Consumer Tax

[Annie]

While we debate tirelessly about different ways to tax money out of people's pockets, there's billions in spending just WAITING to be cut instead.

Don't fund this monstrosity of HCP, cut taxes across the board. Spending and taxes both need to be cut, now that the economy seems to be correcting.

I don't expect this though. Nope, those in power are more than likely to kill the markets before Nov.

Ron Paul's not looking so bad these days now, huh?

Always said I agreed with the message, not the messenger. Still don't. Too many haters behind him, we're not going to do that again, right?

 

[Paulie]

Don't fund this monstrosity of HCP, cut taxes across the board. Spending and taxes both need to be cut, now that the economy seems to be correcting.

I don't expect this though. Nope, those in power are more than likely to kill the markets before Nov.

Ron Paul's not looking so bad these days now, huh?

Always said I agreed with the message, not the messenger. Still don't. Too many haters behind him, we're not going to do that again, right?

No, just saw an opportunity to take a jab for some comic relief

 

[Annie]

Ron Paul's not looking so bad these days now, huh?

Always said I agreed with the message, not the messenger. Still don't. Too many haters behind him, we're not going to do that again, right?

No, just saw an opportunity to take a jab for some comic relief

TG!

 

[Thinman]

A fair tax or a flat tax would be great if it eliminated the IRS. Either one is much better than income tax.

The IRS budget for 2009 was 16.4 billion. I know, that doesn't sound like much when trillion is thrown around like poker chips, but it's 16 billion taxpayers no longer have to pay if a F-tax were adopted.

 

[SFC Ollie]

A fair tax or a flat tax would be great if it eliminated the IRS. Either one is much better than income tax.

The IRS budget for 2009 was 16.4 billion. I know, that doesn't sound like much when trillion is thrown around like poker chips, but it's 16 billion taxpayers no longer have to pay if a F-tax were adopted.

Ah but the IRS has just been expanded to include policing our healthcare choices. They will only get bigger and more intrusive.

 

[boedicca]

Part of the unicorn farts is reducing the amount of time and effort wasted in compliance issues.

The argument is there is so much friction and waste generated by the current tax code, and so much tax loss generated by "targeted tax cuts"/"loopholes" that eliminating the losses through stupid will make the thing a net gainer very quickly.

VAT will just introduce a whole new set of compliance issues - and opportunities for politicians to sell favors. A better solution is simplication of the income tax, which we should pay once a year as a bill, a couple of weeks before scheduled elections. Hiding taxes in paycheck withholding, excise taxes, VAT etc. just anesthetizes people from the cost and growth of government. We should see that for which we are paying in high relief.

I posted quotes from this column in another thread, but it bears repeating here:

The tax sounds simple, but don't be fooled. Because both upper- and lower-income families pay the tax at an equal rate, the VAT is considered regressive; that is, it hits the poor harder than the better-off. So it is the practice in countries such as Britain to exempt food, which lower-income families spend a greater proportion of their income on. The technical term is "zero rating," meaning that exempt items are taxed at a "zero rate."

However, wait until the folks at the IRS get their hands on the regulations for the application of the new tax. They will undoubtedly turn to their more experienced British counterparts for guidance.

"Food of the kind used for human consumption," to a British bureaucrat, is something "the average person, knowing what it is and how it is used, would consider it to be food or drink; and it is fit for human consumption. . . . The term includes . . . products like flour, which, although not eaten by themselves, are generally recognized food ingredients . . . [but] would not usually include . . . dietary supplements, food additives and similar products, which, although edible, are not generally regarded as food."

And so, in the United Kingdom, according to the regulations of Her Majesty's Inland Revenue Service, crackers made from tapioca starch carry no tax; prawn crackers made from cereals do. Frozen yogurt that needs to be thawed before eating is zero rated, frozen yogurt bears the tax. Get it? If you don't, too bad—Her Majesty's tax collectors are not in the habit of offering an explanation for their regulations.

Food for animals creates other problems. If it is "suitable for all breeds" it is taxed, but if "it is held out for sale exclusively for working dogs" it is not, unless, of course, "it is biscuit or meal," in which case it is taxed.

