A Six-Point Plan to Restore Economic Growth and Prosperity

[g5000]

A payroll tax is a tax on production. A business transfer tax is a tax on consumption. Any economist, and any fiscal conservative, will tell you a tax on consumption is superior to a tax on production.

The whole point of switching from a tax on production to a tax on consumption is to increase the cost of consumption and decrease the cost of production.

 

[g5000]

I'm just not sure what they mean by payroll tax. State and fed income tax. Soc Sec and Medicare. IF what they mean is lower the overall fed income taxation and replace the revenue with a kind of VAT ... maybe.

Yes, they mean repealing Social Security and Medicare taxes and unemployment insurance. It would be an instant raise in your income.

Not when everything you buy costs 15% more.

That is a number pulled from your ass.

Didn't you just propose a 15% on all business transfers?

Careful, your innumeracy is showing.

A 15% transfer tax does not translate to a 15% increase in the cost of a product.

 

[bripat9643]

I'm just not sure what they mean by payroll tax. State and fed income tax. Soc Sec and Medicare. IF what they mean is lower the overall fed income taxation and replace the revenue with a kind of VAT ... maybe.

Yes, they mean repealing Social Security and Medicare taxes and unemployment insurance. It would be an instant raise in your income.

Not when everything you buy costs 15% more.

That is a number pulled from your ass.

Didn't you just propose a 15% on all business transfers?

Careful, your innumeracy is showing.

A 15% transfer tax does not translate to a 15% increase in the cost of a product.

Not exactly, perhaps, but it's close enough. That's how it works out in Canada. You'll find the prices they pay there are breathtaking.

 

[g5000]

Yes, they mean repealing Social Security and Medicare taxes and unemployment insurance. It would be an instant raise in your income.

Not when everything you buy costs 15% more.

That is a number pulled from your ass.

Didn't you just propose a 15% on all business transfers?

Careful, your innumeracy is showing.

A 15% transfer tax does not translate to a 15% increase in the cost of a product.

Not exactly, perhaps, but it's close enough. That's how it works out in Canada. You'll find the prices they pay there are breathtaking.

I've been there many, many times throughout my life. Canada has a VAT (GST) and an income tax and payroll taxes and a variation of the VAT (HST).

Apples and oranges.

 

[bripat9643]

Not when everything you buy costs 15% more.

That is a number pulled from your ass.

Didn't you just propose a 15% on all business transfers?

Careful, your innumeracy is showing.

A 15% transfer tax does not translate to a 15% increase in the cost of a product.

Not exactly, perhaps, but it's close enough. That's how it works out in Canada. You'll find the prices they pay there are breathtaking.

I've been there many, many times throughout my life. Canada has a VAT (GST) and an income tax and payroll taxes and another VAT (HST).

Apples and oranges.

How is it "apples and oranges?"

 

[g5000]

That is a number pulled from your ass.

Didn't you just propose a 15% on all business transfers?

Careful, your innumeracy is showing.

A 15% transfer tax does not translate to a 15% increase in the cost of a product.

Not exactly, perhaps, but it's close enough. That's how it works out in Canada. You'll find the prices they pay there are breathtaking.

I've been there many, many times throughout my life. Canada has a VAT (GST) and an income tax and payroll taxes and another VAT (HST).

Apples and oranges.

How is it "apples and oranges?"

VAT + payroll taxes = Apple

VAT - payroll taxes = Orange

Did I mention Canada also has a $10.50 minimum wage? One province has a $12.50 minimum wage.

 

[g5000]

Canada also has crazy high gasoline taxes. That makes the cost of everything higher.

 

[bripat9643]

Didn't you just propose a 15% on all business transfers?

Careful, your innumeracy is showing.

A 15% transfer tax does not translate to a 15% increase in the cost of a product.

Not exactly, perhaps, but it's close enough. That's how it works out in Canada. You'll find the prices they pay there are breathtaking.

I've been there many, many times throughout my life. Canada has a VAT (GST) and an income tax and payroll taxes and another VAT (HST).

Apples and oranges.

How is it "apples and oranges?"

VAT + payroll taxes = Apple

VAT - payroll taxes = Orange

Did I mention Canada also has a $10.50 minimum wage? One province has a $12.50 minimum wage.

Then you admit it's a VAT.

 

[bripat9643]

Canada also has crazy high gasoline taxes. That makes the cost of everything higher.

Actually the price of gas wasn't that bad in Canada, only a little higher than the USA. It's not like Europe where gas costs $8-$10/gal.

 

[bendog]

A payroll tax is a tax on production. A business transfer tax is a tax on consumption. Any economist, and any fiscal conservative, will tell you a tax on consumption is superior to a tax on production.

The whole point of switching from a tax on production to a tax on consumption is to increase the cost of consumption and decrease the cost of production.

