For all you Wrongpublicans supporting the 'Fair Tax'

[M.D. Rawlings]

It doesn't get rid of the IRS, and it doesn't eliminate the thousands upon thousands of pages of regulations that businesses must comply with when they report their income.

Any plan that doesn't abolish the income tax is a non-starter. It's pointless.

It's a sales tax, it's a tax on revenue, what are you talking about regarding it not getting rid of thousands of pages of regulations? How many pages does it take to say, "charge X percent of sales"...

The flat tax doesn't get rid of 80,000 pages of IRS regulations. The FAIR tax does. That's why I support it.

It does if you scrap them in the establishment of a flat tax.

I hear you though. That's no easy feat, but a fair tax simply won't fly, politically. A flat tax has a chance of passage if the Republican Party holds Congress and the White House. At the very least it would dramatically simplify things . . . however imperfectly.

One things for sure, the current model has got to go. It's absurd.

 

[g5000]

So what is the solution to the Achilles heel of the Fair Tax I mentioned?

 

[kaz]

It's a sales tax, it's a tax on revenue, what are you talking about regarding it not getting rid of thousands of pages of regulations? How many pages does it take to say, "charge X percent of sales"...

The flat tax doesn't get rid of 80,000 pages of IRS regulations. The FAIR tax does. That's why I support it.

It does if you scrap them in the establishment of a flat tax.

I hear you though. That's no easy feat, but a fair tax simply won't fly, politically. A flat tax has a chance of passage if the Republican Party holds Congress and the White House. At the very least it would dramatically simplify things . . . however imperfectly.

One things for sure, the current model has got to go. It's absurd.

The flat tax also discourages hiring people in the US, it doesn't make foreign competitors taxpayers, doesn't make tax dodgers tax payers, and it's inefficient because it's an indirect tax instead of a direct tax on the economy.

 

[kaz]

So what is the solution to the Achilles heel of the Fair Tax I mentioned?

It is not an Achilles heal, it doesn't change anything. Taxes are baked in the price of products now. You remove those taxes and replace them with a flat tax on revenue and it doesn't raise the price of products.

A store doesn't charge you for what they spent on a bottle of ketchup, they charge you for what it costs to replace the bottle of ketchup on the shelf. The taxes baked into the price of products is for future taxes. Taxes paid in the past are already paid.

 

[Erand7899]

Basically, the idea of a "fair tax" is to cut taxes for the rich, and make everyone else pay more. Correct?

Hardly! The idea of a "FAIR tax" is to tax consumption rather than tax income. It has many beneficial side effects. It makes everything made in America cheaper to produce and therefore, improves job creation in America. It takes the government out of our financial business, and makes the IRS obsolete. It rewards savings and investment for every element of society.

Economists have estimated that the price of products in America contain between 15% to 20% of the price due to cost of taxes paid by producers of the product. That means that prices for all commodities would drop by at least 15%. Add that 15% to the 10.7% that workers would no longer pay for Social Security and Medicare, and the 23% sales tax would be negligible for lower income workers.

 

[ThoughtCrimes]

The flat tax also discourages hiring people in the US, it doesn't make foreign competitors taxpayers, doesn't make tax dodgers tax payers, and it's inefficient because it's an indirect tax instead of a direct tax on the economy.

BINGO! You win the Prize of the day!

 

[bripat9643]

The flat tax also discourages hiring people in the US, it doesn't make foreign competitors taxpayers, doesn't make tax dodgers tax payers, and it's inefficient because it's an indirect tax instead of a direct tax on the economy.

BINGO! You win the Prize of the day!

Hmmm, . . . those are arguments in favor of the FAIR tax, Bozo.

 

[bripat9643]

It's a sales tax, it's a tax on revenue, what are you talking about regarding it not getting rid of thousands of pages of regulations? How many pages does it take to say, "charge X percent of sales"...

The flat tax doesn't get rid of 80,000 pages of IRS regulations. The FAIR tax does. That's why I support it.

