Posted on 12/25/2014 7:35:59 PM PST by Nachum
-PJ
A flat tax does nothing. The progressive tax rates are simple arithmetic, a 4th 8th grader should be able to do the math [ed. for common core teaching].
All the effort in the tax computation is in determining what is and isn't taxable income. You don't get rid of this until you get rid of the income tax in all its forms.
And since the Fair Tax includes a income related prebate, you don't get rid of the IRS there either.
Even a pure sales tax doesn't get rid of the IRS, as somebody has to collect that Internal Revenue, but it at least cuts it back a bit.
Unfortunately, even without the 1040 income tax forms, we still have all sorts of government benefits with income based rewards and penalties: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and now ObamaCare. There's a lot of clean up to do.
No it doesn't. The fair tax is not calculated nor prebated on income. The nrst includes a prebate based on family size/amount required to spend on necessities. The writers wanted to exempt necessities from taxation and ameliorate the political problem of having people with little money to spend having to spend 23% of what they spend on taxes.
But I wish the poor WOULD have to pay. It's more likely that if they paid federal taxes that they'd not always vote to increase federal taxes.
But overall, I'd hope for no refunds of any kind - just lower the rate a bit.
But there is no connection at all to the prebate and income.
Sorry, but you are badly misinformed.
The flat tax is still an income tax, and there is NO WAY the IRS will go away so long as we have any form of income tax. Most of the tax code verbiage is about defining and debating the meaning of “income.” Ergo, income tax REQUIRES an IRS.
FairTax legislatively ABOLISHES the IRS.
In its place, a Federal agency will be created to monitor the 50 states for compliance with the FairTax.
Here is the FReedom news about FairTAx:
NO INDIVIDUAL AMERICAN WILL EVER BE QUESTIONED OR AUDITED BY AN IRS AGENT!
Individual Americans are no longer in the tax loop, since all tax collections will be made at the retail store level.
Under FairTax, Feds will monitor states’ collection of the tax. Businesses and states will be compensated for collecting the tax.
A whole lot of bureaucrats are going to have to find legitimate work when FairTax is put in place!
And will necessarily result in the creation of another bureaucracy to track every American, bank acccounts, addresses, game the numbers on average expenditures on the things that never should have been taxed in the first place, and to issue all those payments--and monitor the inevitable fraud. How many of the IRS people who already do this sort of thing will make the shift? Most, if not all, and then some.
Just do away with it.
Income equals X, multiply by a fraction, Y, and send a check. It doesn't get any simpler than that.
It doesn't require an army to implement.
And one more thing, YOU WON"T GET RID OF THE IRS ANYWAY: there are tariffs and excise taxes to collect, not just the income tax.
You know, Joe, you really, really don’t know what you are talking about. You are spouting all sorts of hypothetical nonsense!
Go read the legislation — it is a compact bill and is clearly written — get educated and then come back to the discussion.
PS Joe, after you read the legislation, see if you can come back to the discussion and actually add something of value to it!
Learn something. Give me just one example of a federal agency that had died off or become smaller in the past 50 years. Then we can talk. If you think that wad of bureaucrats will go quietly into that night you’re mistaken.
No.
When you prebate peddlers get done trying to redistribute more wealth in the name of ‘fairness’ maybe we can talk. Bye.
Right you are on that, in fact the IRS is still going full tilt even after all the crap they have been proved to be neck deep in.
But a flat tax takes less math, has fewer loopholes, at least at first, and requires less to calculate, pay, and enforce. It doesn't issue checks to underachievers, and it doesn't bribe people into thinking what could be a very onerous sales tax/VAT type scheme is a better form of economic intercourse than they are currently being forced to perform, something (no matter what you call the agency) will require a small army to issue.
If you have to bamboozle people with a bribe, I'm not for it. And there is no way the agency will be any smaller than what we have now if it is sending payments to everyone on a monthly basis.
The IRS or taxing/prebating entity, whatever it is called, will not be eliminated, it will expand.
Either way, though we're discussing the wrong solution.
The problem is such that no matter how it is raised, the revenue will be insufficient as long as the government is spending money setting up illegal aliens instead of guarding our borders, as long as it pays generations of nonproductive but able people for their votes with funds garnered from and borrowed against the labors of the productive.
The real solution is to put the Federal Government back in its Constitutional Cage, reduce expenditures accordingly, and let the several States handle their individual functions as they will.
Sending another round of payments out for whatever reason is not a step in the right direction. The whole prebate thing reeks of a scam.
I’ll readily concede the point.
HST, we have to start somewhere, and, by my reckoning, the IRS is as good a start as there is!
There is a tipping point, and we are closing in on it every day!
If that wad of bureaucrats keep on pissing the American people off, they will be handed their walking papers!
