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Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Fair Tax Proposal
CHRONWATCH.COM ^ | APRIL 20, 2005 | MATTHEW HOLMES

Posted on 04/20/2005 1:25:07 PM PDT by CHARLITE

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To: Your Nightmare
But the wealth is worth less because you will be taxed when you spend it. You will get a higher real return under a consumption tax (any consumption tax including a flat tax), but it's not as great as you think.

Think about what you are saying. You are making the assumption that every dollar has an albatross of a 30% sales tax attached to it. I disagree. The only dollars that have such are those that are spent. The vast majority of wealth is not spent at the retail level. It is reinvested, saved, passed on to the next generation. Under the NRST it will be truly be passed on to the next generation.

61 posted on 04/21/2005 7:22:58 PM PDT by groanup (http://fairtax.org)
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To: groanup
You can be snide but you are still wrong. I wish you had some breeding.

That was uncalled for but expected.

62 posted on 04/21/2005 8:28:40 PM PDT by lewislynn (My other car is an XC90 T6 AWD....)
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To: groanup
Think about what you are saying. You are making the assumption that every dollar has an albatross of a 30% sales tax attached to it.
If that's how you want to put it.


I disagree.
What a shock.


The only dollars that have such are those that are spent. The vast majority of wealth is not spent at the retail level. It is reinvested, saved, passed on to the next generation.
The only value in wealth is spending it. Other than that it might as well be Monopoly money.


Under the NRST it will be truly be passed on to the next generation.
So? The next generation will not benefit from it unless they spend it.
63 posted on 04/22/2005 4:12:29 AM PDT by Your Nightmare
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To: FreedomCalls
And if it's not in a retirement plan, then will you admit that it is a double tax?

Sure it is. Will you admit that we have much worse double taxation under current law?

64 posted on 04/22/2005 7:28:56 AM PDT by rwrcpa1 (April 15. Let's make it just another day.)
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To: lewislynn

But all this wealth I have created will continue to grow tax free until I decide to spend it. If it's not in a retirement plan now I get taxed on every component of income which saps the power of compounding earnings.


65 posted on 04/22/2005 7:31:24 AM PDT by rwrcpa1 (April 15. Let's make it just another day.)
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To: lewislynn
That was uncalled for but expected.

This from the King of uncalled for remarks. Get it?

66 posted on 04/22/2005 7:33:42 AM PDT by rwrcpa1 (April 15. Let's make it just another day.)
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To: Your Nightmare
You have no idea how oppressive the current tax laws are right now regarding inheritance.

My boss and some others started our company in 1954. He went through high tax rates all of his life and double taxation of dividends, since we are a corporation. We sold off a portion of the company in 1997 and had to pay 35% of that gain (a very large amount) to the government in corporate income taxes. He put a great deal of the proceeds of that sale into a Foundation, which we are distributing to causes helping children still today. Due to some bad tax advice we didn't save any income taxes by putting the money in that Foundation like we thought we were going to get to do. The IRS had closed a loophole the year before. When he died in 2000, we had to pay over $10,000,000 in estate taxes. That is money we should have been able to keep in the business, but the government sapped it right out of us. That is a real world example.

The bottom line is, some inheritances are not just passed to individuals in cash. Some are businesses like ours that will use the inheritance in business to business transactions that will never be taxed. And when we make a profit, the dividends paid out will not be taxed once at the corporate level and again at the individual level. I'm sure our owners will be more than happy to pay tax at 23% instead of paying once at 34% and again at 15%.

67 posted on 04/22/2005 7:55:16 AM PDT by rwrcpa1 (April 15. Let's make it just another day.)
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To: rwrcpa1
But all this wealth I have created will continue to grow tax free until I decide to spend it. If it's not in a retirement plan now I get taxed on every component of income which saps the power of compounding earnings.

This is the main attraction of the fair tax to me. I want to continue to create wealth for many more years. I think ll and YN understand that. I don't know why they insist on ignoring that aspect.

68 posted on 04/22/2005 8:17:13 AM PDT by groanup (http://fairtax.org)
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To: groanup

Because they are against the Fair Tax whether they understand it or not.


69 posted on 04/22/2005 8:19:51 AM PDT by rwrcpa1 (April 15. Let's make it just another day.)
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To: Your Nightmare
And you ignore the fact that the only way prices can drop like that is if wages are reduced. And since wages can't be reduced across the board, price almost certainly won't be going down.