It does if you scrap them in the establishment of a flat tax.

I hear you though. That's no easy feat, but a fair tax simply won't fly, politically. A flat tax has a chance of passage if the Republican Party holds Congress and the White House. At the very least it would dramatically simplify things . . . however imperfectly.

One things for sure, the current model has got to go. It's absurd.

Flat or not, if you have an income tax, then you have to define "income." Most of the 80,000 pages of the IRS are devoted to doing exactly that. You don't get rid of most of the IRS code, and you don't get rid of the IRS.

 

[LiberalMedia]

[MENTION=29100]bripat9643[/MENTION]

The evidence that you're wrong is the fact that virtually every state in the union has a sales tax, but state governments haven't engaged in the kind of "carve outs" that you describe. A few have exceptions for food, but that's about it. the voters simply aren't going to tolerate granting exemptions to every retail product under the sun.

Bullshit. You should check before you speak.

Here is a list of sales tax exemptions for the state of Washington:

No sales tax on semen! Woo hoo!

That's more than I thought there were, but the IRS code has 80,000 pages. Your list comes to, what, two pages?

Except g5000's post didn't address your "hurr durr tax code too long, me no like reading, me want throw tax code away" argument, he addressed your "A few have exceptions for food, but that's about it" claim, and he completely blew it out of the water. The idea that sales taxes are tamper-proofed from corporate shills seeking to do their campaign contributors special favors is completely bogus. Literally every single state that levies a sales tax has exemptions for select products.

 

[IlarMeilyr]

Look at the left wingnut loon statists whine about the prospect (however remote it may be) of having their socialist feeding frenzy toy taken away from them.

"We wuvz us sum tax code!" says every ******* leftwing loon statist ever.

 

[RKMBrown]

[MENTION=29100]bripat9643[/MENTION]


Bullshit. You should check before you speak.

Here is a list of sales tax exemptions for the state of Washington:

No sales tax on semen! Woo hoo!

That's more than I thought there were, but the IRS code has 80,000 pages. Your list comes to, what, two pages?

Except g5000's post didn't address your "hurr durr tax code too long, me no like reading, me want throw tax code away" argument, he addressed your "A few have exceptions for food, but that's about it" claim, and he completely blew it out of the water. The idea that sales taxes are tamper-proofed from corporate shills seeking to do their campaign contributors special favors is completely bogus. Literally every single state that levies a sales tax has exemptions for select products.

You say that like exempting food products from sales tax is evil.

Why don't you just come out and admit you are just an ignorant turd.

Or perhaps you can explain how some States have income tax and others don't, yet we're doing just fine with or without it. You seem to have this belief that life is better with slave tax, aka labor tax, and without your slave tax the world is gonna stop turning. Were you born a slave, or is this something that has been whipped into your psyche?

 

[g5000]

So what is the solution to the Achilles heel of the Fair Tax I mentioned?

It is not an Achilles heal, it doesn't change anything. Taxes are baked in the price of products now. You remove those taxes and replace them with a flat tax on revenue and it doesn't raise the price of products.

A store doesn't charge you for what they spent on a bottle of ketchup, they charge you for what it costs to replace the bottle of ketchup on the shelf. The taxes baked into the price of products is for future taxes. Taxes paid in the past are already paid.

Let's say I earn $50,000 and I am taxed 25%. So the amount of money I get to keep is $37,500.

Let's say I am able to save $5,000 of that for my retirement.

Then one day, the income tax goes away and the Fair Tax is implemented.

When I go to buy something in my retirement with my $5,000, I have to pay a 30% Fair Tax.

My money has now been taxed twice. Once at 25%, and then again at 30%.

If the Fair Tax is never implemented, then my money is only taxed the one time, at 25%.

Now do you see the problem?

 

[RKMBrown]

So what is the solution to the Achilles heel of the Fair Tax I mentioned?

It is not an Achilles heal, it doesn't change anything. Taxes are baked in the price of products now. You remove those taxes and replace them with a flat tax on revenue and it doesn't raise the price of products.

