CAVUTO REPORTS THAT BUSH CONSIDERING SCRAPPING THE IRS CODE!!!

Fox News Channel | November 6, 2002 | n/a

[Tree of Liberty]

Neil Cavuto just interviewed Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr., the director of the OMB, and Neil let it be known that he's hearing rumblings that Pres. Bush is considering a total re-write of the tax code and that SecTreas O'Neill is strongly pushing a national retail sales tax!

[dread78645]

On the other hand I can see how demanding receipts could uncover some smuggling.

Yep. That terrified the pi$$ out of me the last time I smugled hamburger, rice, and salsa from H.E.B.

[dread78645]

Food, medicine, and housing should not be that hard to define.

Is beer food ? pre-Victorian England thought so.
What happens if/when medical marijuana goes legal ??
I live in a condo, you have a doublewide, Stan works the oil fields and lives in a pop-up he tows behind his chevy pickup. Housing ?

Why should the lawmakers come up with definitions ?
The definitions started the mess!

The only honest way out (I think), is to tax every end consumer, then give a universal rebate of taxes up to the poverty level. Just like the current bills say (HR2525)

[Jim Robinson]

I'm fine with it either way.

[dread78645]

I'm fine with it either way.

Good enough.
Just pointing out dangers of "exemptions"

[Meem the Scream]

Very astute! Legislation will have to be most specific so we're not sliding down two slopes instead of one. The national sales tax rate can also be increased. In principle, at first glance, the idea seems good. But it could end up a double nightmare.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

Why should the lawmakers come up with definitions ? The definitions started the mess! The only honest way out (I think), is to tax every end consumer, then give a universal rebate of taxes up to the poverty level. Just like the current bills say (HR2525)

To: dread78645 I'm fine with it either way. 623 posted on 11/06/2002 11:55 PM PST by Jim Robinson

Me too. I'm not stupid. The IRS must die.
I'll take whatever National Retail Sales Tax we are offered.

I will not make the "Perfect" out to be the enemy of the "Good".

But much as I like the "Good" (Keyes-Tax NRST with "politically-defined" Exemptions and Loopholes)...

...I'd dang sure prefer the "Perfect" (Fair-Tax NRST with a straight, flat Rebate) if we have a chance at it!!

[CliffC]

To: kapj
The leading contender to replace the Income Tax (and IRS) is H.R. 2525 The Fair Tax Act of 2001. It's a bipartisan sponsored Bill now in the House Ways & Means Committee.

To see how the FairTax would apply to Home Sales, visit this website, FairTax Facts! and click the link: 5. HOME BUYER!

While you are on that website, you may want to have a look at some of the other Links. I particularly like 4. PAYCHECK!

BTW, the FairTax is supported by a substantial group of "grassroots" volunteers (some 420,000 at last count) known as Americans For Fair Taxation (AFFT).

To join AFFT, goto Americans For Fair Taxation

AFFT is holding its 'first-ever' National Convention in Atlanta, Georgia November 8-10, 2002. You don't have to be an AFFT member to attend. The public is invited. The website with details is: CONVENTION!

Here's where you can sign a Petition in support of the FairTax. I enthusiastically recommend the FairTax as the best way to achieve Fundamental Tax Reform (FTR).... PETITION!

A number of winning candidates (U.S. Senate and House) ran on a platform that included endorsement of the FairTax (HR 2525) in the Nov 5th election.

Both of the Congressmen who are the principle cosponsors of the FairTax won re-election on Nov 5th by huge margins. They are John Linder (R-GA) and Collin Peterson (D-MN).

Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) publicly declared his full support of the Fairtax and pledged that if he won, he would introduce a corresponding Bill (to H.R. 2525) in the Senate. Chambliss won decisively, defeating incumbent Max Cleland who was unsupportive of the FairTax for tax reform.

Here in Iowa, the candidate for Congress from the 5th Congressional District, Steve King, ran on a platform that strongly favored the "consumption" tax and abolishment of the IRS. King won decisively.

There were a number of others who support the FairTax and who won in the Congressional election of Nov 5th. Some were incumbents and some were challengers.

I sense that there a quite a few participants on this board who like the idea of the "sales tax" (also called 'consumption' tax), or NRST (National Retail Sales Tax).

For starters, you may want to join my NO-IRS Forum where we post about the FairTax/NRST. Have a look at the Welcome Letter which will give you a pretty good flavor of it..... WELCOME!

If you want to join, eMail me and I'll handle it for you.

