Posted on 10/10/2006 8:59:26 AM PDT by cryptical
If we start with the basic premise that most government spending is illegitimate by definition, than a burdensome, convoluted tax system that enables smart, shrewd people to avoid taxation in a legal manner is a good thing.
I don't suppose that anyone will ever suggest that the government should be limited to those functions actually allotted it by the constitution, with a budget limited to just those funds essential to perform those allotted functions.
Nah - too radical.
That's like the argument made when the tax rates were lowered in 1986 and all the rental real estate loopholes were eliminated. Six years later - the Clinton administration racheted up rates again - and there were no loopholes to jump through.
A "Fair Tax" is a pipe dream. You can't pull the rug out from under the cash flow of the USgovt and expect a non-eventful transition.
At best a "fair" consumption tax like the horrible VAT tax would have to be phased in while other taxes were phased out. And if you think this will happen easily your're dreaming.
Instituting a "fair tax" is the easiest way to form a national GESTAPO who's purpose in life is to harrass, arrest and utterly destroy tax cheats and avoiders.
I'm sure the gang will be here shortly with the obligatory cut-and-paste FairTax BS.
I like the FairTax but the article does make one good point: what are the final tax burdens? This is a separate issue from the way in which taxes are collected. The answer is simple: the federal government will cease funding for any program or agency not described in the Constitution. That eliminates pretty much everything except the military, intelligence agencies, and a few agencies to regulate interstate commerce. In order to do this, you'd need to submit and pass an enormous bill that implements a sales tax, disbands the IRS (except what is necessary to deal with people remitting collected sales taxes to the government), and sets the sales tax at a rate such that all money saved by such enormous government cutbacks is left in the hands of the people.
WAGES: It has been made clear by many proponents of the FairTax that they are expecting 100% of their current gross pay, and that many employer/employee wage relationships, including those for government workers are controlled by contract. So, we'll assume every wage earner gets to keep 100% of their current gross pay. Everyone can figure out for him or herself what that gives them in terms of a take-home pay increase.
BUSINESS COSTS: If we assume that businesses get to keep their half of the payroll taxes (7.65% of all payroll costs up to first $95k per employee), plus taxes on corporate profits (average <2% of Cost of Goods sold) and some tax compliance savings (being generous we'll call this 1% savings), this gives the business about 8% of cost savings with which to potentially reduce prices.
PRICES: For domestic goods, if we assume that the entire 8% is passed along to the consumer, this means that pre-tax prices will be 92% of present day prices. That $10 twelve pack will now be $9.20. Of course, the twelve pack of imported beer is still $10 pre-tax. Once the 30% FairTax is added, the price of the domestic beer will be $11.96 and the price of the imported beer will be $13.00 even. So, domestic prices will go up about 20% and imported item prices will go up about 30%.
GOVERNMENT EXPENSES: Since the government expects this plan to enable them to purchase the same things they purchase now, they will need to raise sufficient revenue in order to achieve purchasing power parity. Since they will be paying the 30% FairTax on every item, we can assume that for stuff they buy, they will see the same 20% price increase on domestic items and 30% increase on imported items as other end consumers. So they will need to increase their dollar intake by this 20%+ to enable them to buy the same amount of stuff. And, of course all government salaries will have the 30% FairTax paid on the salary, less the employer half of the payroll taxes, so this is a net 22.35% increase in the cost of the entire payroll of the US government (and states too, but that is another can of worms).
ENTITLEMENT COSTS: Since the social security payments are linked to CPI, when this 20%+ price rise slams through the economy all the social security checks will have to be raised to cover this massive FairTax caused inflation. They will rise by at least 20%, and a litle more because the basket of goods will include some imported items like oil. Medicare/medical expenses will have the FairTax added, for a 20%+ increase.
GOVERNMENT PURCHASING POWER PARITY: with the cost of Payroll, plus everything they buy, plus the entitlements, all going up 20% plus we can assume that the governement will need to collect approximately 20%+ more of the new inflated dollars in order to buy what they are today with today's more stable dollars.
FAIR TAX RATE: Assuming nothing else changes regarding purchasing behavior, size of the government, etc. this means that the 30% FairTax would need to immediately raised 20% (to 36%) just to bring in all the inflated dollars that are required to fund the govt at present level. The price of domestic beer is now $12.50 and the import is $13.60. This assumes no evasion and no reduction in spending by consumers on new goods and services when the large sales tax is imposed. (an unrealistic assumption by the FairTaxers)
SAVED MONEY: All dollars that are post-tax savings would be devalued by the FairTax inflation by 20% in terms of what they can buy with their hard-earned and saved after-tax money.
