HURRRRR BOORTZ BOORTZ BOORTZ

Anyway, this thread should be great for producing more fodder for my "FairTax moron" Farky list.

A Fair Tax is neither.

And Huckabee's a born again. Do we really want another one of those?

Sadly, I am certain about 1/3 of America does. And will change the rules if it has to in order to have one.

The Republican party depends on three distinct categories of people:

1) Non-minority self-starters and small government advocates
2) The Rich
3) Religious zealots

I fear that a Huckabee nomination would ignore #1 for the sake of #2 and #3. A tax-and-spend zealot does not seem particularly attractive to me.

Taxation is theft.

Would the FairTax work? Maybe, maybe not. Seems to make a lot of sense if you read how it would work. Most of the critcisms I've read misrepresent it, but that's OK, there's always going to be critics of any plan.

What I would like to know from the critics is - what is their plan? If the FairTax won't work, what will? The present system is horrific at best. It will cost $300,000,000,000.00 in 2007 in compliance costs alone. Oh, I know, $300,000,000,000.00 is a small price to pay to make sure that we are giving the government enough of our money.

If you don't like the FairTax, fine, but something needs to change.

I was hoping one of the candidates would get on board with the Fair Tax (either party). Dammit why did it have to be a religious crackpot?

A fair tax would work. But it's end result would be people clamoring for the dismantling of this POS government we have now. Think about it: if people were not allowed to withhold income tax from their paycheck you'd bet they would be a lot more pissed come april when they have to cut a check for 1/3 or more of their income. With the system now, that 1/3 of our income is simply non-existent, however if we got to see it for a little bit and taste a 33% raise only to have the government take it away we'd have a lot more people calling for a revolution.

If people were directly aware of how much money the government took from them in the form of taxes, we'd be demanding a lot more service in return. So everytime you went to buy something and had to fork over an extra 23 cents per dollar to the government you would be reminded daily how much the government is taking from you.

Problems with the fair tax which I have not seen answered.

* All sales taxes are regressive, and most economists will tell you that regressive taxes reduce the spending power of the consumer base, thus slowing economic growth. How is the Fair Tax supposed to overcome its regressive nature or the impact of a slowed economy?

* Those with the means will be able to make big ticket purchases of non-real estate property outside of the United States and then bring those purchases back into the US without paying tax on them. In states with high sales tax this creates tax free boom towns on the borders of neighboring states. How does the Fair Tax prevent the loss of the Billions of dollars in revenue such cross border boom towns could create in places like Mexico and Canada?

* What I have seen of the Fair Tax it suggests using a reward system for policing against black marketeers. This seems to be problematic as civilian policing efforts have historically been prone to abuses either via corruption or civil rights abuses. I understand that the civilian policing effort is to reduce the cost of enforcing the Fair Tax, but where are the funds to watch the watchmen? (even the police have Internal Affairs)

Gwendolyn: Flat tax. Everyone pays 12 or 15% with no write offs.

That is unfortunately just as regressive of a taxation system as the Fair Tax, unless it is modified to be a flat tax on a person's disposable income (income - cost of living) instead of gross income.

Code_Archeologist: That is unfortunately just as regressive of a taxation system as the Fair Tax, unless it is modified to be a flat tax on a person's disposable income (income - cost of living) instead of gross income.

There's a variant of the flat tax that solves that problem, (the Hall-Rabushka flat tax), that allows for everyone to take a standard, uniform deduction of about $12,000 (doubled for a married couple), plus $1,000 for each dependant. After that, there are no other deductions and all income, both individual and business, is taxed at at the same rate - they propose 19% (One note: Investment income is excluded from personal taxation because it's already taxed at the business level). More here.

The only problem with this is that it would take away a lot of power from congress to do social engineering via the tax code, and they wont give up that power unless we start demanding it and voting out incumbents.

Failing_Junk: The only problem with this is that it would take away a lot of power from congress to do social engineering via the tax code, and they wont give up that power unless we start demanding it and voting out incumbents.

Congress shouldn't have that power anyway. The whole point of a tax system is to allow the government to collect the maximum possible revenue while doing the least damage to the economy (or as some Finance minister put it, "to get the most feathers from the goose for the least amount of hissing.") If you must engineer a society, you do it in how you distribute the money, not how you collect it.

The problem with a VAT pandabear is that it allows government allot of wiggle room. Allot of space to put in special exemptions and to hide the cost of the tax from the consumer. Fairtax leaves the tax out in the open for all to see.

Most people who don't like the Fairtax forget the prebate. You pay no tax up to the poverty level. Taxes are only applied to new goods as used goods have already been taxed. You no longer pay taxes on savings or investments. People are no longer penalized for saving money instead of spending it.

I say enact Fairtax and get rid of the 16th amendment.

tallguywithglasseson: Sweet, we can join this list of economic powerhouses that have the flat tax:

FAIL.

Fairtax is NOT a flat tax, get that through your head. It is a progressive consumption tax. There are important differences.

