Posted on 02/26/2008 7:18:03 AM PST by FairTaxWarrior
The ONLY income that can be taxed under an Income Tax is that which is reported. That is the definition of an Income Tax. Who doesn't report their income: drug dealers, thieves, common criminals, illegal aliens, a lot of people who just get paid 'under-the-table' in cash, etc.
The IRS estimates 25-30% of all 'income' is not reported and that lawful U.S. tax-payers have to make up over $700 BILLION per year to cover the tax-tab for these non-reporting crooks.
Thus, U.S. tax policy effectively exempts all criminal activity from Federal taxation. A government makes an enterprise tax-exempt to ENCOURAGE that activity.
So ..... the U.S. Government not only promotes crime by making it tax-exempt but also forces you and I to subsidize this illegal behavior.
And how is this moral, fair or right?
www.FairTaxWarrior.com
All Income Taxes are EVIL, whether they be wavy, flat, fat or some shade of pink. History has shown that uniform taxation based on consumption are MUCH more effective for growth and stability.
I believe The FairTax is our best replacement alternative. There is no other candidate replacement even being discussed.
www.FairTaxWarrior.com
Fair Tax ping!
Political campaigns also pay no income tax.
Regardless of the problems, this is still the preferred tax of the American people. They really believed, as they were told in 1913, that the tax was intended to take from the rich and redistribute to them, “the needy”. They never understood that the original 1 to 6 percent tax was just the beginning of tyranny. And they still don’t get it!
Hello, Gov. Spitzer?
That’s wht they just said — criminals pay no taxes.
You’ll have people skirt the sales tax as well.
“Our Founding Fathers explicitly outlawed direct taxation in Article 1 Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution.”
Our Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution as a guideline for those who intended to abide by it. What we have today in Congress and the WH are a bunch of foreigners.
You really have something there. The guy that sells that car will have no temptation to NOT report the sale. And a businessman sitting on $ 2M worth of FairTax will have no idea that the Bahamas look good (recall that is only about $ 8.6M worth of sales, a number lots of little businesses hit annually). And because you have done away with that monster (the IRS) that polices abuses, he will be driven by high and lofty ideals to send it in. Please.
FairTax is such a goofy idea as to be laughable. If you added a sales tax to the income tax, then you would be gettting somewhere. Cash moves into hands and out of hands. If you catch tax only in one of those locations, the consumer finds a way to avoid paying. We need both, not a replacement. And we need an IRS (or whatever enforcement agency you want to name it - Puppies and kittens?)
Someone else mentioned that when a business buys items without paying sales tax by using a reseller license, that the state sometimes will audit these purchases to ensure that these items are indeed being resold.
If we are going to have a national sales tax, then we can expect that those people who are exempt from the tax will also be audited in a similar fashion. On top of that, there will an enforcement mechanism that checks if the "average American" did indeed pay sales tax on certain items. This scope of this type of enforcement would have to be vast if there is to be any reasonable hope of enforcing tax payment.
Would the average American be comfortable with this type of "oversight" in their lives?
The property tax is far more evil than any income tax. At least the income tax is based directly on one's ability to pay, but more often than not a property tax isn't.
Speaking of goofy...
Technically, if you pick up a penny on the ground, that constitutes taxable income. Are you going to go to the trouble of recording every single penny picked up over the course of the year and paying tax on them?
Why two systems of taxation?
Now there is a common sensical observation that has heretofore been ignored. The enforcement laid upon the typical consumer to see if he/she has used a black market source to acquire untaxed purchases. Great remark.
Yet another reason why the FairTax is no more fair than any other tax. We are going to be taxed folks. Get over it. If Man50 thinks that he can thwart the gov. and refuse to buy so he doesn’t pay any tax, he’s dreaming. And wasting precious energy.
Yes. These individuals pay the same federal income tax.
Because cash enters your hands and leaves your hands. This is true for everyone on US soil. If we catch tax at each of these locations (income and consumption) then you lower the likelihood of the resident earning abroad (without US income tax) and using services here (without US sales tax) OR earning here (with no income tax because of the goofy FairTax) and spending abroad (with no goofy FairTax). The two systems should both be set at lower rates than currently (or proposed) and should not be exclusive.
So you are saying that a person making 50k in NYC is just as able to pay the same Federal income tax as another person making 50k in Richmond, VA?Apparentley so if you consider their poverty rate/prebate would be exactly the same under the Fairtax
All Income Taxes are EVIL, whether they be wavy, flat, fat or some shade of pink.
Amen!....When the federal government started taxing income, it was something like 2%. Now look at the chunk they take and what do we get for it? An inefficient bureacracy that gives dead wood a job for life.
I'd like to see the Federal income tax replaced with tariffs. This was the primary source of income for the Federal government prior to 1913. It would also force a lot of cutting in wasteful federal spending.
I see the sales and income tax as being more effective at the state and local level, especially if they were to replace property taxes.
On a more realsitic note, I think most Americans don't care how fair a tax is or not. I think we all agree that whatever we do pay it is too much. If the current taxes are lowered, even fewer people will complain about how "fair" a tax is or isn't.
