Posted on 10/23/2009 5:28:31 AM PDT by cc2k
Proposing a “Flat Tax” doesn't mean a whole lot, unless you give the details. What is the rate? Does it start at dollar 1? Are any deductions or exemptions still allowed (which would negate much of the deliverance from the “paperwork nightmare”). If your tax preparation is a “nightmare” it filling out all that paperwork is probably saving you a lot of tax dollars. For those who have few deductions, tax preparation is fairly simple.
A truly “Flat Tax” would be a an equal tax assessment on each man, woman and child in America, without regard to income. I think it would come to about $10,000 a person right now.
A flat tax would likely increase taxes on most or at least many Americans. That might be fine, as something like 40% are already paying no Federal Income Tax, and many of those are having wealth redistributed to them in the form of negative tax liability, from refundable tax credits. But to claim it is going to save taxpayers money is false. Let's be honest and say we are going to make some or all of the bottom 40% pay something approaching their fair share.
We can tinker with the tax code all we want, but the only real way to reduce the tax burden is to radically cut government spending. This means not only cutting fraud, waste and ineffective programs, but cutting programs that actually do some good, but we simply cannot afford.
Every program needs to be examined and the following questions should be asked:
1) Is this something the Federal government should be involved in? Where is the Constitutional authority for it?
2) Is the program worthwhile? Does it have a significant benefit to society?
3) Can private enterprise or charity do it better?
4) Can we realistically afford it?
When we have a $1.4 trillion (and rising) and a $13 trillion dollar national debt, with no realistic plan for paying it, we cannot afford to spend money, even on “good, effective, beneficial” programs, if they are not absolutely necessary.
BTTT
The point of a flat tax is that it would be a test of resolve, and an opportunity for Congress (hopefully an entirely new, 100% freshman congress in 2010) to show that they can avoid tinkering with the tax code. If they can do that, then I might be convinced that a national retail sales tax could work.
freedomfiter2 wrote:
Fair tax yes. Flat tax, what’s the point. We’d still have to keep records, fill out forms be subject to audits and the millions of tax laws that even the IRS can’t give you a straight answer on.
A sales tax code with thousands of pages of exemptions, incentives, credits, surcharges and penalties would be as much of a nightmare as the current income tax code. With the current environment of career congress critters and lobbyists, it would be a matter of (not much) time before the sales tax code would be this kind of nightmare. Fair Tax supporters say they would never do this. A flat income tax would be an opportunity to test them on it without as much turmoil from the transition.
To believe in the Fair Tax, you have to believe:
I could support a national retail sales tax, but only after this constitutional amendment is actually ratified by the states:
Note that this amendment requires the retail sales tax to be uniform, eliminating the temptation to tax some items more and other items less.
Article of Amendment
Section 1. Congress shall make no law laying or collecting taxes upon incomes, gifts, or estates, or upon aggregate consumption or expenditures; but Congress shall have power to levy a uniform tax on the sale of goods or services.
Section 2. Any imposition of or increase in a tax, duty, impost or excise shall require the approval of three-fifths of the House of Representatives and three-fifths of the Senate, and shall separately be presented to the President of the United States.
Section 3. This article shall be effective five years from the date of its ratification, at which time the sixteenth Article of amendment is repealed.
Also, to get my support, the tax rate would have to be significantly lower than the proposed Fair Tax. If that means that actual spending cuts would have to be part of the package I consider that a good thing.
Actually, if the Fair Tax really will result in a significant reduction in the price of everything as Fair Tax proponents claim, an across the board budget cut of a percentage that approximately matches the expected savings would not result in any reduction of government services, and should be included in the bill.
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Why should there be any SS or Medicare payments? Where does one person get off, taking by force, from one person and giving it to another?
That aside, I don’t see any fundamental change coming. Fair tax, flat tax, income tax, it is all crypto slavery by means that were not technologically available to kings and pharos of old
Somehow the to line got lost.
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Prices will not come down. Any ‘savings’ will just be expropriated by the government. It’s like saying you have a cheaper way to pay off the mob every month. Like, what, you think they are going to let you keep the savings? Please, come on. Doesn’t anyone here have more than a five minute memory? Do you know who or what you are dealing with? Your money is theirs and they’ll decide what you can keep.
thanks!