Wrong answer, wages are not the only thing that affect prices. You have the price of doing business ("corporate taxes"), supplies, materials, utilities, transportation, etc. on top of wages. Prices can drop due to reductions in the cost of any/all these items. The fair tax would eliminate the corporate taxes, which would also reduce the cost of all the items due to their corporate taxes, which are embedded into their prices, being eliminated.

They would have to be very poor to approach an 5.4% effective rate under the FairTax....People consuming exactly at the poverty level will have a higher than 0% effective rate. It's closer to 4%.

Not true, the prebate would cover that. Also, if they were shrewed enough in their buying they could actually make money from the prebate by paying less sales taxes than they get in the prebate.

70 posted on 04/22/2005 8:59:29 AM PDT by looscnnn ("Olestra (Olean) applications causes memory leaks" PC Confusious)
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To: looscnnn
Wrong answer, wages are not the only thing that affect prices. You have the price of doing business ("corporate taxes"), supplies, materials, utilities, transportation, etc. on top of wages. Prices can drop due to reductions in the cost of any/all these items. The fair tax would eliminate the corporate taxes, which would also reduce the cost of all the items due to their corporate taxes, which are embedded into their prices, being eliminated.
Corporate income taxes are not a "price of doing business." According to your logic, a company that lost money and therefore paid no taxes would have to raise their prices once they started turning a profit and paid corporate income taxes. Prices are set by the market equilibrium, not arbitrarily by the business.


They would have to be very poor to approach an 5.4% effective rate under the FairTax....People consuming exactly at the poverty level will have a higher than 0% effective rate. It's closer to 4%.
Not true, the prebate would cover that. Also, if they were shrewed enough in their buying they could actually make money from the prebate by paying less sales taxes than they get in the prebate.
Actually what I posted is exactly correct. The rebate is calculated by multiplying the poverty level times the inclusive FairTax rate. The FairTax at the poverty level is the poverty level times the exclusive rate.
71 posted on 04/22/2005 9:35:35 AM PDT by Your Nightmare
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To: Your Nightmare

You're not saying the poor shouldn't pay taxes, are you?


72 posted on 04/22/2005 9:55:57 AM PDT by rwrcpa1 (April 15. Let's make it just another day.)
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To: looscnnn
Also, if they were shrewed enough in their buying they could actually make money from the prebate by paying less sales taxes than they get in the prebate.
If that's possible it would mean everyone else is paying more tax through an increased rate than what is actually needed to fund the government. Or does the money come from the magic government money tree?

If the "prebate" is such a good idea for some taxpayers why not increase it so even more people can profit from it?...Why not everyone?

73 posted on 04/22/2005 11:45:15 AM PDT by lewislynn (My other car is an XC90 T6 AWD....)
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To: lewislynn

The prebate is meant to cover the cost of "necessities" to a point (not for profit), which are determined by the individual (some people consider an automobile, gasoline, or utilities a necessity). However, like I said, it is possible to actually take in more from the prebate than you pay out, but it would take the right situations/variables to happen.

You may wonder why not define necessities and make them exempt from taxes, well that is where things would get stickey. One reason is given above, another reason is where do you draw the line? If you say that fruit, vegetables, etc. are exempt, then potato chip makers will lobby to make their items exempt or cheese puff makers, etc. The fair tax plan was to tax every new item and services, provide a prebate and let the idividual decide what is a necessity.


74 posted on 04/25/2005 1:09:01 PM PDT by looscnnn ("Olestra (Olean) applications causes memory leaks" PC Confusious)
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To: rwrcpa1
Sorry for the delayed post. I am reading old FR posts on the fair tax.

How does this ?FairTax? treat Roth IRAs which have already paid tax? I paid a BIG chunk of money in income taxes to convert to a Roth after 1998. Now I am supposed to roll over and pay an additional 23-30% sales tax when I spend it??

75 posted on 09/26/2005 5:59:12 PM PDT by hripka (There are a lot of smart people out there in FReeperLand)
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To: CHARLITE; Happy2BMe; Memother; chesty_puller; Bigun; JohnHuang2; mhking; ...
Image hosted by TinyPic.com

76 posted on 09/26/2005 6:01:34 PM PDT by ATOMIC_PUNK (secus acutulus exspiro ab Acheron bipes actio absol ab Acheron supplico)
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To: ATOMIC_PUNK

Thanks for the ping!


77 posted on 09/26/2005 10:12:09 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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