Posted on 01/12/2008 1:06:53 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Yes, I've read the legislation.
No, I don't listen to the radio show.
No, I'm no stupid, idiotic, dishonest, evil, an employee of the IRS, spouse of an IRS employee, or part of a conspiracy of journalists against the middle class.
Yes, other conservative economists who have asked tough questions about the FairTax warned me to get ready for a gusher of hate mail.
Yes, the fact that the FairTax faction (after reading a torrent of insulting email, that word seems right to me) defaults to abusive speech from the beginning means that they are a movement of zealots with a weak case.
No, my questions are not all answered in the book or at fairtax.org or in the legislation.
No, my questions are not really answered by the emails and posts which I have received. What have been answered are the questions which remind the FairTaxers of other easier questions to are addressed on the web site.
No, the FairTax will not be simple. The debate in response to my latest article proves that.
No, the apologists who responded to me did not even remotely deal with the problem of the interest portion of mortgages.
Yes, I know that that interest isn't supposed to be taxable. But I also know that if all interest remains non-taxable, there will be a massive movement towards discounting house and durable goods sales prices and then making up the difference with high interest rates.
No, none of the fairtaxers seem who wrote to me seem to know that under the legislation, only some of interest is non-taxable.
Yes, that's right the government will decide what a reasonable interest rate is, and then tax you for anything above that.
No, the legislation's choice of how to interest is not actually reasonable at all. It uses the Treasury bond rate, which is very low.
So, yes, you will be paying sales tax, not just on your house, but on a substantial part of your interest as well.
Yes, this makes the effective tax rate on houses (and cars, and washing machines, etc.) and anything else bought with borrowed money, higher than on goods not purchased on credit.
Yes, this hurts the poor.
Yes, this punishes people with sub-prime mortgages.
Yes, it means that every time the Fed meets, it finds itself not just setting monetary policy, but tax policy as well.
No, this is not just interest about the interest problem. I could go all day on about this plan. Employee discounts, tipping, taxing churches: every element of this plan is fraught with complexity. The fact that the FairTaxers shout down questions like this tells us a great deal more about them than it does about the proposed plan.
Yes, I'm done for now.
Sure they could renounce their tax exempt status and be free (This is a freedom issue) today ... but then they would be paying Income Tax... Did Kotlikoff also state that the same $36B is paid TODAY by non-profits in the embedded taxes on the purchases they make?? If not he is distorting the argument by discounting the current (hidden) taxation...You're a classic FairTaxer. First you claim churches don't pay the FairTax then when you are shown that's not true - it doesn't matter because of embedded taxes.
People opposed to the Fair Tax are simply afraid of freedom and libertyYou have "elkfersupper" and you think you don't have freedom and liberty?I am a Grandfather X2 and I will never understand this.
I'm a grandfather X3 and I know a bad idea when I see it.
I feel sorry for your grandchildren and mine.
They will have to endure either an 85% tax rate or a revolution.
I've run my numbers on the FairTax Calculator every way I can think of and have yet to find a scenario where I don't come out better under the FairTax than I do under the present system.LOL! of course you would. You don't recognize fraud when you see it.
Maybe you can explain how everyone would have more "spendable income" than they actually earn.
Think Thomas Jefferson would agree with you?
"Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1785
The rich alone use imported articles, and on these alone the whole taxes of the General Government are levied... Our revenues liberated by the discharge of the public debt, and its surplus applied to canals, roads, schools, etc., the farmer will see his government supported, his children educated, and the face of his country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich alone, without his being called on to spend a cent from his earnings." --Thomas Jefferson to Thaddeus Kosciusko, 1811.
They will have to endure either an 85% tax rate or a revolution.How does a sales tax change that Swami?
which makes you, guess what, a 25% slave doesn't it. That doesn't sound like freedom to me..
..BTW....you do know that there is absolutely nothing that can stop the Congress from raising the max tax rate to 100%?
Perhaps that's because one is in use and the other is not.
It repeals the (supposedly)constitutional authorization for the income tax and makes politicians (once again) directly accountable for your tax bite, Swami.
And that is incredibly unfortunate.
Your defination of freedom has to conceide that someone else will have a prior claim on your paycheck....right now, if you are in the "middle class" amounts to about 25%....If I told you what my gross earnings are could you tell me what tax bracket I'm in?...I didn't think so.which makes you, guess what, a 25% slave doesn't it. That doesn't sound like freedom to me..
I'm self-employed, in business for myself. I don't get a "paycheck" and no one has a prior claim on anything I get...BTW....you do know that there is absolutely nothing that can stop the Congress from raising the max tax rate to 100%?
They could do that with the Fairtax too. But what's really pathetic is if the Fairtax was 100%, you Fairtax clowns would say it's really only 50%.
It repeals the (supposedly)constitutional authorization for the income tax and makes politicians (once again) directly accountable for your tax bite,Throw away the book of lies and read the bill. You'll find the part where the Fairtax law allows unelected, unaccountable, Social Security bureaucrats to "determine the rate" every year without a vote or a veto...Be careful what you wish for.
Oh, I don't know about that - it does allow FairTax supporters to claim all kinds of benefits for their scheme without having to bother with reality. Kind of like a childless expert on children.
OH Yeah, right.....heh heh..
..just try not paying up and see what happens. Someone does have a prior claim on your paycheck...unless of course, you are a tax criminal and have not "volunteered"....in which case, you will lose your liberty and property...and maybe even your life if you push too hard.
If it were so "simple" and "equal" etc. there would be no need for the proponents of the so-called "Fair" tax to engage in the simple dishonesty of trying to call a 30% tax rate (as in, $30 tax on a $100 sale - 30%, right?) "23%" because the tax is now only "23%" of the $130 total.
That's just plain foolishness, or lying, or stupidity - none of which makes me much favor the scheme.
The IRS will still be needed to calculate the income levels for the prebate, and there will be SOME tax collection agency. Those smart bureaucrats will just RENAME it.
Someone does have a prior claim on your paycheck...What part of I don't get a "paycheck" do you not understand?
..just try not paying up and see what happens.Did I say I didn't pay?
For me to say I don't pay taxes is like you saying you would have the freedom to not pay sales taxes...BTW, the Fairtax is "23 percent of the gross payments", which means you would be paying 30% Fairtax on your state sales taxes too.
It repeals the (supposedly)constitutional authorization for the income taxAnother lie you've apparently fallen for...I hope your grandchildren never learn how gullible you are.
With luck he didn’t pass on the “sucker gene”
You don’t see any problem with that?
Hint: Rational people do..
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