate. The tax rate of those at 3 times the poverty level is 2/3rds the stated 23% tax rate. The tax rate of those at 4 times the poverty level is 3/4ths the state 23% tax rate."

I know that's what the site says, but the actual bill says differently. You will just have to go to look for yourself as every link I find to it is either through Thomas (Library of Congress) or a site that has the text using widgets in a pdf subframe that can't be linked to in a BBS (at least I don't know how), http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-25">here's one, hope it works. What you posted is simply not true when you look at the actual bill. The poor will have to pay significant taxes and hope that they can get it back if they can prove they spent it. Let me ask you this, do you have every receipt for every last thing you bought last year? Every happy meal, every tank of gas, every Coke you stopped on the road for? Of course you don't, nobody does. And even assuming you were anal enough to actually have them, are you prepared to go into the IRS office every year and contest their judgment and demand your full refund? Of course not and neither will 299,000,000 other Americans that take in less a Mill per year, so they will be paying more than their share, and that is what this bill is all about.

You simply have to understand that a consumption tax is utterly meaningless to those with real money. Assuming that Oprah did her own grocery shopping, she would make 100 times more money than the tax she paid on her groceries in the time it took her to pay the tax. Put another way, if she were walking down the street and saw a $100 bill at her feet, it would not be worth her time to stop and pick it up, the 5 seconds that she lost going to wherever she was going to take that action would cost her far more than the $100 she would gain.

Why do you think that capital gains are taxed at a much lower rate than income? To help you? Not likely.

"it's the income tax that is squeezing the life out of our industries."

Again, you just have to research this for yourself, it is simply not true. I can't do all of it for you here in one post, but the reasons for the exodus of manufacturing from the US have almost nothing to do with wages or taxes, it is about control and the power to steal with impunity. The parasite class had the shit scared out of them during the 60s and early 70s, people rose up started demanding a fair deal for their efforts and America had the Constitution and it's accompanying laws to make it possible. We are approaching the end-game of a strategy devised 40 years ago in response to that period.

We've gone through similar times before, in the late 19th century we saw the rise of the Robber Barons and we got http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_Busting">Teddy and Taft who slapped them down and improved the lives of the average folks. We saw them rise again in the 20s and they responded to FDR with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot">the business plot that was foiled by one of America's greatest unknown heroes, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler">Gen. Smedley Butler. Now we are reaping the pain of the return to idiocy brought to an uneducated, unaware population through the hucksterism of Ronald Reagan by the same families that have been screwing us for over a century.

Again, I'm not able to provide an education in economics in a reply on a discussion board, but the best analogy for the "Raygun miracle" and disaster that it brought us (where all this began) that I know of is that he mortgaged the house that we owned free and clear for all he could get plus it's future valuation for twenty years, gave all the proceeds to his Wall Street handlers to finance their industrial exodus, and left the bill for us. 41 followed along with the same strategy, but missed some payments because our income dropped (because we were now making less stuff) and screwed our credit up (crash in 1987), but he found a loan shark that accepted his lies about the "return of the good times" and continued to borrow and make the payments on Raygun's mortgage. Then along comes Bubba Bill who hits the lottery with this whole new money-making machine (information technology and the world wide web), but he still has to make the payments on Raygun's mortgage and to 41's loan sharks, so he gives the money machine to the loan sharks who agree to make the payments on Raygun's mortgage until he's out of office. Next comes _Shrub and he takes out a second and third mortgage on the house, finds the credit cards Bill left behind and maxes them out and goes back to the loan sharks for another, bigger, loan and uses the proceeds from the mortgages to pay the vig on the shark's loans until he is almost, but not quite, out of office. And that's where we are today, There's nothing left to borrow against and we have no job, but the bills keep coming in.

This scam that you have fallen for does nothing to change or in any way help our problem. The Idea that some mythical "foreign investor" is going to come in and build a factory because we have no income tax (that he wouldn't have to pay in any case) is simply part of the set-up, the picture they paint to make you think it is viable, in this congame.

Each of your arguments in favor of this scam are based on ignored facts, half-truths, and outright lies, but you keep putting them forth. I don't think that you made them up, but you are simply repeating what you've heard or been told. I don't know, perhaps a mathematics class is in order. The very idea that paying a sales tax is in any way significant to somebody that has millions, let alone billions, is simply ludicrous. I know that you believe that you have made a very good living, but compared to the money the people that are selling this to you have, all that you have and all that you have earned over your entire life is nothing, change in the sofa, the coins in their pockets that they toss to a beggar so they don't have to step over him, and that's the real tragedy of this. You cannot fund the government with the taxes collected on Big Macs and Yachts, period. It is not enough and never will be.

The Iron mine you speak of is another example of the fatal flaw in the logic of this confidence scheme. The Iron is a finite natural resource and it's extraction is simply plunder. The initial value is in the production of steel and the greatest value is in the finished products made from that steel, but we allowed all of the facilities that smelt the iron and manufacture the products to be shipped off to China (mostly). The "fair-tax" hucksters have convinced you that if we just eliminate our only means of income and control over what is done with our natural resources, we can trust this magical factory builder to come in and build some foundries and factories and hire workers and pay them the "great wages" they used to make and all will by right and we can all go back to sleep. Well, look at what has happened in South America, look at what is being done in China, look at what was done in Africa, look at what they've done every place they've gone. Environmental devastation and horrendous poverty are all that they leave behind.

If we are to revive our economy it is us that will do it. It is the people that actually do the work that will take care of themselves. The parasites are completely dependent on us and we don't need them at all and the sooner we realize this, the better off we will all be.

An aside since you seem to think it is significant; The "criminal class", drug distributors and the like, are just like their "legitimate" counterparts, they make huge fortunes by stealing the efforts of others, and just like their "legitimate" counterparts have so much money that any consumption tax is completely meaningless to them. The only difference is that what they are selling is highly profitable because there is great demand and the supply is illegal, and BTW, many of the "criminal" parasites are "legitimate" parasites as well.

Your post(s) in this thread would seem to indicate that you are completely willing to swallow whatever lies the parasites want to feed you with no critical thought, I really hope that this is not true. Do the research, crunch the numbers, they are lying to you.

[rally2xs]

303. Prebate

"I know that's what the site says, but the actual bill says differently. You will just have to go to look for yourself as every link I find to it is either through Thomas (Library of Congress) or a site that has the text using widgets in a pdf subframe that can't be linked to in a BBS (at least I don't know how), here's one, hope it works. What you posted is simply not true when you look at the actual bill. The poor will have to pay significant taxes and hope that they can get it back if they can prove they spent it. Let me ask you this, do you have every receipt for every last thing you bought last year? Every happy meal, every tank of gas, every Coke you stopped on the road for? Of course you don't, nobody does. And even assuming you were anal enough to actually have them, are you prepared to go into the IRS office every year and contest their judgment and demand your full refund? Of course not and neither will 299,000,000 other Americans that take in less a Mill per year, so they will be paying more than their share, and that is what this bill is all about."

I don't know what you're talking about here. What receipts? Reception of the "prebate" does not rely on turning in receipts. Reception of the prebate is automatic, and dependent on one's status as a "family member." You register as part of a family, from a single person all the way up whatever size family you may be part of.

I can't link within a PDF either, but I can copy from one, so here the pertinent section is pasted below. Note that every registered family gets this "prebate" at the product of the rate of tax imposed by section 101 and the monthly poverty level.

Therefore, if they are at the poverty level, they are going to get a check in the mail every month for the amount of the tax they would pay with a poverty level wage. BTW, note that if they are below the poverty level, they're still going to get the amount of the poverty level times the tax rate. Therefore, they are going to get MORE money than they're going to give back to the government in the things they buy. That's a subsidy. OK, fine, I'm down with that - I really want to help the poor. I'd rather help them with a really good job, but if for some reason that is not working out for them, because maybe they have some permanent disability for instance, I'm all for the government helping them.

That is why I say,

The poor, at the poverty level, pay NO tax, it is sent to them as a check at the beginning of the month to pay for their probable expenditure for the month that would include 23% of tax in the purchase price. Those at twice the poverty level pay 1/2 the tax rate, effectively, since they got the prebate for all the tax they pay for the stuff they spend from $0 up to the poverty level. People at 3X the poverty level pay 2/3rds the tax rate, because, again, they "missed" paying that first 1/3rd because it was given to them by the government. And onward as my previous statement said, they get that prebate figured into their taxes.

BTW, also note that the 23% of the price of the items that the person in poverty pays is, if American-made items are purchased, invisible to the person paying the tax. That is, the item that sold for $10 before the tax would sell for about $10 after the tax, since the cost of the hidden taxes paid by corporations producing the goods, about 22% of the price of items right now, would be removed from the selling price before the 30% that is applied to the price as the "fair tax" is imposed, resulting in a selling price of about $10. Its $10.14 if you calculate a 22% reduction and then a 30% tax. But the poor person gets that "prebate" anyway, and only has to buy goods made in America in order to get the best retail price to come out waaaaay ahead in their circumstance.

Bill text below:

-----------------------------------------------------

‘SEC. 301. FAMILY CONSUMPTION ALLOWANCE.

‘Each qualified family shall be eligible to receive a sales tax rebate each month. The sales tax rebate shall be in an amount equal to the product of--

‘(1) the rate of tax imposed by section 101, and

‘(2) the monthly poverty level.




‘SEC. 302. QUALIFIED FAMILY.

‘(a) General Rule- For purposes of this chapter, the term ‘qualified family’ shall mean 1 or more family members sharing a common residence. All family members sharing a common residence shall be considered as part of 1 qualified family.

‘(b) Family Size Determination-

‘(1) IN GENERAL- To determine the size of a qualified family for purposes of this chapter, family members shall mean--

‘(A) an individual,

‘(B) the individual’s spouse,

‘(C) all lineal ancestors and descendants of said individual (and such individual’s spouse),

‘(D) all legally adopted children of such individual (and such individual’s spouse), and

‘(E) all children under legal guardianship of such individual (or such individual’s spouse).

‘(2) IDENTIFICATION REQUIREMENTS- In order for a person to be counted as a member of the family for purposes of determining the size of the qualified family, such person must--

‘(A) have a bona fide Social Security number; and

‘(B) be a lawful resident of the United States.

‘(c) Children Living Away From Home-

‘(1) STUDENTS LIVING AWAY FROM HOME- Any person who was a registered student during not fewer than 5 months in a calendar year while living away from the common residence of a qualified family but who receives over 50 percent of such person’s support during a calendar year from members of the qualified family shall be included as part of the family unit whose members provided said support for purposes of this chapter.

‘(2) CHILDREN OF DIVORCED OR SEPARATED PARENTS- If a child’s parents are divorced or legally separated, a child for purposes of this chapter shall be treated as part of the qualified family of the custodial parent. In cases of joint custody, the custodial parent for purposes of this chapter shall be the parent that has custody of the child for more than one-half of the time during a given calendar year. A parent entitled to be treated as the custodial parent pursuant to this paragraph may release this claim to the other parent if said release is in writing.

‘(d) Annual Registration- In order to receive the family consumption allowance provided by section 301, a qualified family must register with the sales tax administering authority in a form prescribed by the Secretary. The annual registration form shall provide--

‘(1) the name of each family member who shared the qualified family’s residence on the family determination date,

‘(2) the Social Security number of each family member on the family determination date who shared the qualified family’s residence on the family determination date,

‘(3) the family member or family members to whom the family consumption allowance should be paid,

‘(4) a certification that all listed family members are lawful residents of the United States,

‘(5) a certification that all family members sharing the common residence are listed,

‘(6) a certification that no family members were incarcerated on the family determination date (within the meaning of subsection (l)), and

‘(7) the address of the qualified family.

Said registration shall be signed by all members of the qualified family that have attained the age of 21 years as of the date of filing.

‘(e) Registration Not Mandatory- Registration is not mandatory for any qualified family.

‘(f) Effect of Failure To Provide Annual Registration- Any qualified family that fails to register in accordance with this section within 30 days of the family determination date, shall cease receiving the monthly family consumption allowance in the month beginning 90 days after the family determination date.

‘(g) Effect of Curing Failure To Provide Annual Registration- Any qualified family that failed to timely make its annual registration in accordance with this section but subsequently cures its failure to register, shall be entitled to up to 6 months of lapsed sales tax rebate payments. No interest on lapsed payment amount shall be paid.

‘(h) Effective Date of Annual Registrations- Annual registrations shall take effect for the month beginning 90 days after the family registration date.

‘(i) Effective Date of Revised Registrations- A revised registration made pursuant to section 305 shall take effect for the first month beginning 60 days after the revised registration was filed. The existing registration shall remain in effect until the effective date of the revised registration.

‘(j) Determination of Registration Filing Date- An annual or revised registration shall be deemed filed when--

‘(1) deposited in the United States mail, postage prepaid, to the address of the sales tax administering authority;

‘(2) delivered and accepted at the offices of the sales tax administering authority; or

‘(3) provided to a designated commercial private courier service for delivery within 2 days to the sales tax administering authority at the address of the sales tax administering authority.

