Posted on 10/30/2002 6:31:15 AM PST by TroutStalker
Edited on 04/22/2004 11:47:24 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
WASHINGTON -- The Treasury Department is weighing proposals for a historic overhaul of the U.S. tax code, including scrapping the current income tax and replacing it with something simpler.
On the table are a range of familiar and not-so-familiar options, including a European-style, value-added tax, a national sales tax and a flat income tax. Officials also are mulling changes in the way the U.S. taxes multinational companies on their overseas income.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Was there any member of the first Bush administration who is not a blithering idiot?
This is certainly true for Democrats, because one way they get elected is to give special deals to special interest groups. They focus like the proverbial laser beam on giving tax breaks to probable Democrat voters.
It should be easier for someone like Bush. It wouldn't hurt him if Democrat voters ended up paying higher (and fairer) taxes than they do now.
I would worry about some of the justifiable tax breaks. There should be an incentive for owning property and a home, because that gives people a stake in the community. There should be support for families, which provide stability and are very expensive in the modern economy. People with a stake in the community and stable families also happen to be more likely to vote Republican, which hopefully will make reform easier for Bush.
It would be safer and easier just to simplify. But tax reform may be necessary, because I suspect more and more people are cheating on their income taxes and auditing is becoming more and more difficult and unfair. Not only is the present system cumbersome, unjust, and economically destructive, but it could start breaking down pretty soon.
BUT there's an added bonus that we are all overlooking. This would take away the major plank of the democrat party-CLASS WARFARE. Eliminate any tax whatsoever on the bottom 20% of earners. Heck, they only contribute 5% anyway. We would never have to hear about how tax breaks only affect the rich. The poor wouldn't pay any taxes so they wouldn't even care when tax cuts would be proposed. If the Democrats couldn't demonize the rich the only think left for them is a womans right to kill a 6 month old fetus. That's a thin reed to build a house on.
Most unwise. When the income tax was first introduced, it was sold as a soak-only-the-rich scheme. Over time, of course, all were ensnared. This will happen again in the above scenario, as greedy government fully exploits both income tax and VAT.
Consequently, one should oppose any and all forms of VAT unless tied directly to the passage of a constitutional amendment eliminating the income tax.
"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration."You are right that Congress would have to enact any change.
A sales tax of reasonable amount would be fair. A flat income tax would be fair. But keeping both of them will substantially increase the tax burden.
We need to eliminate the income tax. The Fed Gov was supposed to be financed by tariffs on imported goods. Let's get back to that.
We can't do it overnight or we'll have a worldwide depression, but look at all the crap that comes in and can potentially come in via ships and containers.
Notice that nice load dropped down in Key Biscayne. It's just the start and it WILL get worse.
One of the first things that was done in the '93 Klintoon admin was to allow a shipment of AK-47's from China to the LA gangs to slip in. I think they got caught, but so much for the anti-gun bozos. It's OK if they're paid off.
I say the current "pregressive rate" income tax violates "General Welfare" clause. The term "general welfare" means that laws can not be made to favor one group over another.
Everyone would have more money; there would be fewer needy and they would be taken care of locally.
But how would the policy wonks be able to control the people if that happened? Hmmm
An across-the-board consumption (sales) tax would lay more of the tax burden on the wealthy, provided they do not live like hermits. The Hollywooden types would be hit particularly hard due to their outrageously extravagant lifestyles. The poor would pay little tax since they purchase so little.
I suppose you have all the answers there Klintoon Kool Aid drinker.
BUT, EVERYONE needs to pay tax. If you exempt 20 percent of the population then when they go to the polls they vote to maintain their status. We need everyone paying taxes equally. Then everyone has a stake in the result of their vote.
What does Clinton have to do with the stupidity of Bush one's administration (other than the fact that Clinton would never have been president had Bush not handed him the election on a silver platter)?
So you think an income tax on people making over $100,000 is a good idea? And you call yourself a conservative?
The NRST is good for everyone. The ONLY people who oppose it are those who profit from the current scheme (lobbyists, sellers of "pay no income tax" kits for $49.99, etc).
The nrst is the very best option.
