Posted on 09/20/2004 6:44:48 AM PDT by truthandlife
I am about to praise a liberal, a Democrat and a member of the Congressional Black Caucus (search).
No, there's nothing wrong with your TV and you have not inadvertently tuned to one of the broadcast networks. This is still FOX News Channel.
Congressman Chaka Fattah (search) of Pennsylvania has proposed eliminating the cumbersome and to most of us indecipherable tax code and replacing it with a consumption tax. Instead of individuals and corporations paying a tax on earnings, Fattah wants to tax what we buy, sell, trade or acquire.
He estimates the current system costs the government $200 billion because of people who evade or break the law. And he notes that the top 27,000 earners of $500,000 or more pay little or no taxes legally.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
There's an awful lot of talk about changing *how* the government gets its mitts on our money, but not much about reduce how much it gets.
Its like deciding if its better to be robbed at the teller window when cashing the paycheck or at the cash register while spending it.
That is the best way to institute taxation IMO. Leaves the paperwork to the businesses and is completely fair to all.
I like Pat Caddell even though he's democrat...
Probably because neither party really wants the total reduced...cost of govt (like all else), is never going to go down....all they want is to say what will win the election.
The Fair Tzx is a great idea, and this Rep is basically talking about that. He's not the first Dem to support a consumption tax, Traficant did, too.
The problem with a VAT is it gets layered on throughout the production and distribution process so that: 1) You can't see all the taxes you are paying on an item 2) You are paying taxes on the taxes that were added earlier You would wind up with something just as complicated as the current tax code, as special interests lobbied for exceptions to the VAT for themselves. A simple sales tax to the consumer of a product is the way to go. That's who winds up paying it all anyway.
That's because the talk of change has nothing to do with reduction. The baby boomers are retiring now and will not be earning salaries. To further mnaximize the tax on this large body of people, the tax code must change to a consumption tax. When the baby boomers die off, then an income tax can be added to the consumption tax to make up for the dwindling revenues.
This is a VAT tax and VAT taxes suck. You never know how much you're truly paying. It's garbage.
A consumption tax completely robs politicians of most of their power. With a consumption tax there are no exemptions or loopholes which can be granted to special voting blocks or contributors. Plus it is impossible to raise it without pissing consumers off. It's an idea that deserves a lot of debate but you will never see it.
For what ? An unoriginal thought ??
For what ? An unoriginal thought ??
"Hold muh beer, I am about to praise a liberal."
...and furthermore: This proposal favors having a PROGRESSIVE sales tax. The tax rate would be higher based on the "bracket" of the purchase. Why should I pay more for a Jaguar than somebody else pays for a Ford?
I earned the money, and I don't think some new socialist scheme to dip into my pocket is going to satisfy me much more than the current scheme.
FLAT TAX! Let everybody pay the same RATE.
The consumer tax, will this include Pot? The left will be up in arms over that.
Make no mistake on how a democrat would implement a GST type tax. They would implement it on TOP of the current federal tax. That's how they did it in Canada. The GST was supposed to replace the federal tax, which would have been phased out. The phasing out part didn't happen, Canadians now pay an extra 7% on everything they buy, plus environmental taxes (1.5%) on things like pop cans, drink containers, car tires,batteries; SIN taxes on beer, wine, whiskey and cigarettes, entertainment taxes on hockey/ football games, and movies, amusement taxes on fairs and rodeos, and of course, 50% or more tax on every drop of gasoline.
Democrat big government utopia. Keep that stupidity out of the USA.
I have read about several plans to replace income tax with a sales tax. The plan that sounds the best to me is a 30% sales tax on all new goods. That may sound high, but consider that you can make all your purchases with pre-tax money and with no corporate income tax, prices should be lower. Consumption is more stable year on year than income. The plan also has a provision to refund each consumer an amount equal to the tax on poverty level spending. Low income families could buy for less and do it at a very low tax rate. American made products could be exported and sold at a lower cost, helping ease the balance of trade.
It sounds good on paper, but how do we get there? I think what will happen will be a lot less radical.
what about the Fair Tax co-sponsor , (D) John Linder?
To be honest I like the idea of a national sales tax because I think it would be easier to avoid it, through cash purchases and barter arrangements, than it is to avoid paying the IRS.
Here's the hook where the politicians get in the door. The amount of this exemption can be changed, and so can the goods they apply to. It also turns it into a Progressive tax aimed at the producers, not the welfare queens.
Secondly, any such proposal MUST be combined with the elimination (not just reduction) of income tax. Otherwise, this will become merely another tax ON TOP of income tax.
I say absolutly no on this thing. I don't trust any politician about raising taxes, much less a Democrat.
Europe has consuption taxes, and their standard of living is something like half of ours. Take that as a sign that it doesn't work so well.
We've got the most powerful economy in the world. Why screw with it?
Yeah... and of course there would need to be a massive bureaucracy to assign things to brackets.
The advantage of a consumption tax, is that it gets people who currently evade and pay little or no tax, like John Kerry and Teresa Heinz. But a consumption tax is only simple and easily enforced if it is fair rather than "progressive."
Taxing luxury goods at a higher rate is dumb, because it depresses the manufacture of luxury goods, and luxury goods are more likely to be manufactured in the USA than in foreign sweatshops, than economy goods are.
The US experimented with a 10% luxo tax on expensive cars, yachts, and some other things. One effect was a crash in boatbuilding. Most people who work building even the most expensive yachts, like the ones John Kerry and his wife own, are blue-collar workers making below-average money.
They're not rich, so Republican politicians ignore them, and they're not union, so Democrats do, also. What they are is screwed.
A complex consumption tax that tries to enforce moral judgments about what people buy is likely to have unintended consequences, as the luxury tax did. (It was finally repealed, led by congressmen of both parties from boat-building coastal states). What we can learn from the luxo tax is that it might make sense to do some tax "experiments" before we commit to anything new.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
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