A store doesn't charge you for what they spent on a bottle of ketchup, they charge you for what it costs to replace the bottle of ketchup on the shelf. The taxes baked into the price of products is for future taxes. Taxes paid in the past are already paid.

Let's say I earn $50,000 and I am taxed 25%. So the amount of money I get to keep is $37,500.

Let's say I am able to save $5,000 of that for my retirement.

Then one day, the income tax goes away and the Fair Tax is implemented.

When I go to buy something in my retirement with my $5,000, I have to pay a 30% Fair Tax.

My money has now been taxed twice. Once at 25%, and then again at 30%.

If the Fair Tax is never implemented, then my money is only taxed the one time, at 25%.

Now do you see the problem?

Yeah, the problem is you retired

I agree that's the problem with switching from sales to income... it helps the folks that have assets they horded and the ones that don't work anymore, but then you can't switch back to sales without hurting cash hoarders and retirees who feel they are done being a slave to the state.

One way to fix that would be for people who are currently working to all quit and go on welfare thus putting the onus on paying the tab to the people who have assets we can take. hehe

 

[ThoughtCrimes]

The flat tax also discourages hiring people in the US, it doesn't make foreign competitors taxpayers, doesn't make tax dodgers tax payers, and it's inefficient because it's an indirect tax instead of a direct tax on the economy.

BINGO! You win the Prize of the day!

Hmmm, . . . those are arguments in favor of the FAIR tax, Bozo.

Obviously, she was either really all screwed up or she was talking to the fair tax. Look at the red highlighted clause of which I made note. Which is a direct tax and which is an indirect tax.

The flat tax is a direct tax and the fair tax is an indirect tax. Or do you really want to argue that!

 

[kaz]

The flat tax doesn't get rid of 80,000 pages of IRS regulations. The FAIR tax does. That's why I support it.

It does if you scrap them in the establishment of a flat tax.

I hear you though. That's no easy feat, but a fair tax simply won't fly, politically. A flat tax has a chance of passage if the Republican Party holds Congress and the White House. At the very least it would dramatically simplify things . . . however imperfectly.

One things for sure, the current model has got to go. It's absurd.

Flat or not, if you have an income tax, then you have to define "income." Most of the 80,000 pages of the IRS are devoted to doing exactly that. You don't get rid of most of the IRS code, and you don't get rid of the IRS.

Yes, you have to define it. Then the IRS still can audit you and verify what you paid. And people can still evade it.

 

[boedicca]

That's more than I thought there were, but the IRS code has 80,000 pages. Your list comes to, what, two pages?

Except g5000's post didn't address your "hurr durr tax code too long, me no like reading, me want throw tax code away" argument, he addressed your "A few have exceptions for food, but that's about it" claim, and he completely blew it out of the water. The idea that sales taxes are tamper-proofed from corporate shills seeking to do their campaign contributors special favors is completely bogus. Literally every single state that levies a sales tax has exemptions for select products.

You say that like exempting food products from sales tax is evil.

Why don't you just come out and admit you are just an ignorant turd.

Or perhaps you can explain how some States have income tax and others don't, yet we're doing just fine with or without it. You seem to have this belief that life is better with slave tax, aka labor tax, and without your slave tax the world is gonna stop turning. Were you born a slave, or is this something that has been whipped into your psyche?

The problem with exemptions is that they provide opportunities for rent seeking, graft, corruption, and regulatory capture.

Lesson #1: Dog Food and The Small Bra Tax


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%....



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

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Basically, the idea of a "fair tax" is to cut taxes for the rich, and make everyone else pay more. Correct?

Hardly! The idea of a "FAIR tax" is to tax consumption rather than tax income. It has many beneficial side effects. It makes everything made in America cheaper to produce and therefore, improves job creation in America. It takes the government out of our financial business, and makes the IRS obsolete. It rewards savings and investment for every element of society.