Does this sound like a utopia to anyone? Isn't it very likely that a 36% sales tax (or much higher like 50%) will cause consumption to suffer and/or transactions driven into a barter system or the black market where they cannot be taxed. And every dollar that is taken from the legitimate economy is another increase that is needed in the FairTax rate in order to feed the government the amount of money it needs.
Isn't is likely that we will end up with an income tax again on top of the FairTax when this all plays out?
And once people either stop buying, or buy used, or barter for services, or buy on the black market, or funnel purchases through their businesses for a tax exemption, it is very likely that the FairTax inclusive rate would be 33%-- which is an exclusive rate of 50%, making the problem worse.
The FairTax plan makes the false ASSUMPTION that 23% inclusive will be enough to fully find the government at today's level.
FairTaxers generally agree that the FairTax will cause higher prices and FairTaxers think that these will be ok because the purchasing power is what matters. Wage earners will receive a pay increase with their 100% paychecks to compensate for the higher prices.
Domestic prices will rise about 18-25% after a small (max 8%) price cut and then the 30% FairTax is added-- and rise the full 30% for foreign items.
Stick with me here for just one more minute. The government will also need a "raise" to pay the higher prices (because the government pays the FairTax on everything too), and it will take the form of additional revenue that needs to be raised. That additional revenue can ONLY be raised by increasing the FairTax rate, there is no other source to generate revenue. So, the 23% rate when multiplied by 1.18 is now 27.1% inclusive, which is 37.2% exclusive.
And that assumes no reduction in the base. If we assume just the very minimum that the base reduces 8% due to reduction in shelf prices-- ie. no reduction in unit volume of sales, just an 8% lower price for everything, then we need to divide the 27.1% by 0.92 to get a new inclusive rate of 29.5%, which is 41.8% exclusive. And this assumes ZERO evasion, and the same exact level of unit sales as now.
Most recently the FairTax commission found that the FairTax Rate was grossly understated by the FairTax people and that the actual rate would have to be MUCH HIGHER than 29.87% exclusive due to 1)government paying itself tax and 2) erosion of the taxable base due to all factors. Just a 15% erosion in base, coupled with a Federal government costing 20% more than presently (the cost with the FairTax added) makes the rate 33% inclusive which is 50% exclusive.
The FairTax people need to go back to the drawing board and plug in the new reality where prices go up 18-25% and stick that in their models and see what somes out the other side. It won't be pretty is my expectation.
I want to see elimination of corporate taxes, elimination of death taxes, additional reductions in the marginal income tax rates until we find that we are the Laffer optimal point.
In addition I want to see Social Security privatized, and I am willing to pay extra money to pay for those who were promised this benefit, and never receive a penny of it myself. I also want to see Medicare reformed from top-to-bottom. I also want to see Tort Reform to reduce the exorbitant costs of insurance on our medical costs. And we need to reduce the scope of the Federal Government to its constitutionally mandated responsibilities and get rid of the rest. The Golden Goose that is America is way too fat and needs to be put on a severe diet.
These are what we need to do, incremental improvements in what we already have. This is already working and we should keep at it...even Boortz seems to think so. Boortz (9/20): "...the economy continues to go like gangbusters. We are right in the middle of an historic economic boom. Don't let the mainstream media or the Democrats tell you otherwise...we've never had it so good...
Plus the IRS will still remain in some form. Somebody's gotta collect the money, and I don't believe for a second that 50 checks will be mailed to the government simultaneously by the states.
And that is exactly why I'm *not* 100% in favor of the "fair tax". Well spoken.
Ahhhh... Thank you.
A breath of fresh air blowing away the stench of islamo-fairtaxism er... something like that anyway.
Good Job.
What we need is a revolution. The federal government cannot be reformed without the shedding of tyrants' blood.
Freeper RobfromGa is getting some press.
Only limited spending begets limited taxation, and No society ever taxed itself into prosperity -- anywhere.
And we don't have that today in the IRS?
Don't be silly. It would be progress if we could just get the government to freeze government spending. Even that suggestion would get a lot of government panties in a bind.
IMHO, the people would revolt. That, and the budget would be dramatically reduced every election year as pols would magically find fat to trim, to 'buy' votes with lower taxes. :-)
BTW, I can't STAND idiots who give me the 'look how much I got back' line in Feb/Mar of every year. Fools, all of them.
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