Unless your state doesn't have a sales tax, they already all do this. This argument against the fairtax is completely bogus.
Flat Tax = Flat Tax RATE.
It is still a PROGRESSIVE tax in which the productive (”rich”)are punished for their success.
A true flat tax would charge everyone the same for their share of government services, regardless of income.
What has income got to do anyway with the services the government provides for you?
I think I agree. Everyone needs to pay something.
I think a 30% tax( yes I know "it's really 23%", baloney) on houses and autos for instance would kill those industries.
Buy a $35k auto and have another $10k tacked on. I don't think so.
The 'Prebate' could be juggled to politician's benefit.
"If I'm elected I'll raise the Prebate for a family of 4 from $250/mo. to $400". blah blah
There would still have to be a huge government department just to determine whether items were 'new' or 'used', for tax purposes.
FLAT TAX FOR EVERYONE!!! EXEMPTIONS FOR EACH PERSON, THEN A FLAT TAX!!!!
Why is that?
Services would buy them, store them, or rent them, then you would buy them ‘used’.
There would be good and great business in ‘legally’ dodging these taxes. Naturally a day after they are implemented, ‘adjustments’ would have to be made, and of course the lobbying for exemptions would start....
“There is no farming, like tax farming. Best business in the world.”
They’ll put a Sales Tax on every level of business. By the time you buy an item it might have beet taxed 3 or 4 times. This is not an answer.
Why don’t we tax people on not having things? Like a nice house. That way people will go out and buy a nice house and the economy will purr, in which case no one will be out a job and we won’t need much taxes.
We need taxes on nothing! Then people will go out and get something to avoid the nothing tax!
Me, the inventor of the nothing tax! It’s easy, it’s simple and costs nothing!
( Of course even if we have everything, the government will have no taxes to spend, so that would be a problem to them, I suppose, which makes it our problem, because they will come back to us and say, “See, you have everything and because of it, we can not tax you on nothing, and therefore we have nothing.)
As for income taxes, don't get me started. However, for all my years as an American tax payer I have consistently found that at the end of the tax year I end up giving about 10% of my gross to the IRS. So I would be open to saying, no tax forms, no deductions, everyone pays 10% gross. Period.
Oh, and the government would not be allowed to raise that rate. Live withing you means like the rest of us. But, I think I have been smoking something if I every thought this had a ice chance in heck. OK s/off
Yes, there is a lot to that. Better to tax foreign stuff coming in-—and yes, it is discriminatory against those who use those products-—rather than all consumption “going out.”
I can't argue with anything you say. And I believe we have past the tipping point. In conjunction with "independents" the group of people using the government to enslave us is larger than the group of people voting for freedom. At least for the group of people that actually vote. Thereby constantly electing the very people that use the tax dollars of the slaves (that would be us) to buy the votes of the people that keep them in power. Insidious and only possible with an income tax. Our enslavement is the true legacy of FDR. The fact that confiscating the fruits of our labor to buy the votes of others is unconstitutional and illegal is irrelevant. We revolted against England for far, far less than this.
I’m with you. I think the history of taxation has supported this, and the rate is probably 18-20%, no deductions.
While I support the Fair Tax as a vast improvement over our current system I do dislike its prebate system though it is not a deal breaker in my view. Essentially, the prebate system is designed to protect lower income people and others against the effect of the sales tax. By doing so we once again set up a group of people that are protected from the consequences of votes they make that expand government. In my mind the prebate is essentially an idea carried over from the income tax system...that is a tax deduction. I believe there should not be a prebate rather overall sales tax rates should be lowered accordingly so as to minimize the sales tax impact. To be revenue neutral the sales tax rate would have to be in the 20-25% area. Lower some what with no prebate. This rate covers all income taxes including the "payroll" taxes. The greatest benefits of a national sales tax as I envision it is everyone pays their fair share of the government burden. Every time you buy something you are smacked in the face by the cost of the government you elect. That'll give the libtards something to think about. And it takes a great deal of power away from government. Check out http://www.fairtax.org to get a better explanation than I can give about the benefits a national sales tax can have.
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