HR2525, currently in Congress, is just such a bill.
It eliminates personal income tax.
It eliminates corporate income tax.
It eliminates payroll tax.
It eliminates estate tax.
It eliminates gift tax.
It replaces them with a single stage, single rate sales tax on purchases of new goods for retail consumption. (ie business purchases are not tax, just like today's sales tax).
It defunds the IRS.
It destroys existing income tax records save those who are delinquent at change-over
It eliminates the tax on necessities.
It eliminates the need for anyone, anywhere, anytime to know how much you make.
It allows every individual to keep his entire paycheck free of any federal deductions.
It makes US goods more competitive around the globe.
Mortgage interest rates would fall to the tax free rate.
Capital would flow back to the US in unprecedented volumes.
There are already millions of individuals who know about this option and are motivated to enact it. Americans for Fair Taxation, National Taxpayer's Union, and countless other organizations endorse this plan.
Find out more about HR 2525 here.
The Fed Gov was supposed to be financed by tariffs on imported goods. Let's get back to that.
Hmmmm, I fail to find that anywhere in the Constitutution, would you care to point that out to us?
The Authors and proponents of the Constitution seem to disagree with you.
James Madison, Federalist #39:
James Madison, Federalist #45:
"The change relating to taxation may be regarded as the most important; and yet the present [Continental] sic Congress have as complete authority to REQUIRE of the States indefinite supplies of money for the common defense and general welfare, as the future [Constitutional] sic Congress will have to require them of individual citizens; and the latter will be no more bound than the States themselves have been, to pay the quotas respectively taxed on them. Had the States complied punctually with the articles of Confederation, or could their compliance have been enforced by as peaceable means as may be used with success towards single persons, our past experience is very far from countenancing an opinion, that the State governments would have lost their constitutional powers, and have gradually undergone an entire consolidation."
"Suppose, as has been contended for, the federal power of taxation were to be confined to duties on imports, it is evident that the government, for want of being able to command other resources, would frequently be tempted to extend these duties to an injurious excess. There are persons who imagine that they can never be carried to too great a length; since the higher they are, the more it is alleged they will tend to discourage an extravagant consumption, to produce a favorable balance of trade, and to promote domestic manufactures. But all extremes are pernicious in various ways. Exorbitant duties on imported articles would beget a general spirit of smuggling; which is always prejudicial to the fair trader, and eventually to the revenue itself: they tend to render other classes of the community tributary, in an improper degree, to the manufacturing classes, to whom they give a premature monopoly of the markets; they sometimes force industry out of its more natural channels into others in which it flows with less advantage; and in the last place, they oppress the merchant, who is often obliged to pay them himself without any retribution from the consumer. When the demand is equal to the quantity of goods at market, the consumer generally pays the duty; but when the markets happen to be overstocked, a great proportion falls upon the merchant, and sometimes not only exhausts his profits, but breaks in upon his capital."
"The more intelligent adversaries of the new Constitution ...qualify ... by a distinction between what they call INTERNAL and EXTERNAL taxation. The former they would reserve to the State governments; the latter, which they explain into commercial imposts, or rather duties on imported articles, they declare themselves willing to concede to the federal head. This distinction, however, would violate the maxim of good sense and sound policy, which dictates that every POWER ought to be in proportion to its OBJECT; and would still leave the general government in a kind of tutelage to the State governments, inconsistent with every idea of vigor or efficiency. Who can pretend that commercial imposts are, or would be, alone equal to the present and future exigencies of the Union? Taking into the account the existing debt, foreign and domestic, upon any plan of extinguishment which a man moderately impressed with the importance of public justice and public credit could approve, in addition to the establishments which all parties will acknowledge to be necessary, we could not reasonably flatter ourselves, that this resource alone, upon the most improved scale, would even suffice for its present necessities.
"To say that deficiencies may be provided for by requisitions upon the States, is on the one hand to acknowledge that this system cannot be depended upon, and on the other hand to depend upon it for every thing beyond a certain limit. "
Technically, because of the 16th, it is constitutional.
Technically, not because of the 16th, but rather Article I Section 8 of the Constitution.