Email to: Cliff Cofer

Here's a nifty one-page Flyer that make a nice print-out for 'spreading the word' about the FairTax: FLYER!

Good luck to all!

Cliff Cofer - State Director, AFFT Iowa Volunteer Team

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"Our Tax System Is Broken. Let's Fix It!"     .

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[CliffC]

Hi dirtboy:

H.R. 2525, The Fair Tax Act of 2001 sets in motion the repeal of the 16th Amendment concurrent with enactment of the FairTax.

BTW, the 16th Amendment did not require/mandate an Income Tax. It permitted one if Congress so voted to have one... which they did in 1913.

Congress created the Income Tax and Congress can un-create it by passing the FairTax and repealing the 16th Amendment.

When we turn-up the HEAT on Congress high enough, they will see the LIGHT!

IOW, we need to make it clear to our CongressCritters that either they will enact the FairTax or their replacements will.

Visit FairTax Facts! and read all about the FairTax (HR 2525) in easy to understand "layman's language."

Also, visit: FairTax SUMMARY! for a bit of history about taxation.

Cliff Cofer - State Director, AFFT Iowa Volunteer Team

[CliffC]

Hello, goldstategop

To see my letter to Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill visit here: Dear Mr. Secretary:

Hope he gets the letter. The Treasury Department has just revamped its entire website and now it's very difficult to write to anyone there.

Gonna' send a copy of my letter to O'Neill to my CongressCritters and ask them to forward on to O'Neill.

Cliff Cofer - State Director, AFFT Iowa Volunteer Team

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Bye, bye, Income Tax (and IRS)! We won't miss ya' at all!

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[snopercod]

Actually, I built a $80,000 airplane from a $16,000 kit, and a $250,000 house from $100,000 of materials.

What happens when I sell them?

[snopercod]

See previous post, to which I would add: Suppose I am an artist and paint a really nice water color worth $3,000 on the open market?

Or suppose that I go out in the woods and spend a weekend cutting and splitting firewood, which I then sell to my neighbor?

Or suppose I design a house (or a software program) for a client?

It appears that the people advocating the NRST have never designed or built anything in their garages and studios, but have always depended on a paycheck from somebody else.

Cash will have to be banned for the NRST to work. But that's OK. We'll just come up with a black market currency to go with the huge black market that will spring up. They'll probably have to ban gold and silver coins as well...

[TonyS6]

Excellent idea! The income tax is impossible to monitor and is a hotly debated issue among constitutional scholars. However, it will be replaced by a corporate tax, a consumption tax (e.g., 30% tax of car purchases) or both. So, if you pay less no Federal Taxes, you will only pay taxes if you consume. This will increase savings (a benefit for social security), but it will also decrease demand for manufactured goods.

[CliffC]

Hi spokeshave

You wrote: Scrap the IRS but have a single low low rate like in Russia. and a postcard size form to complete.

That describes the Steve Forbes/Dick Armey HR 1040 "Flat(Income)Tax"

Not good! Visit Armey Sez! and you'll see what I mean.

Cliff Cofer - State Director, AFFT Iowa Volunteer Team

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Bye, bye... Income Tax (and IRS)! We won't miss ya' at all!

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[PjhCPA]

Though I make a living (and a good one at that) dealing with the piece of crap a.k.a. the Internal Revenue Code, I will would be very happy to see the whole thing nuked to oblivion. (Hey, I pay taxes too.) I can find other ways to help my clients make more money.

[CliffC]

Hi Aquinasfan:

Not only H&R Block, but lotsa' others would have to fold-up their tents, too.

Have a look at this site: Goodbye, Tax Preparers!

Cliff Cofer - State Director, AFFT Iowa Volunteer Team

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[William Terrell]

1. Boom the economy because productivity is not taxed; no tax on profits or hidden taxes/fees.

How can taxing consumption boom the economy, when the economy is driven by the expectation of being able to purchase a thing when needed? With a NRST, much equipment nornally used by people will move out of their purchase range.

Of course, those making $30-60,000 a year will do just fine, but the tens of millions of wage earners and older people on fixed incomes won't be able handle the increased prices. Add up the fed and FICA taken from your check. Will it cover your purchases in the same time period when everyting you buy is 30% higher?

2. IRS threats and coercion eliminated and replaced with, if you don't want to pay the tax, don't buy the item.

Right. If you don't want food, heating fuel, shelter, clothing, ammunition/firearms, transportation, internet service, washers and dryers, et endless cetera, well, shoot, just don't buy them.