‘(k) Proposed Registration To Be Provided- 30 or more days before the family registration date, the sales tax administering authority shall mail to the address shown on the most recent rebate registration or change of address notice filed pursuant to section 305(d) a proposed registration that may be simply signed by the appropriate family members if family circumstances have not changed.

‘(l) Incarcerated Individuals- An individual shall not be eligible under this chapter to be included as a member of any qualified family if that individual--

‘(1) is incarcerated in a local, State, or Federal jail, prison, mental hospital, or other institution on the family determination date, and

‘(2) is scheduled to be incarcerated for 6 months or more in the 12-month period following the effective date of the annual registration or the revised registration of said qualified family.

‘(m) Family Determination Date- The family determination date is a date assigned to each family by the Secretary for purposes of determining qualified family size and other information necessary for the administration of this chapter. The Secretary shall promulgate regulations regarding the issuance of family determination dates. In the absence of any regulations, the family determination date for all families shall be October 1. The Secretary may assign family determination dates for administrative convenience. Permissible means of assigning family determination dates include a method based on the birthdates of family members.

‘(n) Cross Reference- For penalty for filing false rebate claim, see section 504(i).

[Greyhound]

245. See, that's why I rarely bother to answer these queries.

Perhaps you just missed it and this kick will remind you.

[rally2xs]

247. Well, Hang On...

Your post was quite lengthy, and I've really wanted to ansswer it in depth. But, you probably missed the post where I said I was going to be gone all weekend - I got on the road at about 11 AM Saturday, drove to New Jersey, ran a road rally 'til 10 PM, got out of scoring at 11 PM, drove to Frederick, Md. and checked in at 1:30 AM for the overnight for the rallying starting in Frederick the next day at 11 AM. I think it was about 2 AM Sunday that I read your post for the 1st time? Not sure. Then I showed up for the rally at 11, ran it 'til 4, got out of scoring about 5:30, got on the road about 6:20 after 1) Delivering my rally navigator back to his car at the motel, and 2) figuring out what I wanted to do about the fact that I-270 toward DC was useless since it was moving at about 5 mph and I had 110 miles to go. DC area highways are like that, esp. on weekends (idiots talk about building more commuter rail to solve problems, but people clogging roads on a Sunday will not be served by such - we need more ROADS to solve that...) So, I devised a GPS route down 2 lane roads 'til I got to a place on SR 15, where THAT was absolutely stopped, and I saw a 1-lane gravel road off to the left. Consulted GPS again, it appeared to go "thru" to the next big road, and I took it. Sat there after the turn and worked up an entire route of secondary roads until I had a way to get back to the Fredericksburg area, popping out onto Rt. 17 near Goldvein. Drove thru F'burg and back to King George. It was laaaaate by the time I got back, 9:30ish, and I collapsed into bed about 10:15 PM. The response to your message was too long to be typing up at work, and I may yet not get it done tonight, but I'll get it done, eventually. I'm 62 years old as of about 3 weeks ago, and this sort of schedule is not as easy as it once was. I've been an endurance sort of auto driver all my life, tho, even winning the 1 Lap of America in 1987, (9000 miles in 10 days...) but this has been a trial this weekend - Its been awhile since I worked so hard to have fun!

[Greyhound]

250. My fault, no problem.

Sounds like you enjoyed yourself, I'm happy for you. It seems like you are interested and that's great, there are few in the tubes that are.

Take your time and let me know...

I'd really like to find an answer to these issues that will work (relatively easy) and can be implemented (impossible so far).

Peace

[zeos3]

217. Tell me about it...

Every time I think this thing will go away, I log on and see there's been more added to it by this guy.

[PA Democrat]

204. Here's a CLUE.

Wealthy people are wealthy because they earn more than they spend. Even with a "prebate" to help the poor, the so-called "fair tax" would shift the vast burden of taxes to the middle class.



http://www.factcheck.org/taxes/unspinning_the_fairtax.html

Go peddle your moronic "fair tax" propaganda somewhere else.

[Hugabear]

3. Gawd, not the UnFair Tax again

One of the worst tax ideas ever. Sure, let's scrap the income tax, replace it with a punishing 30% sales tax. They claim it would "only" be 23%, but many reports I've read have said it would have to be at least 30%, and possibly as high as 60%. Not only do they want to tax all goods - and I do mean ALL, including food & medicine - but they also want to tax all SERVICES as well.

[LiberalFighter]

4. Even if it is 23% it is higher than what most people are paying now.

I wonder how many service businesses would go out of business because of the tax?

[Amerigo Vespucci]

8. You can find article after article after article on the Web...

...all discussing the fact that the 23% would never work, that it would have to be closer to 50%-60% in order for the government to keep its current level of revenue.

The other aspect that is mentioned is while Linder, Boortz and the rest shill this as a means of "abolishing the I.R.S.," a new bureaucracy would need to be formed in its place, because this thing wouldn't run itself.

Also, a tremendous "black market barter" system would rise. I know that if I could trade my services in return for products and services I need to survive without taking a 50%-60% tax bite on my income, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

The list goes on and on and on. There's a reason why this "movement" stepped into the spotlight in 2003 and has been consistently shot down ever since (Bush called it a "kind of interesting idea" that "should be explored" until John Kerry made a series of high-profile statements about how "every day would be April 15th," at which point Junior withdrew his "interest" until after the election, and since his second term was a shambles, he never revisited it).

Huckabee was a huge fan of this. It was at the center of his platform, and we all know how well that worked for him.

[LiberalFighter]

9. I like that Kerry statement. "Every day would be April 15th"

[nxylas]

105. Libertarians don't want the gubmint to keep its current level of revenue

I live in a state (South Carolina) with a highly regressive tax structure and a Libertarian governor, Mark Sanford, who was often the only person to vote with Ron Paul when he was a congressman. Naturally, when the economy goes south, so does spending, and so does the state's revenue from sales tax. The result is grinding poverty, high unemployment and schools with no roof, all exacerbated by Sanford's refusal to accept federal stimulus funds until the state legislature forced him to. It's not quite the Libertarian's paradise, Somalia, but it's as close as you'll find in 21st century America.

[rally2xs]

14. None

"I wonder how many service businesses would go out of
business because of the tax?"

Uh... zero.  It's 'cuz they'd be out from under the crushing,
unfair, income tax.  There would be tons _more_ service
industries, or all kinds of industries than there were before.
 They would be able to charge about the same, but people would
have more money to buy their service.  Its a win-win-win-win
situation for everybody.

[LiberalFighter]

20. DId you read the response about taxing services too? And if at the 50% plus rate?

[Amerigo Vespucci]

84. Services like medical & dental visits. Virtually everything that costs money would be taxed.

For those who haven't been following this from the beginning, the Linder plan / National Sales Tax discussed below IS "The Fair Tax." They simply changed the name and brought right-wing radio thug Neal Boortz on board to push it. In the "Joe The Plumber" appearances, he's had Linder and Boortz with him.

August 09, 2004, 8:47 a.m.
A National Sales Tax No Vote
The rates would be vastly higher than what you might suspect.

http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_bartlett/bartlett200408090847.asp

An unstated assumption is that the 23 percent rate proposed by Linder is comparable to existing state and local sales taxes, where the tax comes on top of the purchase price. Thus, a 5 percent sales tax on a $1 purchase comes to $1.05.

But that’s not the way the Linder plan works. He deceptively calculates the rate as if the tax is part of the purchase price. He calls this the tax-inclusive rate. Calculating the rate the normal way people are accustomed to with state and local sales taxes would require a 30 percent tax rate, not 23 percent.

When Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation scored the Linder proposal four years ago it estimated that it would actually require a tax-inclusive rate of 36 percent, not 23 percent, to equal current federal revenues. Calculating the rate in a normal, tax-exclusive manner would mean a 57 percent rate.

Obviously, the federal government is not going to impose tax rates this high, nor would anyone pay them if it did. There would be a massive tax revolt.

The Linder bill (H.R. 25) is also deceptive in its basic assumption that all consumption of goods and services in the U.S. would be taxed. Implicitly, Americans would be taxed on, among other things, all medical care, purchases of new homes, and services provided by state and local governments if Linder’s bill became law.

[mitchum]

22. Does Boortz's hand get uncomfortable after being up there for awhile?

Uh...welcome...to DU

[EOTE]

50. Why on earth would those on the lower end of the income scale be motivated to buy?

Considering that the more they buy, the more they are taxed, this would discourage all but those who have a large amount of disposable income from purchasing anything. You really haven't thought this through at all. A regressive tax is the absolute last thing that this country needs right now.

[hfojvt]

66. that's funny. You think the income tax is unfair

and that the UnFairTax is fair.


It's opposite day, isn't it?

[zeos3]

167. It sure is!

[wolfgangmo]

72. The Fair tax. Wow.

It's like a sprinkling of magical libertarian pixie dust. We don't know how it will work out but it just will.

[HughBeaumont]

82. I'm literally 20 IQ points DUMBER having read this kid's word salad essays.

My GOD. In how many words can you say "I'm going to flat out ignore all the history you have on your side and put 100% of my faith in something I KNOW will work because a radio talk show host and a non-plumber nutjob said so!"? It's amazing how some forget that taxes are for MAINTENANCE, not prosperity. Historically, periods of low taxation, profit taking and wealth hoarding have led to nothing but economic ruin for years. I can't even imagine what a flat-out nightmare this pie-in-the-sky bullshit would bring on.

Taxophobes are funny people. Reaganomics = idiocy.

[wolfgangmo]

114. That idea is full of shit, delusional, or just a paid ad for the rich.

""I wonder how many service businesses would go out of business because of the tax?"

Uh... zero. It's 'cuz they'd be out from under the crushing, unfair, income tax. There would be tons _more_ service industries, or all kinds of industries than there were before. They would be able to charge about the same, but people would have more money to buy their service. Its a win-win-win-win situation for everybody."

Your were asked a question about service companies. Many of the them are small businesses and are NOT being crushed by income tax. But a sales tax on our services will cause small businesses to get creamed by the big companies who are able to run their companies with a lower percentage of overall sales being used for overhead and administrative costs.

I've asked it before and I'll ask it again, who are you working for? You are posting too vigorously, too often, with too much tenacity and in too much detail to be doing this like the rest of the casual bloggers on here. My guess is that you are some paid shill.

[Hugabear]

116. All 30 of his posts are in this thread

He probably knows that if he were to start spouting his nonsense in other threads on DU, he'd get tombstoned pretty damned quickly. I'm surprised he's lasted this long to be honest.

[rally2xs]

137. All 30 of his posts are in this thread

The thread existed. I googled it. I found it. I discuss it.

I normally vote Republican, identify with Republicans, but its quite a lot of it mainly because y'all seem to try to come up with ways to begin down paths toward collecting up all the guns.

Otherwise, I LIKE unions, my parents were both UAW, I benefitted greatly from that, I believe in choice, and desparately want the lower-class workers treated fairly in this country.

That's why I'm talking about the fair tax. I truly believe that is our best avenue to prosperity is this plan to ditch the income tax, ALL the varieties of it, and pay for the country with a consumption tax. We'll have a LOT more people paying tax, and we'll be able to do something about the terribly tilted playing field that American workers have had to suffer for the last 50 years.

I mean, yeah, the foriegners can go ahead and work for peanuts, but their governments then are necesarily forced to obtain revenue by taxing their corporations. Heck, their PEOPLE don't have any money - they're working for peanuts - so their governments tax their corporations and they pass on that expense to us!!!

But now, we can reduce our corporate taxes to zero, so that stuff made here is competitive with stuff made there, because although their labor is cheap, we will offset it by making our taxes cheap. We fight "cheap" with "cheap."

And, we can WIN that game!!! We have the workforce with the best work ethic on the planet, and that same workforce is the most efficient on the planet. Given a level playing field, like this tax collection METHOD would do, I believe that the American worker can whip the snot out of any given foriegn workforce.

We _will_ win this one, if we just try.

[zeos3]

168. I normally vote Republican, identify with Republicans...

No Shit!?! I never saw that coming!!1! :sarcasm:

If you like unions and want workers to be treated fairly, why don't you speak out on issues that would BENEFIT THEM??

Repeal NAFTA, make the minimum wage a living wage, single payer healthcare (or Medicare for all), lift the cap on income paying FICA (and possible reduce the rate for everyone as a result). The list can go on and on in MUCH better ways than the bullshit fair tax.

[rally2xs]

183. I am

"If you like unions and want workers to be treated fairly, why don't you speak out on issues that would BENEFIT THEM??"

I am, and I firmly believe that this is it. This taxing method will put everyone to work in GOOD jobs, not WalMart minimum wage jobs. Our biggest problem in 5 years might be labor shortage. We could declare the illegal aliens to be citizens, train 'em up to be tool and die people, pipefitters, electricians, millwrights, etc. and be the capital of the world's industrial might again.