To get rid of the income tax requires repeal of the statutes. To kill it permanently requires a constitututional amendment expressly prohibiting tax on income in any form.
Which is why the income tax of 1863 was considered Constitutional, and still considered such as income in regard to wages, salaries and fees from occupations, employments and trades are concerned.
Springer v. United States(1880), 102 U.S. 586
"The central and controlling question in this case is whether the tax which was levied on the income, gains, and profits of the plaintiff in error, as set forth in the record, and by pretended virtue of the acts of Congress and parts of acts therein mentioned, is a direct tax." "Our conclusions are, that direct taxes, within the meaning of the Constitution, are only capitation taxes, as expressed in that instrument, and taxes on real estate; and that the tax of which the plaintiff in error complains is within the category of an excise or duty."
Pollock v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Company, 157 U.S. 429 (1895)
- "The people of the United States constitute one nation, under one government, and this government, within the scope of the powers with which it is invested, is supreme."
- "Without the States in union, there could be no such political body as the United States. Both the States and the United States existed before the Constitution. The people, through that instrument[the Constitution], established a more perfect union by substituting a national government, acting, with ample power, directly upon the citizens, instead of the confederate government, which acted with powers, greatly restricted, only upon the States."
POLLOCK v. FARMERS' LOAN & TRUST CO., 158 U.S. 601 (1895):
- "We have considered the act only in respect of the tax on income derived from real estate, and from invested personal property, and have not commented on so much of it as bears on gains or profits from business, privileges, or employments, in view of the instances in which taxation on business, privileges, or employments has assumed the guise of an excise tax and been sustained as such."
- "If that[rents from land] be stricken out, and also the income from all invested personal property, bonds, stocks, investments of all kinds, it is obvious that by a r the largest part of the anticipated revenue would be eliminated, and this would leave the burden of the tax to be borne by professions, trades, employments, or vocations; and in that way what was intended as a tax on capital would remain, in substance, a tax on occupations and labor. We cannot believe that such was the intention of congress."
- "We do not mean to say that an act laying by apportionment a direct tax on all real estate and personal property, or the income thereof, might not also lay excise taxes on business, privileges, employments, and vocations. "
- Our conclusions may therefore be summed up as follows:
First. We adhere to the opinion already announced,-that, taxes on real estate being indisputably direct taxes, taxes on the rents or income of real estate are equally direct taxes.
Second. We are of opinion that taxes on personal property, or on the income of personal property, are likewise direct taxes.
Third. The tax imposed by sections 27 to 37, inclusive, of the act of 1894, so far as it falls on the income of real estate, and of personal property, being a direct tax, within the meaning of the constitution, and therefore unconstitutional and void, because not apportioned according to representation, all those sections, constituting one entire scheme of taxation, are necessarily invalid.
- Mr. Justice WHITE, dissenting.
16. The injustice of the conclusion points to the error of adopting it. It takes invested wealth, and reads it into the constitution as a favored and protected class of property, which cannot be taxed without apportionment, while it leaves the occupation of the minister, the doctor, the professor, the lawyer, the inventor, the author, the merchant, the mechanic, and all other forms of industry upon which the prosperity of a people must depend, subject to taxation without that condition.
BRUSHABER v. UNION PACIFIC R. CO., 240 U.S. 1 (1916)
- "the conclusion reached in the Pollock Case did not in any degree involve holding that income taxes generically and necessarily came within the class [240 U.S. 1, 17] of direct taxes on property, but, on the contrary, recognized the fact that taxation on income was in its nature an excise entitled to be enforced as such"
Stanton v. Baltic Mining Co.(1916), 240 U.S. 103:
- "the provisions of the 16th Amendment conferred no new power of taxation, but simply prohibited the previous complete and plenary power of income taxation possessed by Congress from the beginning from being taken out of the category of indirect taxation to which it inherently belonged, and being placed in the category of direct taxation subject to apportionment"
Please see post #12 by editto. A income tax is described in the 16th admendment of the Counstitution.
I don't have any specifics, but I've heard it argued that the amendment was never properly ratified. I believe there is at least one book on the subject.
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