Considering how much higher the cost of stuff is in NYC is compared to say, Nowhere Nebraska, the person in NYC could live the most austere lifestyle possible and still pay far more in tax under the FairTax than someone who lives a "rich" life in Nowhere Nebraska.
That doesn't sound very fair to me.
"Direct" taxes are taxes on property. The definition was established by the founding fathers, themselves, before the end of the 1700s. The federal government does not tax property.
The 16th amendment was passed in response to a SCOTUS decision in 1895 that redefined the meaning of "direct" tax to include income derived from property. That decision overturned a hundred years of precedence.
History has shown that uniform taxation based on consumption are MUCH more effective for growth and stability.
If "history has shown" then you should have no trouble providing an example of a successful economy with a tax on all (excepting education and used goods) consumption at the proposed 30% rate.
That’s insane
Neither is the FairTax based on one's ability to pay, but on what one needs; example, food.
On the contrary, the freedom to choose how/where you live, taking into consideration any/all tax implications, is very fair and is the basis on which many people and corporations decide how/where to conduct business.
Taxes based on income invite those (like the democrats) to use class warfare as influence on the poor to retain power (”Tax-cuts for the rich” or some other such demagoguery). The ability to game the system is a most useful tool for the politicians, whereby they obtain campaign contributions from lobbyists that wish to garner favor for their clients and votes from those with the most to gain (the poor).
I will be in favor of the FairTax for its ability to limit the power of government, and I believe anyone in favor of the current system (or any other system that taxes based on income) are guilty of enabling those that use class warfare as a tool of plunder.
Give me another (better) alternative and I will favor that, but it will have to be based on something other than income.
It’s exactly the way the democrats view your earnings.
Any tax cuts are referred to as “expenditures”. (assumes that the money you earn was the government’s before it was your’s)
>>>You’ll have people skirt the sales tax as well.
You are correct. I have a friend that works for a state department of revenue office and audits businesses. You would be surprised the number of companies that collect sales tax or withhold employees income taxes and don’t submit those taxes to the state. Additionally, many businesses, especially resuarants and conveneince stores, that deal in cash will take your money and not record the sale in the cash register.
“I think we all agree that whatever we do pay it is too much”
I love watching that big chunk of my check headed into the Washington money pit.
Then you look at the clowns in Washington who can figure 20 ways from Sunday what to do with it (Patty Murray comes to mind).
The "ability to pay" issue irritates the hell out of me. That is a built-in punishment for success. Those who earn more, pay more tax and get less in return for the money confiscated. It is a disincentive to succeed. Progressive income taxes are a key platform of the communist party.
Since you apparently live in NC too, can you ask your friend why a loaf of bread baked offsite is taxed at 2% and a loaf of bread baked on site is taxed at 6.75% in though they take about the same amount of labor? We had to pay over a million in back taxes on that a few years ago here in NC (we'd only been collecting the 2%, had to pay the difference plus some penalties). We have 3 people in our accounting department that do nothing but deal with sales taxes in the various states we operate in.
The person in NYC pays the income tax regardless. The same person in NYC pays the FairTax based on his choices.Nice try. Is the cost of living the same in NYC as it is in Roanoke VA.? I'm pretty sure that's the point you were trying to make untill the one size fits all poverty rate/prebate was brought up.
It is less the income tax per se that is causing the high level of tax evasion, than the unwillingness of the federal government to permit individuals who have earned “unauthorized” money from paying taxes on it.
For example, even though prostitution is rarely a federal offense, only prostitutes who ply their trade where it is *locally* legal can pay *federal* income tax. Otherwise, they either “confess” to committing a local crime on their federal tax return, which can result in their being prosecuted for a local crime by their local government; or they evade paying the federal tax, which can result in their being prosecuted for a federal crime.
This is stupid.
The federal government should not be inclined to enforce local laws this way. It is not their job, or within their authority to do so. And taxpayers have to pay a huge amount of money for this improper behavior by the federal government.
Simply by changing the law that admissions of non-federal crimes on federal tax forms are inadmissible as evidence, because they are private documents between the individual and federal government, would solve much of this forced tax evasion.
The fair tax is not perfect, but the tax on incomes destroys financial privacy for individuals, where the fair tax does not have to.
first day, first post, blog pimp, go figure.
There was a reasonalbe discussion going on here. Butt out.
From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. Right?
another oxymoron heard from..
FairTaxWarrior... It’s best to ignore ‘lucysmom’. The only time she ever posts anything on FR is to defend the IRS.
“Do you think that drug dealers are going to charge NRST on their illegal drug sales? If so, you’re living in a fantasy land.”
They won’t charge it, of course. But you miss the point... When they spend that money they WILL pay into the Fed tax system under the NRST. Under the current income tax scheme that is not the case.
1 Thread, 2 xcamel posts, 2 xcamel personal attacks.
What exactly would you call the title of the post?
There are oxymorons and there are morons. Thank you for demonstrating the difference.
I wouldn’t use the word preferred. The currant system is the only system KNOWN to most Americans. As the Fair Tax is gaining momentum I would say that it is the preferred system. People can’t prefer a system they know nothing about. But this changing and changing fast.
A thesis.
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