We can't keep doing the same stuff and expect different results. The "same stuff" would be screwing corporations so that they go overseas, or die on the vine here never to be heard from again.

[zeos3]

213. The "same stuff" would be catering to the corporations

They've been paying less and less tax over the years already, both as a share of total tax revenues and in effective tax rate. The "US has the 2nd highest corporate tax rate" line is a canard. The effective tax these companies pay is much less than what you say.

When we give the corporations a break on their taxes and the wealthy a break on theirs, that money will have to be made up by you and me.

[rally2xs]

249. How Hard Can This Be?

"They've been paying less and less tax over the years already, both as a share of total tax revenues and in effective tax rate. The "US has the 2nd highest corporate tax rate" line is a canard. The effective tax these companies pay is much less than what you say.

When we give the corporations a break on their taxes and the wealthy a break on theirs, that money will have to be made up by you and me."

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

The remainder is NOT made up by you and me, because the tax structure changes.

The remaider is going to be made up by all the extra people that are getting around the income tax right now - criminals, illegal aliens, fat cats that are living on curently untaxable sources, members of the "shadow economy" that has been created for the purpose of avoiding income tax and estimated at $1.5 trillion, and a new class of taxpayers, tourists.

And then there's the $265 billion it costs to collect the income tax, that will be drastically lower for an easier-to-collect sales tax. That will help offset a lot of what might otherwise be lost.

OTOH, yes, when the massive influx of foreign money hits our shores to build 1000's of factories to build things in a land of zero corporate taxes, the American middle classes will get jobs in them, making probably double their crappy WalMart-style jobs, and probably buy more stuff than they were buying, and inadvertently pay more tax. But they won't notice it, because they're going to be having too much of a good time spending the extra $$$ on fun stuff...

[zeos3]

257. Yes

The remainder IS made up by you and me. Remember (upthread) when I quoted that "obvious mathematical law" that says so. That was a quote from some "big thinkers" on the subject that you always deffer to and also another quote about flat rate taxes from the Reagan Treasury.

"The remaider is going to be made up by all the extra people that are getting around the income tax right now - criminals, illegal aliens, fat cats that are living on curently untaxable sources, members of the "shadow economy" that has been created for the purpose of avoiding income tax and estimated at $1.5 trillion, and a new class of taxpayers, tourists."

If you're worried about the "fat cats", why do you want to repeal the estate, gift, and capital gains taxes that they predominantly pay?? How about raising the capital gains tax so it's NOT less than the taxes that you and I pay on our wages?? Doesn't that sound fair??

I'm SURE there won't be a "shadow economy" (black market) of people trying to avoid THIS stupid tax!
:sarcasm:

Oh yeah, and there will be a FLOOD of tourists coming here to buy stuff that costs at least 30% more than it once did. Where will we house all these tourists???

[rally2xs]

264. Yes

"The remainder IS made up by you and me. Remember (upthread) when I quoted that "obvious mathematical law" that says so. That was a quote from some "big thinkers" on the subject that you always deffer to and also another quote about flat rate taxes from the Reagan Treasury."

You're simply wrong, but have to keep this up to appear to have a valid reason to whine about this idea. Why are you so in love with the income tax, which obviously is harming the country and isn't working to fund the nation either? Oh, wait, I remember, it serves to implement your hate as a punishment for those you're jealous of, and hate.

"The remaider is going to be made up by all the extra people that are getting around the income tax right now - criminals, illegal aliens, fat cats that are living on curently untaxable sources, members of the "shadow economy" that has been created for the purpose of avoiding income tax and estimated at $1.5 trillion, and a new class of taxpayers, tourists."

"If you're worried about the "fat cats", why do you want to repeal the estate, gift,"

Because the estate and gift taxes screw middle class people that are just trying to build the family wealth by giving the things they built up to their kids when they die or prior to that. How does a farmer give a 20,000 acre farm to his son when the land is going for $5,000 an acre and the kid can't pay any sort of tax on the land without selling at least part of it?

"and capital gains taxes"

And those screw the middle class that are using their real estate to get ahead. I'ts gonna screw me unless I keep buying a big house I may or may not have need of. I bought this place in '96 for $85,500, and it appraised a couple years ago for $258,000. What's that gonna cost me when I retire and move? A pile, unless I buy something else expensive. I can do that. But why do it for the purpose of avoiding having to give it away to the gov't - an extra $50K might come in handy for some drugs or surgery or something at the age when I'm selling it.

And the capital gains taxes screw everybody that is trying to save for retirement, and their 401Ks are getting the snot taxed out of them.

"that they predominantly pay??"

I predominately pay them, and people like me, and I sure as H ain't rich.

"How about raising the capital gains tax so it's NOT less than the taxes that you and I pay on our wages?? Doesn't that sound fair??"

What sounds fair is eliminating it and I get to keep all my profits on my house's appreciation...

"I'm SURE there won't be a "shadow economy" (black market) of people trying to avoid THIS stupid tax!"

Tell me how they're going to accomplish that. A predominant amount of sales are now thru big retailers like Wal Mart and the like. People walk into there needing everything from a mailbox to a new stereo for the car, and just how are they going to get it without paying the tax, short of simply stealing it?

"Oh yeah, and there will be a FLOOD of tourists coming here to buy stuff that costs at least 30% more than it once did. Where will we house all these tourists???"

See? Again you have to change the proposal in order to criticize it. Stuff ain't gonna cost 30% more... that's all there is to it.

[zeos3]

300. OK

So when the big thinkers that created the flat tax and the reagan treasury say something you don't want to hear, I am wrong, ok, gotcha...
:eyes:



"Because the estate and gift taxes screw middle class people that are just trying to build the family wealth by giving the things they built up to their kids when they die or prior to that."

The estate tax exemption this year is $3.5 million. How many people do you think leave this much to their heirs??? The gift tax exemption is $11,000. If you're having trouble with this, add me to your annual gift list c/o DemocraticUnderground.com. How many middle class people gift $11K annually to their kids??? Do you pay attention to the things you write??? Hell, keep these levels, index them for inflation, make the estate exemption $5 million. These taxes would have ZERO affect on most people. Do some basic estate planning if this worries you so much.



"How does a farmer give a 20,000 acre farm to his son when the land is going for $5,000 an acre and the kid can't pay any sort of tax on the land without selling at least part of it?"

This is a bullshit argument. There has NOT been one documented case of a family losing a farm because of the estate tax. BTW, this farm land is worth $100 MILLION (I'd sell the thing and retire and gift you $11K per year to convince people to vote for the fair tax so I could save my money).



"And those screw the middle class that are using their real estate to get ahead. ... I bought this place in '96 for $85,500, and it appraised a couple years ago for $258,000. What's that gonna cost me when I retire and move?"

It will cost you NOTHING!!! If you've lived in the house for 2 years and take the $250,000 exemption it will cost you NOTHING!!! If you're married there's a $500,000 exemption.



"And the capital gains taxes screw everybody that is trying to save for retirement, and their 401Ks are getting the snot taxed out of them."

NO THEY ARE NOT! If you take withdrawals after age 59 and 1/2, no penalties but you may or may not pay taxes depending on if you used pre-tax dollars or after-tax dollars to fund the account. The stupid fair tax actually PUNISHES those that used after-tax dollars to fund their accounts because they already paid the tax on this money. Thanks for bringing this up.

YOU do NOT predominantly pay these taxes unless you gift more than $11K per person per year and make over $370,000 per year and have an estate worth over $3.5 million. Capital gains will NOT affect the house you gave as an example.



"See? Again you have to change the proposal in order to criticize it. Stuff ain't gonna cost 30% more... that's all there is to it."

I'm not changing the proposal, I'm shining light on it. YOU even admitted the 23% rate was a bit of a fib but for those of us who are good at math, we understand it, remember???

[HughBeaumont]

122. Not a very good one at that.

Reading that Liberstupidian mess makes my head hurt. Just all over the place, with conjectures, hypotheses, outer-space assumptions, facts he made up, irrelevant tangents, big words with microscopic substance . .. MAN.

Not to mention that he has no history on his side like we do. Periods of shrinking taxation on the wealthy lead to economic ruin for the middle and poor classes. ALWAYS. And who makes up for the resulting debt? The middle/working/poor classes. ALWAYS. This would be NO exception.

[rally2xs]

138. Not a very good one at that

"Not to mention that he has no history on his side like we do."

Er, how do you think we ran the country in the period before the income tax, from 1776 thru 1913, when we rose from startup to greatness?

Well, we did it with consumption taxes. Excise taxes on booze and tobacco, mostly, and a few other things.

The consumption taxes powered this nation quite adequately, without delving into people's personal lives to find how much they made, and then punish them for it. As RR said, "If you want less of something, then tax it." Well, the income tax is just a tax on prosperity, and boy, do we have less of it now.

Its time to stop doing the wrong thing and expecting things to get better. We're in a slow-speed death spiral, which started with losing our textile industries around the late 60's and up, then our consumer electronics, the gutting of the steel industry, the wrecking of prosperity in the auto industry, and now even our intellectual jobs like computer science, and engineering, being outsourced - all to avoid the income tax, and especially the 2nd highest corporate tax rates on the planet.

Lets compete - get the crushing burden of the income tax off the backs of the American workers, and we will soon declare victory over the foreign workers who have the unfair advantages now of having their country's subsidize and also work for peanuts themselves, a lot of them.

We can win this competition, but only if we try. If we keep doing the same thing, we can expect the same results, and those results have been, for the last 50 years or so, a long, slow decline of American industry that hurts absolutely everyone in the country.

[Hugabear]

175. Sure, let's go back to pre-1913, shall we?

I bet you'd just love to see us scrap all those pesky labor & wage laws, wouldn't you? Then we really could compete with China, India, Mexico, etc for jobs!

[Ilsa]

16. Exactly. Watch people stop buying almost everything except food.

This will slow the economy down to nothing in a hurry. Dollar velocity will be zilch. The motive to buy as little as possible will be to get congress to overturn it ASAP, just like the wealthy did with the luxury tax back in 1988 or 1989, IIRC.

[rally2xs]

18. 16. Exactly. Watch people stop buying almost everything except food.

Why would they do that????

My own example:

I'd have $17,000 more to spend, by not having to pay income taxes. Or Medicare taxes. Or Social security taxes, gift taxes, Inheritance taxes, capital gains taxes, luxury taxes, etc.

American goods would be priced only 4% or so higher than they were!

Foreign goods would be priced 30% higher than they were! (Think I'll buy American!!!)

I have ABSOLUTELY NO REASON not to spend. I have lotsa money, things are relatively cheaper, and I want a new big screen TV and a new camera. The camera will be more expensive, but I will be able to afford it, because I've got all that income tax and other income-based taxes I used to send to Washington... in my pocket. They are burning a hole, y'know?

[Ilsa]

23. You think you'll be paying inheritance taxes?

You think your estate reaches over the exemption limit? Where do you get this "relatively cheaper" crap? Were you around to see what happened in the late 1980s when a luxury tax was implemented?

[zeos3]

29. Then say goodbye to Medicare and SS

There's no way this bullshit tax would generate enough revenue to cover expenses. The 23% number is bullshit for two reasons.

First, they're fudging the numbers. Let's say a thing costs $75 dollars to start and then goes to $100 after the tax. You can say that the tax makes up 25% of the cost and that would be true. This is what they are doing. However, going from $75 to $100 is a 33% increase in the cost of the thing. This is how they try to make it seem like it's not as big of a difference.

Second, there's no way this fake (23%) rate will be able to cover the needed revenue, it will most definitely be higher.

How are you getting this tax savings during production of goods? Don't companies already use their tax ID # to avoid paying tax on the materials they use for manufacture or sale?

If you're worried about "gift taxes, inheritance taxes, capital gains taxes, luxury taxes, etc." then I understand why you love the idea of a flat/fair tax. The problem is you don't have those worries in common with about 95% of us.

[rally2xs]

40. Then say goodbye to Medicare and SS

"There's no way this bullshit tax would generate enough revenue to cover expenses. The 23% number is bullshit for two reasons."

Well, that's a nice unsubstantiated assertion, but unless you're an economist, I have no reason to believe what you say. The big thinkers on this subject believe it will be a 23% embedded tax, or 30% if you calc it the way your math teacher probably would have liked yo to calc it.

"First, they're fudging the numbers. Let's say a thing costs $75 dollars to start and then goes to $100 after the tax. You can say that the tax makes up 25% of the cost and that would be true. This is what they are doing. However, going from $75 to $100 is a 33% increase in the cost of the thing. This is how they try to make it seem like it's not as big of a difference."

Yep. I'm smart enough to know that a 23% embedded tax is a 30% tax, and so are you. I really wish they would stop with this little bit of handwaving, but whatever - it's calculatable by those of us that are not scared to death by a few numbers.

"Second, there's no way this fake (23%) rate will be able to cover the needed revenue, it will most definitely be higher."