It may take some more time, but their RIF day is coming!
Well, Joe, I don’t much like the prebate, either. But it is in the legislation, as it is now written. If it were removed during markup, the FairTax rate would be 18% rather than 23%.
Studies have shown, BTW, that over time, as the economy improves under the FairTax plan (as it most certainly will!), the rate can be reduced.
I don’t believe the prebate is a show-stopper. There are too many benefits of the FairTax that over-ride your belief that the prebate is a negative. After all, untaxing the necessities of life (and only the necessities of life!) is a good thing.
Contrary to your opinion, the prebate is not a wealth redistribution scheme.
Every family unit is entitled (it is, BTW, voluntary - families can opt out of the prebate if they so choose) to a prebate, based on the respective family size. That is the only consideration taken into account: family size determines prebate amount.
You aren't "untaxing" anything.
It would be a hell of a lot simpler to define those things not to be taxed and then just not tax them. No administering bureaucrats for the 'prebate'. I have said before, those things should include food, primary housing, healthcare, and the energy to heat/cool that primary housing. Just. Don't. Tax. it. It doesn't get any simpler than that.
If the concern is that someone might live in 7500 square feet instead of 750, so what? They still have to furnish that, (more taxes furnishing 10X the space), they still will have 'stuff', they will likely have more elaborate equipment to tend to the grounds. All that will generate revenue.
As far as prebates not being a redistribution scheme, yes, they are. It takes money collected from people who spend more on the necessities (as set up) and gives it to those who spend less. Who gets to decide how much is 'just right', versus "more than your family needs". Now I ask that for a reason, because I live somewhere where there are a whopping 8 hours of daylight in the dead of winter, and temperatures reach -30 pretty commonly. Someone who lives in a more tropical latitude will decide whether or not I need heat? Whether or not I use too much and should be taxed on the "excess"? How will you, or anyone, as a practical matter decide? Or will we all be stuck with a one-size fits none average, gimmicked like the inflation figures?
Nope. No thanks.
10% for Jesus, the government should be satisfied with an equal share, and the rest I bust my ass for for me and mine. Stuff the Federal Government back in its (Constitutional) cage and it won't need more than that.
I like everything about the Fairtax except for the “prebates”.
If you start listing exemptions, you just open up a whole can of worms.
The prebates = the IRS does not die.
Thanks Nachum.
We’ll just get the FairTax done, despite your opposition.
Have at. I'll be working to expose the BS all the way.
If you don't like the "prebate", are you so desperately driven by hatred of the present system you'd swallow that turd with the soup, or are you one of those "Let's just pass it, we'll fix it later" types?
Either way, whatever replaces the current tax system had better be thought out well before it is emplaced, because if it is flawed, considering the speed which programs are 'fixed', we'll be dealing with those flaws for a long time.
Why not fix it before you pass it?--because it won't be any harder to fix now and pass than it would be to pass and then fix.
So, here is who gets hung out to dry with the tax and prebate system:
Those who have serious and ongoing medical issues.
Sure, you'll tax the boob jobs, face lifts, and gender reassignments, but you'll also tax the families who have a kid with cystic fibrosis, MD, MS, leukemia, spina bifida, or any one of a slew of ailments which require significant and far above average medical expenses. But they'll get their prebate, right?
People who need more.
By virtue of geography, those who live and work in the parts of the country which have miserable weather, be it subzero winters and blizzards, or heat waves and hurricanes, will be taxed for the extra they have to pay to stay alive, and recover from any damages. Whatever the average is, they'll be paying more. Smack 'em again while they're down, along with the people whose house burned down.
But....but they'll get a prebate check, right? (as soon as they get a mailbox again). Because there is nothing in the "Fair Tax" to allow for catastrophic losses, theft, vandalism, etc.
And if you lose your job? Well you get to keep paying those taxes, there is no mitigation for the reversal of fortune displayed in your bottom line. Pay the tax on that formula, the diapers, the food you eat, because it is more important for the Gubmint to have that extra dollar to give to someone else.
Now, I'm not saying the present system isn't lousy. It is.
I just got done with 2013, after a series of unfortunate events, and the governments combined (State and Federal) got six figures out of me, not counting the two on the right side of the decimal place--more extracted from my income than I made in most 5-year periods in my life.
Yep, that sucks.
Being penalized for being successful after decades of busting my butt and enduring hardships most would not is a raw deal, period.
So, if we're going to replace that system, one which penalizes people for not being prescient, let's do it with one free of gimmicks, one which is at least predictable, and, even more important, let's stop the Government from pissing away those hard earned dollars it squeezes out of us in a fashion which would embarrass the most intoxicated of mariners on shore leave.
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