Economists have estimated that the price of products in America contain between 15% to 20% of the price due to cost of taxes paid by producers of the product. That means that prices for all commodities would drop by at least 15%. Add that 15% to the 10.7% that workers would no longer pay for Social Security and Medicare, and the 23% sales tax would be negligible for lower income workers.

Indeed, arguments made by you and Kaz are important. I could support a fair tax system if it had a chance in hell of being passed, but that's a huge up hill fight. I'm primarily concerned about what can be done politically in the face of the current monstrosity. You've given me some more food for thought. Erand or Kaz, can a flat tax system be fashioned in such a way as to address the various concerns you guys raise?

 

[g5000]

It is not an Achilles heal, it doesn't change anything. Taxes are baked in the price of products now. You remove those taxes and replace them with a flat tax on revenue and it doesn't raise the price of products.

A store doesn't charge you for what they spent on a bottle of ketchup, they charge you for what it costs to replace the bottle of ketchup on the shelf. The taxes baked into the price of products is for future taxes. Taxes paid in the past are already paid.

Let's say I earn $50,000 and I am taxed 25%. So the amount of money I get to keep is $37,500.

Let's say I am able to save $5,000 of that for my retirement.

Then one day, the income tax goes away and the Fair Tax is implemented.

When I go to buy something in my retirement with my $5,000, I have to pay a 30% Fair Tax.

My money has now been taxed twice. Once at 25%, and then again at 30%.

If the Fair Tax is never implemented, then my money is only taxed the one time, at 25%.

Now do you see the problem?

Yeah, the problem is you retired

No, the problem is I saved some money and then it was double taxed when I spent it due to the transition to the Fair Tax.

No one has presented an actual solution to this problem.

 

[kaz]

So what is the solution to the Achilles heel of the Fair Tax I mentioned?

It is not an Achilles heal, it doesn't change anything. Taxes are baked in the price of products now. You remove those taxes and replace them with a flat tax on revenue and it doesn't raise the price of products.

A store doesn't charge you for what they spent on a bottle of ketchup, they charge you for what it costs to replace the bottle of ketchup on the shelf. The taxes baked into the price of products is for future taxes. Taxes paid in the past are already paid.

Let's say I earn $50,000 and I am taxed 25%. So the amount of money I get to keep is $37,500.

Let's say I am able to save $5,000 of that for my retirement.

Then one day, the income tax goes away and the Fair Tax is implemented.

When I go to buy something in my retirement with my $5,000, I have to pay a 30% Fair Tax.

My money has now been taxed twice. Once at 25%, and then again at 30%.

If the Fair Tax is never implemented, then my money is only taxed the one time, at 25%.

Now do you see the problem?

I saw the "problem" before. You don't see the problem that your problem is irrelevant. The taxes companies are collecting are to pay for taxes today, not yesterday. The taxes you paid before were collected and spent.

The taxes in the products and services you buy today are to pay today's taxes. You pay them regardless of whether you paid taxes on them before or not. So when you spend money today, you replace today's taxes with today's Fair Tax. If you think you are paying double tax because of the Fair Tax, you are anyway without the Fair Tax.

I'm not mocking you in any way, g5000, I know you're trying to understand it. But think about the second paragraph. The Fair Tax is replacing today's taxes with today's taxes. Yesterday's taxes do not affect that. There are no catch up taxes in the Fair Tax. They just replace the taxes you are going to pay today regardless of yesterday. Do you feel me?

 

[kaz]

Yeah, the problem is you retired

I agree that's the problem with switching from sales to income... it helps the folks that have assets they horded and the ones that don't work anymore, but then you can't switch back to sales without hurting cash hoarders and retirees who feel they are done being a slave to the state.

One way to fix that would be for people who are currently working to all quit and go on welfare thus putting the onus on paying the tab to the people who have assets we can take. hehe

If you buy products and services today, you are paying my employees income taxes, my business taxes, my business property taxes and all other taxes except the death tax. If we replace those taxes you are paying today with a flat tax on revenue that equals exactly those taxes, explain what that has to do with taxes you paid yesterday either way.