Again, that's an unsubstantiated assertion by someone whom I am assuming is not an economist and who is at least not showing his work. Why should I believe you over the experts?

And there's a WHALE of a lot of economic activity on these shores. A 23%, or 30% tax is a LOT of money. Will it finance what we're doing now? Nope, it won't. It's simply revenue neutral with the taxes we're collecting now. In order to finance what we're doing now, the gov't would have to raise taxes so high that it would plunge the country into an instant economic depression. So, we borrow money to run the country. But we can't do it forever. Will the fair tax also instantly cause an economic depression if it is raised sufficiently to finance the government? I don't know, and we have to get government spending under control. The "universal health care" that they are proposing now sure isn't the way to do it, that's for sure.

But OTOH, there is going to be that influx of $10 - $15 trillion due to everyone from around the world rushing to build their widgets here, since we'd now be the world's best tax haven, with an unbeatable 0% corporate tax rate. This would stimulate a LOT more jobs, and those people with those jobs would spend more. Plus, you're getting help from all the criminals, current tax dodger that has a harder time avoiding the consumption tax than he does hiding his income in a numbered Swiss bank account (its harder to hide a 45 million dollar yacht...) and the fat cat that is living off the tax-free interest of a pile of Muni bonds are all gonna be paying their fair share of taxes, with every big-screen TV or big mac that they buy.

"How are you getting this tax savings during production of goods? Don't companies already use their tax ID # to avoid paying tax on the materials they use for manufacture or sale?"

Sure, but their tax expense isn't from savings on the retail tax rate, its from getting out from under the 2nd highest corporate income tax rate on the planet. We're charging our companies 35% tax rate. That's why you see a lot of companies moving to places like Ireland (Ireland? Get real... what's in Ireland? Green rolling hills and sheepherders? No, its their (16%? I believe I read 16%) tax rate.)

"If you're worried about "gift taxes, inheritance taxes, capital gains taxes, luxury taxes, etc." then I understand why you love the idea of a flat/fair tax. The problem is you don't have those worries in common with about 95% of us."

You're definitely wrong on this one. If you have a retirement savings plan, these taxes are greatly reducing what you could be making and what your future retirement financials is going to look like. Also, wait 'til your kids move away, and you don't need the big house, and you buy a smaller one so's you don't have to be cleaning that huge thing all the time, nor heating / cooling it. Its called a capital gains tax, and it's gonna rape you. But not if we abolish the IRS. With the IRS gone, you get to keep your profits from the appreciation of the value of your house and you get to keep all of your 401K savings too.

[Hugabear]

42. You're defending a tax plan dreamed up by a TALK SHOW HOST

There are plenty of economists out there who have discredited the UnFair Tax. Why do you keep defending something that's the brainchild of a conservative talk show host?

[rally2xs]

44. Very, Very Rich, Very Very Poor, Nobody Else == America's Future

Ur gonna haveta show me some - I've been talking about this all over the place, and while 1 or 2 people have shown an occasional inconsistency, noplace have I found an economist that says it won't work. Provide links.

As for why I'm promoting it, I truly believe that it is necessary to save the nation. I think if we keep going the way we are, we'll end up with only the very, very rich and the very, very poor in this country, and nobody in between. And I believe that this plan could stop that from happening.

[Hugabear]

46. You can start here

http://www.factcheck.org/taxes/unspinning_the_fairtax.html

And when you're done reading that, you might want to check out these

http://mises.org/story/1814

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2008/01/why_the_fair_ta.html

http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/2008/04/14/bartletted_0415.html

And you still haven't addressed the fact that the so-called "Fair" Tax shifts the burden away from the rich, and places it primarily upon the poor and middle class

[rally2xs]

79. OK, I started...

And the 1st one is exactly what I asked not to be offered: It is an analysis by politician's orgianizations that don't reveal their methodology of criticizing the fair tax. We can never know whether their criticizm is valid or not, until we see their numbers.

The 2nd one is just a series of exclamations designed to scare people. Its a bunch of "can you imagine if" they tax this, or that, or something else. Its simple scaremongering, with no real analysis of the workings of the fair tax at all.

The 3rd one starts out:

"Estimates of the actual rate of taxation required for the FairTax to be "revenue neutral" (meaning for it to bring in exactly the same amount of revenue that the federal government collects under the current system) start at 30 percent and keep climbing. William Gale of the liberal Brookings Institution think tank says it's a de facto 44 percent sales tax. Calculations go still higher once you add in all the necessary and politically inevitable exemptions on big-ticket items -- like a new home or hospital care. Congress' Joint Committee on Taxation, which draws members from both parties and both houses, says the real rate would be 57 percent. (And this leaves aside the enormous federal outlay required by the "prebates," which even FairTax advocates say would cost the government $485 billion per year.)

...it's a mammoth tax cut for the crowd making more than $200,000 a year and a substantial tax increase for those making between $30,000 and $200,000 a year."

which shows that these guys haven't put any thought into their criticisms at all. Plus, they use the "politically inevitable" nonsense to try to change the nature of the fair tax, and then criticize that. No, no, no. You have to criticize the proposal, not your own modification of the proposal. They give a number like 57%, without an inkling of an idea how they might have come up with that. Are they trying to balance the budget at the same time? No, no, no. This is simply a tax collection METHOD, not a National Tax Solution. For that, we have to look to cutting spending before increasing the tax rate.

Finally, the 4th link shows this fellow also has no understanding of the fair tax, and how it works, claiming that the price of everything would have to go up 23%, and that to do otherwise would mean that employees would have to take a 23% cut in wages, while completely ignoring the fact that the removal of the 35% corporate income taxes would allow the fall of the price of everything made in this country by 20%.

None of the above bunch have any Einsteins in there. Find me somebody that thinks, and does so deeply. And not one of them mention the wildly increased economic activity that would result from the creation of the biggest and best tax haven in the world, that would attract foreign industry here - it would be a massive influx of factory-building and new jobs to be filled. It boggles the mind.

Look, its really simple. The income tax is essentially a tax on prosperity. And, as Ronald Reagan said, "If you want less of something, tax it." Well, we've "lessened" our prosperity to the point that we've seen our textile industries leave, our consumer electronics industries leave, our steel making industries greatly diminished, most of our car making industries bankrupt, our intellectual employment going overseas, and even Microsoft is now talking of moving jobs offshore. The politicians will try to tell you that ALLLLLL those industries were lead by dolts that mismanaged them into the ground, but we all know that that many people cannot ALL be captains of industry and all be idiots too. The fact is, the politicians are just covering their A**** and blaming someone else for their failings. And this tax METHOD is the cure. Its that simple.

[zeos3]

169. I've tried explaining that to him

He's got an immunity to hearing it.

[rally2xs]

185. I've tried explaining that to him

Its because those sources are all seriously factually compromised.

hfojvt has been the only one here with a valid point to date. 'Most everything else here has been, "It has to be a bad idea because Joe the Plumber likes it," without even actually considering the idea. And as for hgojvt's concern, I would support some sort of help for the very poor outside this tax scheme, as I don't want to see anyone hurt by a new tax like this. I was unaware of exactly how much help the very poor were getting through some of the credits our tax system currently has. But, that doesn't change the fact that our taxation methods right now have killed much of our industry, and impoverished a lot of our people.

People here are talking about raising the MIMIMUM WAGE???? Boy, y'all sure aim low. Aspire to something greater. The GOOD JOBS are in the factories - just ask anyone in the midwest. They had great jobs building things America and the world needed until we screwed ourselves with these horrible taxes. Then we (or the POLITICIANS!!!) blamed it all on "cheap foreign labor" and claimed "there's nothing we can do" and they sit back and eat caviar while the rest of us have to compete for their damned scraps.

Well, I'm sick of it. This is the first idea I've ever seen that could turn that all around, and get the rich paying taxes (they don't, quite a few of them, y'know) again and help us with running the nation. We could have GOOD JOBs here, not minimum wage crap. Don't talk to me about the minimum wage - it's for losers. We need good jobs paying union scale... except union scale would be obsolete after we get 1000's of new factories building everything we used to build, and selling it to the world for less money than they can make it for, just because we are smart enough to change our tax system.

[HughBeaumont]

198. I don't view people making minimum wage as losers. I think they're fighters.

You're now just displaying a Jim Cramer mindset and it's very much not welcome here. Nor is the "philosophy" of Ronnie Reagan, the third WORST president this nation's ever been plagued with.

People have shot more than enough holes in your arguments which you just either cherry pick, selectively listen to, dismiss them as non factual based on conjectures and facts you made up, or answer with hypotheticals that require a collapse and rebuild of corporate structure. You're completely ignorant of history with situations of low taxation and where that leads us. You're like a word salad of libertarian talking points that rely on pie-in-the-sky criteria and are grossly over-assumptive about the supposed benevolence of the wealthy.

I'm corporate America. If you're giving me this free money, what reason . .. what reason at ALL would I have NOT to profit-take and wealth hoard? Corporations treat, pay and view workers as oxygen-thieving pieces of barely useful dogshit.

Your argument that "the markets are simply not free enough" doesn't square with facts or history. AT all.

Cue the Fountainhead-length missive, ripe with the same repeated and discredited Libertarian blather.

[zeos3]

219. Nice

:toast:

[zeos3]

160. Here ya go,

"The Presidents' Advisory Panel on Tax Reform -- that's President Bush's tax panel -- calculated that the rate would have to be at least 34 percent, not 30 percent, "and likely higher over time if the base erodes, creating incentives for significant tax evasion." Brookings Institution economist William Gale puts the rate at 44 percent -- and his calculation doesn't take into account cheating, for which there would be ample incentive."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/30/AR2007123001909.html

If you REALLY wish they'd stop with the 23% charade, YOU would stop it instead of constantly referring to it.


"You're definitely wrong on this one... Also, wait 'til your kids move away, and you don't need the big house, and you buy a smaller one so's you don't have to be cleaning that huge thing all the time, nor heating / cooling it. Its called a capital gains tax, and it's gonna rape you."

If you've lived in a house long enough to raise kids in it, you WILL NOT be paying capital gains on it. Why are you afraid of bogeymen that will not get you?

[EOTE]

51. Nice utopian thinking you've got there.

You really think that goods would increase in price less than the total of the NST? Dream on. Not only would this dramatically reduce funds to the government, but it would drastically shift the burden of taxation to the middle and lower class. An NST is one of the most bone headed libertarian thought experiments I've ever heard of.

[rally2xs]

139. Nice utopian thinking you've got there.

Here's the weirdest thing I see in people's reactions here.

For years and years, union members have wanted relief from the unfair competition from foreign workers that work for peanuts and get a lot of their needs subsidized by their government's social progrms like nationalized health care.

So now, this taxation METHOD would do just that - allow stuff made here to pretty much hold the line with respect pricing, probably rising by less than 4 percent, while causeing foreign goods to get really nailed with a 30% sales tax. New car from USA costs maybe 30,000, and new car just like it from South Korea sells for $39,000. Obviously, the cars made here would sell like hotcakes, and the cars from outside the country costing $9K more are not going to sell well.

That's what we want. Higher-priced foreign stuff will not sell well when compared with the same sort of stuff built in Chicago, at a much lower price! That's what we want.

[hfojvt]

69. that kinda illustrates the unfairness of it

You would have an extra $17,000 to spend. I, at a much lower income, would only have an extra $2000 or so if my FICA taxes were eliminated (and employer contribution too). Then if you figure that people making over $1,000,000 were paying an average rate of 30% in 1996, you gotta figure they would love to only pay 30% sales tax on the fraction of income that they spend. If they make $10,000,000 a year and only spend 30% of it plus a 30% sales tax, then their tax rate is only 9%, meaning they save 21%. 21% of ten million is a tax cut of $2,100,000. Two million one hundred thousand dollars.

Since the UnFairTax claims to be 'revenue neutral' if rich people are saving millions of dollars, then logically somebody else (the middle class) must be paying more in order to get to revenue neutrality.

Tax cuts for the rich and tax increases for the middle class. No wonder I call this the UnFairTax.

[rally2xs]

53. Wild Claims - No Basis

"This will slow the economy down to nothing in a hurry. Dollar velocity will be zilch. The motive to buy as little as possible will be to get congress to overturn it ASAP, just like the wealthy did with the luxury tax back in 1988 or 1989, IIRC."

Wild claims with no basis in logic or math. At least try to show the reasoning, and preferably the numbers.

[zeos3]

166. yup, and it's not really 23%

That number is a misdirection. It's the after tax % not the pre tax %. Also, I read somewhere that the 23% number was arrived at because polls support drops off sharply above this rate. Consider it a teaser rate to lure the gullible.

[rally2xs]

11. Gawd, not the UnFair Tax again

"One of the worst tax ideas ever. Sure, let's scrap the
income tax, replace it with a punishing 30% sales tax. They
claim it would "only" be 23%, but many reports I've
read have said it would have to be at least 30%, and possibly
as high as 60%. Not only do they want to tax all goods - and I
do mean ALL, including food & medicine - but they also
want to tax all SERVICES as well."