And for the tens of millions of Americans that find the tax too much, why, they can fill out forms every month under penalty of perjury to get some of it back. Now, just what would you think the nature of the organization that enforces law around that process would be?

3. 20% decrease in retail prices facilitates spending and partially offsets the retail tax.

How do you figure a 20% decrease in retail prices? The "hidden" padding companies charge to offset the cost of dealing with income taxes? What makes you think they will remove that from their base prices? If an NRST is implimented, people will expect a 30% increase of the prices they're currently paying. Surely you have noticed informal collusion in many industries to keep a price at a certain level. Maybe a law that they have to lower prices? Hee.

4. People will know how much leviathan government is really costing them, resulting in...

They already know. Look at the draconian measures that the people have let "get past" them over the decades and tell me that even if it were in their faces every day, not just every pay day, it would make them more politically active. Plus too many people want big, costly government. It's a socialism thing, and there's no limit to how big the govenrment can grow when it can tax consumption.

5. Shrinking government to it's constitutional function to protect synonymous private-property rights and individual rights from domestic and foreign criminals while upholding the sanctity of private contracts.

How do you get property rights protection from a NRST? It would be entirely the opposite, I would think. You think. The only thing that keeps the income tax level in check is the backlash from people for raising it, the backlash being they will, and do, stop reporting and paying it.

In the middle '80s, "our voluntary tax assessment" was being threatened by IRS arrogant abuses, according to the senate panel that ordered the IRS to back off. The threat, of course, was all the anti-income tax organization that sprang up, and the sheer number of people leaving that system and becoming costly to prosecute because of IRS manpower and the cost of prosecution.

What power do the people have under a NRST when they can stop buying the what they need to live in order to put pressure on the fed? Ballot box, political activism? I see no indication of that from past public behavior.

6. Freedom in United States leads to other countries doing similar or risk its citizens fleeing to United States to increase productivity here while enjoying the fruits/prosperity of their labor.

Why should anybody care about any other country's tax structure, unless under a global socialism? People from other countries are flocking here now, for the same reasons. An NRST may just stem the tide, though, which is the first positive effect I've seen that is possible from having one.

A tax on consumption that extends beyond that saved by elimination fed and FICA is hardly fruits/prosperity of labor, except for the level of income experienced by most people that post here on FR.

[palmer]

I am glad to say, however, that I never once offered the ridiculous (no offense, "Palmer") argument that under an NRST, "everyone would have to report all their purchases".

No offense taken, I am simply trying to understand how compliance will be enforced. The way I see it, there are three possibilities:
1. retailers report gross sales honestly, or
2. everyone reports all their purchases, or
3. all domestically built and imported products are tracked.
Now it appears that the answer is #1.

That's like saying that "under a State Sales Tax, I would have to file a form with the Statehouse every time I buy a cheeseburger from McDonalds".

Good example, except McD's sells an unknownable quantity of cheeseburgers with no price list (everyone negotiates on the spot). The materials McD's uses would not all be easily trackable, no cash registers are used, no sales taxes are charged at time of purchase (calculated from gross receipts instead) and the receipts are put into the cashiers pockets, mixed with their own money and separated at the end of the day. Now tell me what level of compliance you expect and how you would achieve it.

[Smile-n-Win]

You wrote:

Imagine the number of trees that could be saved by scrapping the current paperwork requirements...

I say:

This sentence should be repeated over and over again by conservatives until all Americans know it by heart!

[palmer]

My concern started with my thought that my ammo purchases would be tracked. I was assured that was not the case, but I'm not sure that is possible. See #637

[CliffC]

Hi William:

Please consider the following when analyzing the proposed FairTax (HR 2525) for tax reform:

1. There will be no payroll deductions from one's paycheck. Neither for Income tax nor for FICA.

As you know, the Soc. Sec./Medicare payroll deduction tax is the most regressive of all. It starts at dollar one and continues to $80,000+.

See this website: PAYCHECK!

2. A Study by Dr. Dale Jorgenson, Head of Harvard Business School of Economics indicates that prices of goods and services will drop from 20%-30% (avg 22%) after the FairTax is enacted. This is the amount of Income Taxes (and compliance costs) now 'hidden' in the price to cover the producer's Income Tax (and compliance costs).

3. The Family Consumption Allowance (FCA) provides for the 'necessities of life' to be acquired 'tax-free.'

Rebate via: Family Consumption Allowance!

Cliff Cofer - State Director, AFFT Iowa Volunteer Team

P.S. There are a number of websites dealing with various aspects of the proposed FairTax that you may want to visit: They are all Linked to this site: FairTax Facts!