So dog food for "sheepdog breeds" is taxed, but dog food for "working sheep dogs of any breed" is not; food for greyhounds is taxed, food for "racing greyhounds" is not. This may be the only tax in Britain that favors work over leisure.

Clothing also presents a problem for the British tax man. Two problems, actually.

First, what is clothing? Well, sailors' lifejackets are clothing because they "have the form and function of clothing," but "buoyancy aids" are not. Second, since children's clothing is zero-rated, what fits into that category?

Bras up to and including size 34B; body stockings that measure no more than 27½ inches shoulder to crotch; babies' shawls but not "mother-and-baby shawls intended to wrap around both mother and child." There's more, lots more, but you get the idea.

This process of writing regulations for the VAT man when he cometh is more than merely amusing. For one thing, it confers enormous power on faceless bureaucrats.

They can hand a competing product the advantage in the U.K. of a price 17.5% lower (in Sweden it's 25%) than a close substitute. That invites both lobbying and corruption and sheer, inexplicable arbitrariness. Get your "sweetened dried fruit" deemed to be "held out for sale as snacking and home baking" and your product will bear a tax and have to compete on grocers' shelves with zero-rated "sweetened dried fruit held out for sale as confectionary/snacking." Peddle your sandwiches "as a general grocery item" and consumers pay no tax, but offer them as "part of a buffet service" and the VAT man wants his 17.5%.

Manufacturers twist and turn and juggle their product specifications and processes, not to find the most efficient way of making things but the surest way of obtaining a zero rating. The resulting inefficiencies cannot be measured accurately, but they certainly contribute to Europe's lagging productivity and increasing inability to compete in world markets.

For a long time conservatives favored some sort of VAT, on the theory that it is better to tax consumption than jobs. But that support was based on the theory that taxes on incomes would be reduced to offset the increase from VAT. ...

Irwin Stelzer: Small Bras and the Value-Added Tax - WSJ.com

 

[code1211]

Ever heard of it? It means Federal sales tax is all. What if we had that instead of income tax?

I heard about it on Fox News. Seems reasonable on the surface. What do you guys think? Educate me (and others who know little about this idea).

p.s. If you didn't know it, I'm a far left liberal.

In the world of taxes, progressive means that those who have more, pay more. Regressive means that all pay equally. The rich and the poor all pay the same percent of their expenditures under this tax so it is the most regressive tax there is.

The argument goes that the rich buy more and what they buy is generally more expensive so they will pay more. A Lexus vs. a Corrolla.

One purpose of taxation through income is social engineering. Collecting taxes through purchases, if that tax is level across all products, eliminates this. Income taxes with credits for certain purchased items will incent the purchases of those items. A sales tax withdraws some of the governmental intrusion into our lives.

A sales tax also applies to all purchases so the under the counter transactions on income that avoid taxation will cease and the whole GDP will be taxed instead of just those who have incomes that exceed minimums.

A sales tax is the most small d democratic tax there is. As a result, the big d Democrat party would not like this.

I must disagree, I'm quite sure that the Democrats are heading for a VAT, the most regressive of taxes. Those of us that spend all of our income to meet our needs are going to be taxed on all. This will be in addition to 'progressive' income tax at federal and state levels. In addition to the sales taxes already levied by state, county, municipalities. In addition to property taxes, and all other taxes levied.

You're probably right. Democrats never saw a tax they didn't like, but it seems like they like taxes that meddle with the the way people behave more than taxes that just generate funds.

 

[code1211]

While we debate tirelessly about different ways to tax money out of people's pockets, there's billions in spending just WAITING to be cut instead.

The problem with our government is that they define increases in Trillions and define cuts in Billions. The "cuts" side of the ledger are hardly even a decimal to the "increases" side.

 

[Paulie]

While we debate tirelessly about different ways to tax money out of people's pockets, there's billions in spending just WAITING to be cut instead.

The problem with our government is that they define increases in Trillions and define cuts in Billions. The "cuts" side of the ledger are hardly even a decimal to the "increases" side.

Not that long ago, cutting BILLIONS was a huge move. Now it's practically nothing. Most of the sheep though, are still fooled into thinking that a specific amount of billions being cut is good enough.

Probably just enough sheep to get the RINO's elected back into office to double cross us yet again.