Punishing sales tax?  Says who?

The 30% goes onto American made products at 30%, but those
American made products are already reduced in price by about
20% because all the corporate income taxes go away, along with
all the other income-based taxes.  Sooooo... if an American
widget cost $100 before the income tax went away, it would
cost $80 afterward.  Then, tax that at 30% and that is $24. 
$100 + $24 = $104, just FOUR PERCENT MORE IN PRICE THAN IT WAS
BEFORE THE FAIRTAX!!!!!

So, those poor people, and the rest of us, get out from under
the income tax, social security tax, medicare tax, gift tax,
capital gains tax, etc. and have several thousand bucks more
per year to play with, but American made stuff goes up by just
4% over the counter.  Look at your W-2 and/or your 1040 and
tell me how much money you would have that you didn't have
before.  For me, that's $17,000.  I can stand to buy a LOT of
stuff that is only 4% more in price than it was.

Of course you can note that the foreign stuff still gets taxed
at 30%, without having their stuff go down in price at all,
because the foreign-made stuff doesn't get out from under US
income tax - they weren't paying it in the 1st place. 
Soooo... The Jeep Liberty that was $25K and the Toyota FC
Cruiser that was $25K, both similarly equipped, has the Jeep
going up in price to $26,000 and the Toyota going up in price
to $32,500.  Hmmm... which one are YOU going to buy?

And, it works like that for exports too, only the $25,000 Jeep
Liberty drops in price by that 20% from losing the corporate
income tax and all those other taxes that are currently
hurting it, and drops in price to $20,000.  Would a $20,000
Jeep Liberty sell better anywhere in the world than a $25,000
Jeep Liberty?  You bet it would.  And if you think it's so
much worse than a Toyota, I suggest you go up to Toledo, Ohio
and say that to a UAW member that is building them... but do
remember to duck.

This tax would supercharge the American economy.  Foreigners
would flock here and build factories in such volume that
nobody that wants a job would be without one.  The USA would
be the new place to build your widget the cheapest of anywhere
on the planet.  This tax is how we could get our textile
industry back, get our consumer electronics industry back, get
our auto industry highly competitive with the rest of the
world again, get our steel and other metals industries back to
world prominance again, even reclaim the outsourcing of
computer software development from India back to the USA.

I visited an iron mine north of Minneapolis a few years ago
while on vacation.  It was an iron mine as far as you could
see, and there was just 1 shovel working.  Just 1.  There
should be so many, and so many dump trucks hauling ore, that
they should have a problem in not running into each other.  We
should have giant ore carriers hauling ore to Pittsburgh where
it should be made into steel again.  And I think that would
happen.  American steel could either be the cheapest, or the
best, or maybe even both, in the world.

This is how we negate the advantage foreign industry has had
all these years from having workers that work for peanuts, and
having industries that are subsidized and don't, for instance,
have to worry about health care insurance for their workers -
their governments take care of that for them.  Ditto pensions
and health care there.  Lots of social programs helping
foreign industry work cheaper, and put half of all of us on
welfare.

This is how we "take it to 'em."  We could be the
800 lb gorilla in a lot of other things than just big cars and
pickup trucks.  The foreigners already can't compete in those
arenas - there's no foreign equivalent of a Lincoln Town Car,
and the Ford F-150 is STILL the best selling vehicle on the
planet.  But that sort of competitiveness could be translated
to many, many other areas if the income tax wasn't crushing us
and our industries.

[WonderGrunion]

31. Why do you assume corporations would "pass along the savings"

There is no incentive for them to do that. They'd keep the prices high and bank the profits. BTW, with Social Security, medicare and Medicaid gone, the poor and disabled would have to foot the bill for their own medical expenses, wiping out any purported savings from taxes.

[HughBeaumont]

36. But Wonder, if the past 8 years has taught us ANYthing . . .

. . . it's that when you LOWER taxes on the wealthy, they'll be SUPER DUPER benevolent and bring us ALL jobs and cheaper goods! The problem is that they're just SO shackled by their CRUSHING tax burden! Teh markets are failing because they're simply NOT "FREE" enough! Horrors!

:sarcasm: in case it isn't "crushingly" obvious to our Lamertarian guest. . . .

[rally2xs]

38. Why do you assume corporations would "pass along the savings"

Because if they don't, their competitors will, and then they'll lose market share. Its the same reason they don't raise their prices to just whatever they want them to be right now.

[Hugabear]

41. Go peddle your Fair Tax somewhere else - perhaps one of your "tea parties"

I bet that you're a Boortz fan, eh? I thought the Fair Tax had already been widely discredited, but apparently he's still pimping it on his show. The Fair Tax makes a lot of wild assumptions, which if they don't happen, would be absolutely disastrous for the economy. Not only that, but it lets the rich off practically scot-free, placing most of the tax burden on the poor and middle class. Boortz loves to brag that his plan would eliminate the IRS and get rid of all the tax bureaucracy. But who does Boortz think is going to collect all that sales tax? There's still going to have to be an investigative bureau, to make sure that merchants aren't simply pocketing the 30% surcharge, and to crack down on the inevitable black market that will blossom.

[rally2xs]

45. Try It, You'll Like It

>I bet that you're a Boortz fan, eh?

Never met him, never heard him talk, haven't seen / heard his show.

"I thought the Fair Tax had already been widely discredited,"

Find me somebody. Try not to use politician's sources that don't release their methodologies for criticizing it. Everyone knows that the politicians love the income tax because it gives them power and control. They don't want it to go away, but I think it's killing the country.

"but apparently he's still pimping it on his show."

I didn't hear it on his show - I actually heard it on a local radio program with a local radio news guy that was conducting a poll. I says, "what's this?" and started reading.

"The Fair Tax makes a lot of wild assumptions, which if they don't happen, would be absolutely disastrous for the economy."

The assumptions I've heard are all in line with predictable human behavior. What have you heard? What's "wild?"

"Not only that, but it lets the rich off practically scot-free,"

Howzat work, exactly? The rich currently are, a lot of 'em, extremeely adept at avoiding taxes already. Buy a pile of Muni Bonds, live off the interested which is legally not taxed, and you have NO tax going to Washington. Then there's the criminals, who don't pay any tax, and there's the underground economy, said to be 1.5 Trillion dollars large, with people that have devised schemes to avoid income taxes, including a lot of bartering, etc. Plus the cost of collecting the income tax is somewhere around $265 billion, while we've already got most states that have the facilities that are set up to collect state sales tax, that would make collecting Federal sales tax a familiar and easy thing. Probably could just have it sent in from point of sale terminals with a little software modification.

"placing most of the tax burden on the poor and middle class."

You either haven't read anything about the plan, or you're just on here to have a conversation and will say anything provocative in order to get a response. This is so incredibly untrue that it's ludicrous. Hey, I'm in the middle class, and I'd have $6K - $9K more per year in my pocket to spend. The stuff I'd buy would barely go up in price at all, and I'd be buying more stuff.

"Boortz loves to brag that his plan would eliminate the IRS and get rid of all the tax bureaucracy. But who does Boortz think is going to collect all that sales tax"

See above. Plus, instead of having to deal with absolutely everybody, you only really have to deal with people who sell things at retail, a very much smaller number of people, in order to collect the tax.

"There's still going to have to be an investigative bureau, to make sure that merchants aren't simply pocketing the 30% surcharge,"

Yep, your always going to need cops, but a 45 million dollar yact is seriously traceable, unlike money squirreled away in a numbered Swiss bank account. When Mr. Fat Cat buys his yacht or his Beach Bonanza private airplane, he's going to contribute to the tax base, whether he bought it with the proceeds of Muni bond tax-free interest or not.

"and to crack down on the inevitable black market that will blossom."

Tell my how you're going to create a black market for a Mitsubishi LaserVue TV ($7K retail). You can, as a mafia type that wants to run a black market, hijack a truck and steal it, and then sell it, buy you could always steal it anyway and do the same thing. Nothing new here...

[ieoeja]

65. Some day you will retire.

Your income will decrease. But your taxes will not. In fact, they will probably go up as you have more leisure time to spend.


There is no tax in the world I would rather pay than one tied to my income. When my income goes up, I can pay more, and I do. When my income eventually comes down, I will be able to pay less, and I will.

Anyone opposed to that apparently has suicide as their retirement plan.

[Hugabear]

67. Imagine! You can be 90-yrs old with no income, and pay the same tax rate as Bill Gates!

Wouldn't that be something to look forward to? Of course, you'll be spending a MUCH higher percentage of whatever meager income you're able to scrounge up than Bill Gates, but that's just details - who cares about those things?

[rally2xs]

142. Some day you will retire.

"Your income will decrease. But your taxes will not."

Another poster demostrates he doesn't have a clue how this works.

Hey, I'm gonna retire in less than 3 years, and you know what? I've got a pile of money in a 401K that, if the income tax goes away, I'm going to get ALL of rather than what the government decides to give me after they take out a bunch of income-based taxes.

My retirement would be GREAT with this sort of tax, and much better than it would be with an income tax.

[Stevenmarc]

5. “Once you understand FairTax" it will confirm that you have shit for brains, Joe

[BuyingThyme]

6. How can he understand the "fair tax" if he doesn't even unerstand

the difference between gross income and adjusted net income?

[jmowreader]

33. We're talking Joe the Plumber.

He probably doesn't understand the difference between CPVC and PEX, why would he understand the difference between gross and adjusted net?

[HughBeaumont]

7. Any time someone brings this ridiculous solution up, send them this:

It's what I recently sent off in an e-mail; some of it past responses from various DUers on the subject:

A flat tax is a moldy Steve Forbes/Neal Boortz chestnut that lets the rich off even more than they are now.

Ask yourself this: Why does this seem to be an idea that is popular mainly with very wealthy Republicans (particularly "Lucky Sperm Club" Republicans - more on this below) and fiscally comfortable white males?

Who does a flat tax benefit more - the person making $20,000 a year and paying 20%, or the person making $2 million per year and paying 20%? Who needs the money more? Keep in mind that the poor and middle class spend nearly 100% of their money while the rich have the luxury of discretionary income to hoard or invest, whichever they choose.

If you give the lower wage earners a tax break, you need to raise the overall flat tax rate to compensate... which would then hurt the middle class, unless you then give them a tax break as well. Of course, then you have to raise the overall flat tax rate to well over 30%, and (gasp) you're back to a progressive income tax.

And, if you keep it truly flat, you either place a huge burden on the middle class, or you drive the deficit/debt way beyond what we have now. There isn't any revenue to run this country as it is. We're 10 trillion dollars in debt and climbing; that debt is mostly the product of wasteful spending, primarily on tax cuts, war and defense ("defense" meaning: attack sovereign nations that have something you want) by three Republican presidents.

A progressive system taxes the rich more because they can easily afford to pay more. It gives a break to those in the middle and the bottom because to tax them at the same rate as the rich means that they will never be able to raise their standard of living. Simple things that the rich take for granted, such as a college education, would be unheard of for the middle class.

I wouldn't care if a millionaire paid a tiny tax bill, if to minimize his tax liability he created a bunch of jobs, invested heavily in green energy, education, or medical research. Recent history, however, has proven the exact opposite happens when you lower the tax rates of the wealthy. The thing about wealth is that it is almost impossible to get (and difficult to keep) without the infrastructure. Therefore, the rich, who benefit the most, should pay the most.

Forbes and the other sons of privilege push this bad idea because of their vastly incorrect belief that they're actually self-made; therefore, they should be exempt from paying taxes.

One online article puts it succinctly:

The simplistic "flat tax" idea is once again rearing its ugly head.

In the U.S. Senate, Arlen Specter proposed a flat 20% tax on earned income (working people's wages), from which rich people's unearned income (capital gains, interest and dividends) would be exempt. Congressman Dick Armey supports similar legislation in the House. Former presidential candidate Steve Forbes (who has exhibited virtually no entrepreneurial innovation in his life and became wealthy by inheriting his late father's publishing empire) made as a centerpiece of his failed campaigns a flat tax scheme that salutes the idle rich (as distinguished from hard-working innovators or entrepreneurs who actually earned their wealth) by exempting UNEARNED income gained as a return on investment (not merely protecting the value of the principal, but allowing those who gain wealth without working for it to avoid taxes while those who work hard for what they gain pay all the taxes).

Since Forbes' plan reduces taxes on the poorest and especially favors the wealthy, but is supposed to be revenue-neutral (no loss of incoming tax revenues), once again it means the middle class working people would be the ones squeezed to make up for benefits to the rich.

[rally2xs]

17. Any time someone brings this ridiculous solution up, send them this:

But...

the...

fair...

tax...

is...

not...

a...

flat...

tax.

Try to keep your taxes straight, eh?