I understand. But Medicare, and to a lesser degree soc sec, were premised as being fiscally "ok" because they were "a tax," but with defined benefits. In fact Wilber Mills only let medicare come up for a vote after saying "well, ok, IF it's a tax." (And yes, Obama would have been more truthful if he'd owned up that Obamacare shared this feature.) I was responding about revenue streams and direct link to specific social welfare compacts between all citizens.

 

[hipeter924]

Banks and regulators unite to make it hard for small businesses to get ahead (or just crush them), as they are anti-competition and don't want a real 'free market' - as then Monsanto would have to fight other companies for market share.

Without heavy government subsidies, and lobbyists for them to create regulations that hurt small business, the worst offenders (like Monsanto) would be bankrupted by foreign competitors in the space of a few decades. As they can't compete off the government teat.

It is easy to blame taxes for all America's economic woes, but truth is that isn't just tax that turns business away from America, but the US market itself - and those who manipulate it to keep out and stop small businesses starting up.

Go into Bank of America, and they demand $15-$29.95 a month minimum, then on top of that the transaction fees,etc vs $6 per month in places like New Zealand.

 

[Kosh]

Yet the OP voted for Obama and the spending your way to prosperity..

 

[Blackrook]

The middle class is not going to give up its deductions on home mortgage payments and dependents, nor should they.

 

[g5000]

Careful, your innumeracy is showing.

A 15% transfer tax does not translate to a 15% increase in the cost of a product.

Not exactly, perhaps, but it's close enough. That's how it works out in Canada. You'll find the prices they pay there are breathtaking.

I've been there many, many times throughout my life. Canada has a VAT (GST) and an income tax and payroll taxes and another VAT (HST).

Apples and oranges.

How is it "apples and oranges?"

VAT + payroll taxes = Apple

VAT - payroll taxes = Orange

Did I mention Canada also has a $10.50 minimum wage? One province has a $12.50 minimum wage.

Then you admit it's a VAT.

Yes, I quite plainly posted a link which explained it is a form of VAT and that precisely because people like you knee-jerkingly reject a VAT, it is not hyped as one.

 

[g5000]

Yet the OP voted for Obama and the spending your way to prosperity..

Nope. You really need to work on not lying.

 

[g5000]

The middle class is not going to give up its deductions on home mortgage payments and dependents, nor should they.

They certainly should. The mortgage interest deduction is a regressive deduction, and it drives up the cost of houses without increasing home ownership.

It is wealth transference of tax dollars to home builders and real estate agents. It is as fiscally unconservative as it gets.

All deductions, credits, and exemptions are government behavioral control programs which are paid for by higher tax rates and deficit spending. No sane, thinking conservative would ever support them.

You've been brainwashed by the people who are stealing from you. They have you believing you get to keep more of your money with deductions. It's a lie. You are paying higher tax rates because of them. You are not only not getting to keep more of your money, you are paying more than you would otherwise. Most of the benefits of tax deductions, exemptions, and credits are going to people wealthier than you, and you are paying for it.

Not only that, without any deductions you could fill out your taxes on a post card. And all those lobbyists would have no incentive to donate campaign cash to politicians to keep or create all those government gifts.

It's a $1.2 trillion annual boondoggle coming out of your hide, and the hides of your children and grandchildren.

 

[bendog]

The middle class is not going to give up its deductions on home mortgage payments and dependents, nor should they.

They might, if their general tax costs were roughly equal, and if a pol would sell them the idea that a more transparent tax structure would result in better growth.

One overall problem is that any consumption v. income tax tends to rest more heavily on lesser earners. So, moving that way might make it harder in making the income tax flatter with fewer deductions.

 

[g5000]

Banks and regulators unite to make it hard for small businesses to get ahead (or just crush them), as they are anti-competition and don't want a real 'free market' - as then Monsanto would have to fight other companies for market share.

Agree, to a point. There are certainly regulations which are designed to make it harder for an upstart to break into a market. This is another campaign cash resource for politicians. They create those unnecessary regulations on behalf of sclerotic businesses in exchange for cash.

However, there are regulations which are necessary to protect the public from simple human nature which finds it easier and more profitable to dump chemical waste into the soil which then seeps into the water table rather than dispose of it properly, for example. Or human nature which finds if profitable to defraud investors, for another.

 

[g5000]

The middle class is not going to give up its deductions on home mortgage payments and dependents, nor should they.

They might, if their general tax costs were roughly equal, and if a pol would sell them the idea that a more transparent tax structure would result in better growth.

Exactly.

We currently have an insane system in which people earning identical incomes pay radically differing amounts of tax. The field has been legislatively tilted to favor some people at the expense of others. You are punished if you do not behave a certain way or don't buy all the right products, such as a house.

It was not a big leap to punish you for not buying the right health insurance.

I have no doubt people would gladly accept a system where they knew they were paying the same taxes as everyone else in their income bracket. It just doesn't get more fair than that! Especially since tax rates could be much lower in such a system.

 

[Blackrook]

Equal tax is not the same as fair tax.