[HughBeaumont]

21. Fair, Flat . . . they BOTH suck and it's not an accident that wealthy Repukes favor them.

http://fairtaxfraud.com/book.asp
http://www.factcheck.org/taxes/unspinning_the_fairtax.html

Debunks all your points, especially your assertions that goods will cost less:

More significantly, however, the panel found that FairTax supporters were employing questionable accounting. In calculating federal revenue, proponents assumed that purchases made by the federal government would be taxed at the full 30 percent rate. But when calculating federal expenditures, FairTax proponents did not factor in the additional costs of the 30 percent sales tax. The Advisory Panel thus threw out the revenue from federal purchases, noting (correctly) that increased revenue from taxing federal purchases is exactly canceled by increased costs in the federal budget. Unfortunately, the Advisory Panel has thus far refused to release its methodology, making it difficult to reconcile its projections with those of Americans for Fair Taxation.

Using a formula that corrects for the faulty assumption about government spending, William Gale, director of the economic studies program at the Brookings Institute, calculates that a 39.3 percent exclusive rate would be necessary for revenue neutrality. (We used the lower Advisory Panel number). A more recent study by FairTax supporter and Boston University economist Laurence Kotlikoff – working from Gale’s formula and adopting the same basic assumptions – determines that a 31.2 percent exclusive (or 23.8 percent tax-inclusive) rate would be sufficient.

Even if Kotlikoff is correct that a 31.2 percent rate is revenue-neutral, there remains some reason to doubt that the rate actually would be that low. The FairTax proposal assumes a 100 percent tax base on consumption. By way of contrast, most states that have sales taxes have roughly a 50 percent tax base. With the FairTax’s 100 percent base, consumers would pay taxes on a great many things that may not intuitively seem like consumption. The list would include:

Purchases of new homes
Rent
Interest on credit cards, mortgages and car loans
Doctor bills
Utilities
Gasoline (30 percent in addition to current taxes, which would not be repealed)
Legal fees

At today’s prices, gasoline would cost almost $1 per gallon more. A $150,000 new home would run $195,000 – plus the 30 percent tax that the buyer would pay on the interest on the mortgage. In short, the FairTax taxes everything that one buys, with the one notable exception of education. Any exceptions to the tax base (for instance, eliminating rent or credit card interest from the tax base) would require an offsetting increase in the rate.

All one needs to do, really, is look who supports this snake oil: Joe the Plumber, George W Bewsh (who backed off of it prior to his second term), Neal Boortz, Tom "I'm NOT a racist" Tancredo, Duncan Hunter, Mike Hucksterbee. COME on.

http://www.mises.org/story/1814
Oh looky, even some Austrian-school bastards hate it. You know it's bogus when it draws the skepticism of both sides.

Go ahead, respond in kind with a post the length of an Ayn Rand monologue.

[rally2xs]

25. Fair, Flat . . . they BOTH suck and it's not an accident that wealthy Repukes favor them.

Here's a lot of the problem with the cited document:

"Unfortunately, the Advisory Panel has thus far refused to release its methodology, making it difficult to reconcile its projections with those of Americans for Fair Taxation."

This occurs several times in the document, and is understandable.

These criticisms from largely government groups (read politicians) of the fair tax that, not so coincidentally, fail to reveal their methodologies is understandable, since politicians pretty universally do not like abolishing the income tax. The income tax give them a lot of power to dole out money to friends and supporters as perks.

The quoted text complains about the government taxing government purchases, but I'm not seeing a refutation of the concept that removing the crushing burden of the corporate and income taxes from our corporations would not result in an immediate 20% - 22% drop in the price of the item made in America. So, this phrase:

"But when calculating federal expenditures, FairTax proponents did not factor in the additional costs of the 30 percent sales tax. The Advisory Panel thus threw out the revenue from federal purchases, noting (correctly) that increased revenue from taxing federal purchases is exactly canceled by increased costs in the federal budget"

is wrong for 2 reasons.

First, much of what the Federal government spends money on is not goods or services, but salaries. Mine, for instance - I make Tomahawk Cruise Missle software, or support software for others to make it. Second, the things that the Federal Government buys is pretty much going to be American made, so if the American made product has the predictable 22% drop in cost projected in the above paper, then taxing that at 30% simply means that the retail price + tax is almost identical to what it was before. IOW, NO 30% tax hit. If the Federal gov't is incurring a 30% tax hit, it must be buying foreign stuff, which is a real bad idea on the face of it.

A 15% tax evasion rate? It's waaaaaaaay higher than that. We don't collect a dime on all the pot, coke, meth, all the criminal activity, trafficing in illegal weapons, prostitution, etc, but those people perpetrating it are getting tax free money and... buying things. IOW, we're going to bring the criminals into the ranks of the taxpayers every time they buy a Coke (from Atlanta, not Columbia) or a big-screen TV. Also, the fat cats that are sitting around on millions of dollars in untaxed Muni bond interest... are going to get taxed when they buy things - cars, etc. but anything, really, even their Big Macs.

In addition to the mythical 15% tax evasion rate, don't forget to raise it by the 1.5 Trillion dollar shadow economy that has been set up for the purpose of avoiding the income taxes. Yes, it works.

And, you can hide income in a numbered Swiss bank account, but try to hide a new 140 foot yacht in a Swiss numbered bank account. Ain't happenin'. And that thing's gonna get taxed.

As for taxing gasoline, that's a REALLY good idea - it should hasten the day when we get the H off oil and start using electricity, which, at nearly 95% efficiency, won't get such a hit as the low-30% efficiency internal combustion engine. IOW, efficiency, at last, or at least a powerful incentive for it.

And the critical paper above doesn't even touch on the benefits of the USA becoming a tax haven for the world, and the influx of $10 - $15 trillion for the purpose of investment in this country, a land of no business taxes. The jobs that result would enrich us all, even the janitors. We wouldn't be limousine rich, but we'd be much better off than we were, in a very short time.

Meanwhile, I'm gonna wait for a paper that DOES release its methodologies for criticizing the fair tax, and doesn't go changing the premises of the fair tax as stated in order to get the conclusions that they would like to promote, such as putting forward the spurious idea that corporations somehow pay taxes. No, corporations collect taxes, and pass them on to the consumer. If you're having an exquisite, hand-made car built, for $500,000, and it takes the factory of craftsmen a month to make it, and the government comes along and puts $1,000 / month tax on the company, how much do you think your car is going to cost you then? That's right, its going to cost you $501,000. They don't have anywhere else to get the money. And, if the allegations that the the company DOES pay the tax because the wages would be lower or the stockholders would get less dividends, then YES, the PEOPLE involved paid the tax on the company side, but the company did not pay them, the PEOPLE did. So, it STILL put a damper on economic activity since those employees and those stockhoders STILL had less money to spend.

Anyway, this criticism looks anything but solid. There's stuff left out that greatly affect the advantages of the fair tax, and stuff that is distorted because the gov't is NOT paying 30% additional for that - the prices of what they're buying would be lower, and not all of what they buy is taxable at all - think salaries again.

Oh, BTW, its not always a valid analysis tool to see who is for something and automatically be against it, as your subject implies you've done. Every now and then an idea comes along that benefits absolutely everybody, from the poorest to the richest, and I truly believe that this is one of them.

[zeos3]

30. You can call it whatever you like

Flat tax, fair tax, consumption tax, whatever you call it, the effects are the same.

In their 1983 book, Low Tax, Simple Tax, Flat Tax, Hall and Rabushka noted that their flat tax "will be a tremendous boon to the economic elite." They also said "it is an obvious mathematical law that lower taxes on the successful will have to be made up by higher taxes on average people."

Even the Reagan Treasury Dept testified that ANY "flat-rate tax" would "would involve a significant redistribution of tax liability" away from the wealthy and onto the average taxpayer.

ANY flat-rate tax.

Your 23% Fair Tax is a flat-rate tax.

Everyone pays the same 23% tax on goods and services. That is a flat-rate tax.

[Statistical]

35. I don't think fair tax is a good idea but...

the fair tax is NOT a flat tax.

I don't like it because it is radical and likely will have unforseen consequences BUT it isn't a flat tax.

It has a prebate provision (as in pre-rebate) where govt issues a check to cover the taxes paid up to a certain income (usually poverty). The prebate makes the tax progressive because it is fixed and consumption is not.

Why a prebate?
It simplifies collecting the tax and prevents cheating. No brackets, or exempt persons, or tiers, or anything. A FLAT tax is collected at the register but the prebate makes it progressive.

If you are going to fight something at least be informed otherwise it is easier to dismiss you.
Calling the fair tax a flat tax is simply wrong.

EXAMPLE:
My numbers to make it simple:
30% tax
prebate on first $20K
govt issues checks for $6K ($20K*0.30)
govt could issue checks qtrly or monthly, they go to everyone (yeah even the rich but see below)

poor: $20K in consumption = $6K in taxes - $6K prebate = $0 in taxes or 0%
middle: $50K in consumption = $15K in taxes - $6K prebate = $9K in taxes or 18%
rich: $200K in consumption = $60K in taxes - $6K prebate = $54K in taxes or 27%
ultra: $800K in consumption = $240K in taxes - $6K prebate = $235K in taxes or 29%

Why give everyone a prebate?
Simplicity. The rich are still paying a higher % because the prebate is fixed. The rich don't need it BUT otherwise you would still need the IRS. W-2, proof of income, people cheating, not reporting income, etc. The "design" is to make it simple.

Everyone gets same prebate.
Everyone pays same %
Since consumption differs the effective tax is more on the rich.

The fair tax is progressive. It can be made more progressive by using a larger prebate and larger % (run your own numbers with a $8,000 prebate & 0.40% rate).

There are a lot of reasons to be against the fairtax. I will let you figure that out but it being flat is not it.

[zeos3]

89. Before you become so dismisive...

reread what I wrote. Perhaps I should have been more clear. I compared the flat tax to the fair tax because they are both garbage. It's a way to shift the tax responsibility from the wealth to the middle class.

The poor get a bit of a break because of the prebate but I don't think this is of much help since they will more than likely spend ALL their income (you know, being poor and all).

The prebate is also an effective propaganda tool. Everyone can see the check they get from the government every month. Unfortunately, the people that get the most (as I understand it) will be the most adversely affected by this tax. I believe they call this a "misdirection" in magic. Pay attention "over here" while the trick is being done "over there."

Didn't the flat tax have a floor level of income before you had to pay the tax (Was there a prebate in that too, seriously, I forgot)? Would you call that a progressive tax? I wouldn't.

I wrote above that all FLAT RATE taxes are the same scam. The fair tax IS a FLAT RATE TAX, the prebate makes no difference because you and I spend most of our incomes. Wasn't the savings rate in NEGATIVE territory a couple of years ago? We were spending MORE than we made. WE will get taxed on most, if not ALL, of our income. The top 5% will NOT. How is this progressive??



I used to have a Chevy Beretta Z26 (It's a Z26!!!1!). A few people called it purple. I kept telling them over and over that it wasn't purple it was BLACK ROSE METALLIC (here's the brochure!). You know what? It was purple.

The flat tax and the fair tax are the same bullshit dressed in different colors.

[rally2xs]

37. Its a consumption tax.

That's the difference. Its a consumption tax, which you aren't even obligated to pay at all if you happen to be a farmer, and can get along without buying things, especially new things.

If you set out to avoid spending money on the fair tax, you can do it a lot easier than on the income tax, and do it legally, too. Don't want to pay the fair tax on your car? Simple, buy a used car. Don't want to pay the fair tax on your house? Simple - buy an existing house. Clothes? 2nd-hand / thrift store. About the only thing you can't do it on is food, and then it's possible if you have room for a garden and can raise some chickens, or are a really successful deer / elk / other large game hunter. Buy a big freezer, that's all, or salt and jerk your meat.

[zeos3]

90. That's a great idea!

Let's ALL buy used stuff and grow our own food!

I can see the companies that have outsourced come RUNNING back to us.

The fair tax will collect EVEN MORE money than originally expected!!!

:sarcasm:

[sabbat hunter]

102. But under the fair tax

Everything is taxed (new items) food, medicine, rent, electricity, NG, oil, gasoline. Even with the Prebate the poor and middle class end up far behind where they are now.

And I just LOVE :sarcasm: how fairtax claims that corporations having to not pay taxes under fairtax will generously reduce their prices. Shyeah right. They will just pocket the difference, just like any good capitalist would. Hell I would probably do the same thing.

Not to mention the fact that a 23% tax would be way too low to make up for the current rate structures and would leave HUGE holes in the medicare and SS programs. In fact it would kill them, which I believe is part of the intent of the fairtax people.


A farmer still would be buying things, gas/diesel for his tractor, seeds, electricity, water. All of which is taxed under fairtax.

[Hugabear]

117. Don't forget the services that farmer would suddenly have to pay taxes for

Every time he calls someone to come fix one of his tractors - TAX
Every time he calls a vet to come take care of his horses - TAX

Yep, it sure would be a lovely thing, wouldn't it?

[sabbat hunter]

121. people who pay rent

aka poor and middle class. TAX

go to the doctors -TAX

[rally2xs]

131. Farmer Wins!

"Every time he calls someone to come fix one of his tractors - TAX
Every time he calls a vet to come take care of his horses - TAX

Yep, it sure would be a lovely thing, wouldn't it?"

Yes it would!

First, those are services performed in the pursuit of industry (farming), and so therefore are not taxed. IOW, these services are not being performed "at retail", but instead "at wholesale." If you want to see the vet work "at retail", call him about your pet dog... unless it herds your sheep...

Second, the providers of the service also just lost their income tax obligations, so the farmer is going to choose whichever provider is giving the best price, and that will be the one that passes along their savings from not having to pay corporate taxes.

[Hannah Bell]

127. on food too? my my. yes, city dwellers will be shooting deer & jerking meat in no time.

[ProfessorGAC]

74. Absolutely Correct!

But completely wrong. It's MORE regressive than a flat tax.

Nice try though.
GAC

[steven johnson]

12. Joe (not his name) the plumber (not his occupation ) wants to sell us

right wing propaganda. As an independent(donated to McCain) he pretends to be everyman.

He's a shill (that part is true).

[GReedDiamond]

19. Sam the Not-a-Plumber is a Fuckin' Idiot...

...but, in addition to that, he is a totally self-serving, publicity-seeking asshole/manwhore. (Pardon my "french.")

I'm sure if somebody on "The Left" claimed they were "conservative," and offered him a thousand bucks to speak (from the script he was given) at some contrived event, he'd be there in a heartbeat. He'd likely demand payment BEFORE making his "appearance," but I have no doubt he'd mouth anything requested of him once he had the check. All you gotta do is tell him, "we're for the average man," and "we're paying you a thousand dollars to read our script."

Lastly, "Joe The Plumber"/Sam Wurzelbacher and "Jeff Gannon"/James Guckert oughta get together sometime. The multiple various personalities interacting with each other may provide for some interesting scenarios. Since they are both "journalists," not to mention that they both sport matching shaved heads, they could file reports on right-wing blogs on each others' publicity stunts and latest offerings on faux-patriotic merchandise currently available through their web sites.

BTW, when did "15 minutes" become nine months, for Sam, and Sarah, too?

And, oh yeah, a "National Sales Tax" is a regressive tax, a bad idea for the average man. Like everybody else already pointed out.

[ArnoldLayne]

28. Does it make him kind of horny

when is 15 minutes going to be up along with SarahBitch Palin. I meant Gov.Sarah Palin R. Alaska.

[jmowreader]

32. Once more, into the breach...

From the first question on the FairTax FAQ: "The FairTax is a sales tax on new items. Used items are not taxed."

Maybe we could get Paris Hilton to slither seductively over the hood of "her" year-old Rolls, or dance through the halls of "her" 20-year-old 100-room mansion, and brag about how thanks to the FairTax she doesn't have to pay a cent in taxes on those purchases--but that's okay because people who buy pedestrian things like Ford Focuses and $150,000 houses make up for it. I think she'd do it.

[tammywammy]

63. But if the person was buying a used Focus or house they wouldn't be paying it

Just like Hilton wouldn't pay it on a used purchase as well.

But when she turns around and buys new designer duds, those would be taxed.

[Hugabear]

68. Don't forget about purchases overseas

What would stop someone from crossing over into Canada or Mexico and buying a nice fancy yacht, then bringing it back over here?

[Hannah Bell]

125. Oh, "used" real estate not taxed? Nice for speculators.

[rally2xs]

141. Oh, "used" real estate not taxed? Nice for speculators.

Another post that's all concerned about being jealous of what some other person might be able to make out of some perceived advantage, and not even considering that it might be good for some guy that just wants to buy a house as cheaply as possible to boost the prosperity of his family.

[stanwyck]

70. he's the perfect spokesman for The Fair Tax

Just like the Fair Tax, Joe the Plumber seems like an "authentic" straight talkin' populist solution. Just don't go beyond the surface because you'll find out the Fair Tax/Joe the Plumber solution is actually riddled with problems (won't raise enough money to sustain even the basics -- just like Joe who's had child support payment problems).

[LAGC]

80. FairTax = Gift to the Rich

Since the rich end up paying less in taxes, where does the remainder come from? YEP, the lower-classes! Sure there is a "prebate" to supposedly help the poor, but what about the middle-class? They get SCREWED!

Fuck the "Fair" Tax! Fuck Neal Boortz and "Joe the Non-Plumber" and their right-wing ilk!

[Initech]

83. Andy Warhol never met Samuel Wurzelbacher.

[Hayabusa]

85. Good Lord...

I was close to this thing thanks to were I live and it was all over the news, annoying the heck out of me.

[ima_sinnic]

94. biggest scam yet. and Neal Boortz is soooo "concerned" about the taxes of

poor and middle-class people :rofl:

if it benefits Neal Boortz, you can BET it will NOT benefit YOU.

oh, and "prebates"? yeah, right, like magically, everybody in the entire USA will receive a check every single fucking month--it will not cost one cent to administer, print, mail, and process these checks. No human beings (read: bureaucrats) will have to be paid to administer this system. Oh, and by the way, WHERE will the "prebates" come from? Talk about "socialism"! sheesh! Does BOAR think we peasants are drooling for our $230 per month and can be bought off cheap?

The ultimate outcome of this asinine plan is that people with little money will simply buy a lot less--gee, THAT will be soooo great for the economy!

HOW ABOUT IF FAT FUCKING PIGS LIKE BOORTZ AND JOE THE ASSHOLE PAY THEIR FUCKING SHARE?
The stinking fat fucks with all the money are fucking PIGS obsessed with how little they can contribute to the common good (if they could have their way, only the rich would have fire protection, police services, and access to highways, because only they could afford to pay the private owners of such services). RUN LIKE HELL FROM THE SO-CALLED "FAIR TAX" SCAM!!

on edit: meant to say, in some ways I hope this stupendously STUPID plan is put into effect, as I would love to see it backfire on the asshats who think it's such a great idea as the economy, already in death throes, breathes its last gasp as tax revenues fall way short of what is needed, and poor and middle-class people just stop buying anything except absolute necessities through legitimate sources and develop increasingly sophisticated black market and informal trading/bartering/ and alternative currency transactions.

[Hugabear]

98. Hey, let's be fair now. Bill Gates would get that $230 "prebate" also!

Yep, under the UnFair Tax, mega-rich people like Bill Gates would be receiving that poverty-level "prebate" check every month. And you're right - magic fairies are going to print and distribute those checks, since the plan gets rid of the IRS!

[HughBeaumont]

100. I KNEW the Magic Fairies figured in the equation somehow.

Of course, I always thought they'd be paying off the enormous National Debt that Republican presidents kept adding to with their wars and serial tax-cutting for the rich (which didn't stimulate shit, BTW). Hard telling who the Fairies are in the employ of. :rofl:

[zeos3]

170. See post #164

[Cresent City Kid]

115. This is only to reduce taxes on the rich

I don't think they care if the tax burden is shifted downward, or if revenues go up or down. There is a concerted effort to reduce or eliminate taxes paid by the rich, and this is one of its offshoots. Forget theory, everytime the rich get their tax rate cut, the economy tanks, and the poor suffer worse than usual.

I say create a new bracket for the top 1%, and UNFLATTEN taxes.

[fascisthunter]

118. is this guy working for the Pentagon and CIA?

this is no "regular Joe"

[Hugabear]

126. He might be posting here on DU

Just scroll up above...

[fascisthunter]

130. lol....

ah.... Astro Turfing

[devilgrrl]

132. Why is some libertarian windbag allowed to post discredited bullshit?

Several DUer's have torpedoed his arguments. Nor has this poster shown one shred of evidence to suggest that they're in the least bit progressive. Yet they're still here... :wtf:

[Hugabear]

133. This is the only thread he's posting in

I have a feeling he would be tombstoned in a heartbeat if he tried posting his nonsense elsewhere here on DU.

I'd love to see this idiot start sharing his views on healthcare. :evilgrin:

[devilgrrl]

134. Well, I have alerted

Guess we'll have to wait. :shrug:

[Hugabear]

135. I alerted yesterday when this started

Who knows. Maybe they don't see him as a threat as long as he stays contained to one thread? Meanwhile, we'll just keep batting him around as he continues to spew his libertarian crap.

AFAIC, the only difference between a rethug and a libertarian is that the libertarian will at least tell you they don't care whether you die.

[rally2xs]

143. OT: I'd love to see this idiot start sharing his views on healthcare.

OK.

I think we should go to a French-like system where all the doctors, nurses, other healthcare people work directly for the government. There should be NO room for "private health insurance" because we don't need yet another company sucking PROFITS out of us just because we got sick. We need all the money paid for health care to go to health care, not making some insurance executive rich.

We ALSO need to get the health care workers being government workers so that they cannot be sued. The nonsense of having a bunch of lawyers chasing ambulances and making health care so that doctors' biggest expense is malpractice insurance while lawyers and scummy clients take advantage of an unfortuante mistake to conduct jackpot justice. No more malpractice lawsuits - just let a professional board review doctor's mistakes, and if he screws up, then he loses his license just like an engineer whose bridge fell down.

[AlphaCentauri]

296. besides that I want a French tax system too

Too bad they are using a right wing idiot to talk about it, my guess is that they do not want to touch the system cos corporations benefit from it, so they look for an idiot as bait were progressives will reject instantly without question living the system intact. So who wins? corporations again.
Same thing is happening with health care, they are playing reverse psychology.

[clear eye]

165. And the obscenely wealthy who got all the wealth the U.S. could borrow continue to pay no income tax

while we "grassroots" foot the bill every time we buy a loaf of bread.

I don't know whether to puke or cry.

[rally2xs]

182. And the obscenely wealthy who got all the wealth the U.S. could borrow continue to pay no income tax

That's right.

But we could tax them every time they buy something - and they buy a lot, that's what money's about, y'know?

[clear eye]

195. You're kidding, right?

If you're in that tiny top group sucking the life out of the U.S. economy and investing it overseas, and destroying the functions of gov't the rest of us need, you're bringing in $1M+ annually and you're not buying "things" w/ most of it. Mostly you're sending it abroad, out of the economy you just trashed, to make more money in slave economies.

[zeos3]

220. If you want to tax the obscenely wealthy

why do you want to get rid of the estate tax, capital gains, gift tax, etc.???

How do you rectify this obvious logical flaw in your arguement?

[grahamhgreen]

173. Fair tax sucks. No tax better. Only tax corporations, use tarrifs, the way it used to be.

[rally2xs]

179. We never did that

We did not tax corporations at all before 1913. We used consumption taxes. Excise taxes on booze and tobacco, mostly.

Go ahead, try tariffs. Get us thrown out of the WTO and them watch trade go to H, and get a REAL depression. Smoot-Hawely all over again. Duh.

[ima_sinnic]

184. take your "fair tax" SCAM over to boards where people are stupider

you know, like free republic?

everybody here can see through it as the stinking grifter scam it is, designed to relieve rich people of even more of their fair share of contribution to the public good. and bleed the little people dry. I see no response to the fact that the financial burden of maintaining and administering the system of "prebates" will cost a lot and be a logistical nightmare, or that the revenues will fall far short of what is needed. Best solution: return the 90% tax rate to income over $250K, tax corporations and close ALL loopholes, and end taxes for those making less than 50K.

You can also lobby hard for and promote a state where a-hole, greedhead, selfish taxaphobic libertarians can go and peacefully pay for every privatized service, including roads, police, ambulance, and fire, with no public parks or forests, not even public sidewalks, no minimum wage, no workplace standards, no oversight of anything--hey, it can be a regular Animal Farm!--and forget trying to shove dumbass "plans" down the throats of patriotic taxpayers.

[rally2xs]

188. take your "fair tax" SCAM over to boards where people are stupider

Almost everyone here is running on emotion, and not even really considering what the tax would do for them, and especially the poor.

Hell, I myself would end up with $6K - $9K more in my pocket than I have now. I could start living well again. I want a Mitsubishi LaserVue big-screen TV. Can't afford it - probably won't be getting it. I want a Nikon D3x camera - best SLR on the planet right now. They're $8K. Not getting that either, any time soon, probably never, unless it's 4 years old and much cheaper on e-bay.

Hey, so go ahead and look at your W2, and what you paid in income tax. Then figure out how much you would be paying in "fair tax." You're going to find that it is lower. That's what everyone (other than the fat cats that have figured out how to dodge the income tax) is going to find.

Go ahead, do the numbers. Dare ya.

[ima_sinnic]

189. I don't want ANY of that crap, but I do appreciate public highways and bridges

not to mention police, fire, and ambulance services, public parks, national forests, public schools, the Post Office, and worker protection, food safety, and what little corporate regulation we do have.

the "fair tax" is nothing but a scam to relieve the wealthy of their "crushing" tax burden. as if they didn't already have anough loopholes. It is designed by and for greedhead selfish assholes who rail about "govenment schools" and dream of an anarchic system where they could hoard all their loot, like scrooge mcduck.

[rally2xs]

190. More Emotion, no numbers

[ima_sinnic]

191. emotion? since Boortz the pig has said women, students, & the poor shouldn't have the right to vote,

and since he has nothing but contempt for those groups as well as for Katrina victims and people "on welfare" (as though his corporate buds weren't the hugest takers of welfare) and those who get the EIC, sometimes to the point of negative taxes (is the asshole jealous much?), whatever he is pimping is something designed not to benefit those groups but only him and his sleazeball, racist, sexist, covetous asshole friends. You can laugh it off as "emotion," but I know it is highly rational.

Take your fair tax stinking BULLSHIT and fucking shove it, asshole.

[rally2xs]

194. One More TIme

Forget Boortz.

I'm not talking about Boortz.

I'm talking about a tax collection METHOD that can save this nation and make us all prosperous again.

[ima_sinnic]

196. you're talking about a system that is developed and promoted by and for Boortz.

and a system that would be a colossal FAIL.

How about if the wealthy and the corporations simply pay their fair share, instead of sticking it to consumers?
The system you propose is a joke and a scam designed to further assist rich, greedy assholes in keeping more of their "hard-earned" money and contributing even less to the till while creating an unnecessary massive bureaucracy for administering "prebates," which have a huge potential for abuse and error, and causing massive shortfalls in revenues. The "fair tax" was designed by selfish assholes who hate paying taxes and should be offered the alternative: to pay to walk down the sidewalk in front of my house, to subscribe to private fire-fighting services, to have no oversight of drugs and food, and no benefits of public services whatsoever.

If you are not a shill but simply someone who actually thinks the "fair tax" is a good idea, you are a goddam fool. But I think I know what you really are.

[rally2xs]

199. you're talking about a system that is developed and promoted by and for Boortz.

I've never heard or seen this guy.

"and a system that would be a colossal FAIL."

It would turn this country around, and get people off welfare, give them great jobs in new factories that manufacture stuff we quit manufacturing decades ago. We'd have waaaaaay fewer people that even need welfare.

"How about if the wealthy and the corporations simply pay their fair share, instead of sticking it to consumers?"

How about the corporations tell us all to "stick it" and continue to move overseas, like they've been doing for 50 years or so? That's what the income tax has been causing.

And besides, no corporation has ever paid any tax. Their customers do that.

"The system you propose is a joke and a scam designed to further assist rich, greedy assholes in keeping more of their "hard-earned" money and contributing even less to the till while creating an unnecessary massive bureaucracy for administering "prebates," which have a huge potential for abuse and error, and causing massive shortfalls in revenues. The "fair tax" was designed by selfish assholes who hate paying taxes and should be offered the alternative: to pay to walk down the sidewalk in front of my house, to subscribe to private fire-fighting services, to have no oversight of drugs and food, and no benefits of public services whatsoever."

Don't know what you're talking about.

The system we have NOW is causing the sales of our roadways to foreign buyers who will put tolls on them to make a buck. That's what's happening NOW, because the income tax has impoverished so many people that there's nobody left to tax that has that much money in order to maintain the roads and highways and bridges and etc.

"If you are not a shill but simply someone who actually thinks the "fair tax" is a good idea, you are a goddam fool. But I think I know what you really are."

I believe this tax method would result in a supercharging of the American economy and make us all a lot richer. There would be a job for anyone that wanted one. There might even be a labor shortage. Foreign money would come pouring into the country where they can make things without paying any tax, with a workforce that has the best work ethic on the planet, and that is trained and knows how to run an annealing furnace without killing themselves or somebody else. We got "game" in industrial production, and there's just no match for us when building things. We could be doing all of this now, but the income tax has chased all those jobs overseas. You can't do those jobs unless you want to live in some Asian hole, crowded into houses that nearly touch, with no land to even have a cookout with. People live low there, but we can beat 'em by not sucking dry the companies that come here.

[Hugabear]

212. You've never heard of Boortz? Sorry, I'm calling BS on that.

I don't see how it's possible for someone to know as much about the UnFair Tax as you seem to, having never heard of Boortz. The guy's written two books about it, he practically wrote the proposed legislation, he's the biggest UnFair Tax cheerleader in the country.

[rally2xs]

228. You've never heard of Boortz? Sorry, I'm calling BS on that.

"I don't see how it's possible for someone to know as much about the UnFair Tax as you seem to, having never heard of Boortz. The guy's written two books about it, he practically wrote the proposed legislation, he's the biggest UnFair Tax cheerleader in the country."

I didn't say I never heard _of_ him, I said I never heard him. That is, I've never heard him speak, haven't heard his radio program, don't know what his voice sounds like, have no idea about his other ideas.

His show must not be syndicated by any of the local stations around here. I've never run across some talk show that I didn't know and found it to be him.

I think I first heard about the fair tax either from Huckabee's program on Fox TV or Glenn Beck's program on Fox TV. Didn't think anything about it, but heard some local radio show make a mention of the concept on a news/weather radio station (WTOP in DC), and conduct a poll, and so I got on the web and voted in the poll. The poll was 2 to 1 in favor of dumping the IRS and going to a consumption tax. That's when I saw that maybe this thing might get somewhere, so I really started reading about it on the web.

Lots and lots of info at www.fairtax.org, so you don't _really_ need to read the book, although I've bought the original one and the follow-up one. I'm starting the original one, but I am in the "history" part of the book - how we financed things before income tax and how the politicians really, really, really, really wanted to institute an income tax. Kept trying for decades until they got it. Same reason as today - class hatred - selling people on raping "rich" people was as popular then as it is now. It was not quite as counterproductive then as it is now - right now, its absolutely killing us and has us headed toward a 3rd-world status because it's chased our means of prosperity - manufacturing - out of the country. Now, even Microsoft has made noises about leaving, at least partially, due directly to some tax policies that the president has proposed.

I think I'd like to have a bumper sticker that says, "It's the income tax, stupid," like Clinton's '92 slogan, "It's the economy, stupid." Because they're both true. This country's going DOWN, and the income tax is at the bottom of it.

[LAGC]

298. Go back to listening to Faux News.

Gather more of your conservative talking-points and come back here to have them refuted some more.

[zeos3]

224. HA!

You have a dog like obedience to this scam and claim to know everything about it yet somehow you've never heard of Boortz?? What's next? Never heard of Huckabee either?

[zeos3]

223. No, you're not.

You're talking about a tax collecting method that will screw us and benefit the super wealthy and corporations.

[zeos3]

222. Why do you come up with a different amount left in your pocket

from the other times you've told us this??

I dare ya to do the numbers again and come up with some new ones (again).

[rally2xs]

231. Why do you come up with a different amount left in your pocket

"I dare ya to do the numbers again and come up with some new ones (again)."

Awright, lemme get specific here.

Thanks to a trip to Iraq as a civilian sci/tech advisor, 2008 income was right at $100K - the job pays very well (and was the best job I've ever had in my life, too, BTW - I'd go back in a heartbeat if I could - opportunities are rare.)

The income tax / medicare tax on this came in it $17K.

My take-home pay, of which I spent every d*** dime, was about $60K - I have a lot of $$$ going to things like retirement savings plans, etc.

I have a mortgage I'm paying of about $1K / mo, so that's 12K I'm not spending at retail, so that isn't taxed, so my taxed spending under the fairtax plan is no more than $48K.

23% of 48K is $11,040.

Since I paid $17,000 in the above mentioned taxes, the difference is 17,000 - 11,040 = $5,960 extra for me.

Then, I'm going to get the "prebate", just like everyone else all the way up to Bill Gates. That would be the single person poverty rate, about $11K, times the tax rate, 23%, which equals $2,530.

$5,960 + $2,530 = $8,490.

Like I said, between $6K - $9K better off with the fairtax.

Being a little curious, I asked myself what the tax rate would need to be to equal the tax I'm paying, and I got 46%. The fairtax rate would have to go to 46% before it cost me as much as my current income tax situation.

[Hugabear]

232. You still don't get it. It's a REGRESSIVE TAX.

Under this scam, the rich will wind up paying a far less share, and the burden will be shifted primarily to the middle and lower class. Since the poor and middle class spend a much higher percentage of their income, it's they who will bear the brunt.

Please tell me how it makes sense, how it's FAIR, that the wealthiest in this country, those who can easiest afford it, should have a LOWER burden than those barely making ends meet?

[LAGC]

297. The troll left.

He went back to Freeper-ville to collect more "untax the rich" talking points...

[grahamhgreen]

207. Increasing your wages is better than lowering your taxes.

[grahamhgreen]

208. And the WTO sucks - yes let's get out it has been a disaster for our economy.

[grahamhgreen]

209. Besides, lower taxes are not the only way to increase a person or businesses bottom line.

Try making a better product!

Or getting finance out of your business or personal life model - that's where your money is going to corrupt financial institutions who have inflated the cost of everything.

It's better financially to increase your bottom line by 10%, than to decrease your tax rate by 10%.

Boortz is just trying to tax the poor and middle class with his plan.

[zeos3]

221. What are you talking about?!?

You are the one saying we will tax imported goods and corporations will come RUNNING back to the US because of no corporate income taxes and to avoid this tariff.

WHY are you worried about getting thrown out of the WTO NOW?!?

Wouldn't your super awesome fair tax get us thrown out anyway??

[BlueMTexpat]

203. By gosh, if Joe the Plumber says that "FairTax" makes sense,

then it must! He is such a profound thinker, who has demonstrated such an impressive command of all the facts and issues.

Sign me right up. :sarcasm:

[trotsky]

210. Sad part is, I'm willing to bet Sam the non-Plumber actually understands this...

better than the tireless advocate for the rich who's been steadfastly defending this insane policy right here.

[BlooInBloo]

214. It's "Joe The Illiterate Bigot", folks. Get it right.

[Initech]

240. Personally I like "Joe The Dumbass".

[walldude]

242. Wow. I never would have known this if it hadn't been posted here.

:banghead:

[Jkid]

243. Here's some better ideas

1.Raise the nontaxable income amount to $25,000 a year
2. A progressive income tax with no loopholes
3. 100% taxation for any income above $250,000 a year

[Stellabella]

253. Has this jackass ever held a real job?

Or does he just make his money pimping for rich white men?

[Greyhound]

258. I just want to know who this guy blew and swallowed to be McSame's postertwit.

You usually have to be blonde with a great rack to get this kind of gig.

Two years ago this moran was a minimum wage, overpaid incompetent that only offended those unfortunate enough to encounter him in person. Now, he's an unavoidable industry making more money than he is capable of counting and inflicting his dumbassery on millions of innocents.

Where do I sign up?

[zeos3]

261. Agreed!

I just replied to an exchange you had with rally2xs. That guy is SO fucking annoying!

[AlphaCentauri]

295. Defending the current tax system is like defending the current Health care system

The tax system is outdated corporations had benefit from it and we go calling it the progressive tax system, in the case of Health Care the unique American Health Care system.

Who would oppose to a tax system that will make them pay taxes in every transaction? corporations of course.

[Hugabear]

310. Don't tell me you support this UnFair Tax scheme also

To me the solution is simple. Eliminate corporate loopholes, force them to pay their fair share of taxes, and bring back the tax rates from the 50s.

[AlphaCentauri]

311. It's been mention about corporate loopholes but the tax system it's made that way

full of loopholes. Patches will not fix it.
Taxes and abortion are the 2 topics that have been recycled in every election by the RW for decades. I'm not familiar with the unfair tax but for sure if everybody could pay their percentage without exceptions or loopholes we could pay for the best universal health care of the world, free college education and pollution free transportation.

See post #296

[rally2xs]

314. How Do You Make Corporations in India Pay Their Fair Share?

"To me the solution is simple. Eliminate corporate loopholes, force them to pay their fair share of taxes, and bring back the tax rates from the 50s."

All you're going to end up with is corporations in India and China, eventuallly. The American people will end up with NO industrial activity, and the only things left will be services like your plumber, electrician, etc. We almost took a big step in that direction with the bankruptcy of the auto companies, and that still is playing out. We could still see that happen, too.

Its like the joke of America ending up with simple endeavors like burger flipping, stock trading, and suing each other as our only endeavors. Its coming true for real, and this idea that companies have to pay "their fair share" is partly at the bottom of it. Companies don't have a fair share. Companies don't have any money. They have people, and some people have some money, but that's it - any "money" that comes from corporations are just the result of the company raising its prices to be able to collect that money. That's where they get their money. That's why they go out of business when they're taxed here and not somewhere else, or taxed heavier here than somewhere else. The end up moving somewhere else, or being driven out of business by a company that is located somewhere else.

The next candidate that gets my vote that isn't based on his or her 2nd amendment stance will probably have a campaign slogan of "Its the income tax, stupid."

Dang, I wasn't even going to reply to anything this morning, but was just reading responses because I intended to start answering some people tonight, but this is just such an important question, its hard not to start typing...