If you spend at the poverty rate, you pay no tax. If you spend 2x the poverty rate, you pay 13% tax, and so on until you get close to 23% (Or whatever the rate is) but you never exceed it.

My question about the national sales tax is this:
What, if anything, will be done to compensate people that have already paid income tax on their savings, and now would have to pay an additional tax on their new purchases?
The double taxation in these situations is inherently unfair and needs to be addressed I think

Crosshair: If you spend at the poverty rate, you pay no tax. If you spend 2x the poverty rate, you pay 13% tax, and so on until you get close to 23% (Or whatever the rate is) but you never exceed it.

Hold on, being in the retail point of sale business I have to ask, how the fark do you expect retailers to charge a customer the correct tax rate? The programming around something like that is mind boggling and might cost million of dollars in development and billions in implementation.

Hurgy hurgy durga BOORTZ BOORTZ BOORTZ.

Ok, I don't understand tax much anyways, so would someone explain why there isn't just a simple income tax that is the same % no matter how much or how little you make? That seems the most fair, doesn't it?

QU!RK1019: Ok, I don't understand tax much anyways, so would someone explain why there isn't just a simple income tax that is the same % no matter how much or how little you make? That seems the most fair, doesn't it?

It's called a flat tax, and it's equal, but not fair.

Son of God: It's called a flat tax, and it's equal, but not fair.

How is it not fair?

As much as I didn't like Asimov's "Foundation" series (I quit after like 3 books when I realized they were just talking), he made some good points- this topic reminds me of one part where one of the characters mentions that futile tax simplification efforts often preceed an empire's collapse.

So is this bad or good if you make a lot of money?

Sounds to me like many will be penalized for being more successful. Not everyone with money is like Paris Hilton/Brit Spears.

Some people work for their money.

All I know is that this guy is a nutbag.

QU!RK1019:
Son of God: It's called a flat tax, and it's equal, but not fair.

How is it not fair?

A flat tax is not fair because 10% of $20K is one helluva harder lifestyle hit on a person than 10% of $200K. It would push shiatloads of people into poverty who weren't there before.

Now, if you're taking the stance of the need for various exceptions based on spending, that's fine, but then you're not talking flat tax anymore.

(and my 10% figure was for the sake of argument, before some dumbass pops up and says "HURRRR...they already pay more than that")

My problem with the Fair Tax system is they keep talking about some stupid rebate check that we send out to everyone.

I want people to quit counting on handouts from the government.

I like replacing the income tax with a national sales tax, but the sales tax have hard exemptions.

No sales tax on
1. Food
2. Medicine
3. Clothing Items under $100
4. Residential Real Estate
5. Services

All other items, tax away.

The truly poor would pay minimal sales tax. The really wealthly would pay a lot of sales tax. No one would pay sales tax to have a roof over their head.

No new bureaucracy designed to give us handouts

QU!RK1019: How is it not fair?

Because when you make fifteen grand a year, ten-fifteen percent of your income is a serious bite, and the further you go up in income, the less that's true, and at the top, it's just skimming your vast disosable income.

In other words, flat taxes require the poorest citizens to give most heavily from their core income, the majority of us in the middle to give decreasing degrees of same, and the wealthiest citizens get to pay vastly less of their cream every year than they do even now, post-Reagan.

Thus the term "regressive."

Postal Penguin:

Great post. Payroll withholding is the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on the American people.

If people actually received what they made and had to write their own check to the federal government every payday we'd have alot smaller government in a hurry.

And the same for social security - if people had to write their own check and realize that money was NOT going into their personal savings accounts, SS would be privatized overnight.

Land Value Tax. It's hard to hide real estate "off the books."

"Fair Tax" was invented and or being pushed by Scientology as part of their vendetta against the IRS.

It's a 30% tax, which is fraudulently passed off as 23% because 30 cents tax divided by $1.30 new price = 23%.

weiserfireman: My problem with the Fair Tax system is they keep talking about some stupid rebate check that we send out to everyone.

I want people to quit counting on handouts from the government.

I like replacing the income tax with a national sales tax, but the sales tax have hard exemptions.

No sales tax on
1. Food
2. Medicine
3. Clothing Items under $100
4. Residential Real Estate
5. Services

All other items, tax away.

The truly poor would pay minimal sales tax. The really wealthly would pay a lot of sales tax. No one would pay sales tax to have a roof over their head.

No new bureaucracy designed to give us handouts

That would have to be a very large sales tax.

Under the Fair Tax plan, EVERYONE would recieve a check equal to the tax they would pay for necessities at the poverty level. So, poor people wouldn't pay taxes for food, etc. For extremely poor and frugal people, this is effectively a subsidy.

The tax applies to new items at the retail level only. People who complain about too much consumerism and environmentalists should be happy with this plan because it effectively puts an incentive on recycling and reuse, instead of disposable consumerism. Large corporations would no longer have a competitive advantage due to the tax code.

This plan is all kinds of good. Think of it, tens of thousands of tax lawyers and accountants would need new jobs - perhaps they could do somthing actually productive. Rich people would no longer be able to hide their income and wealth in tax shelters, and they would have no incentive to move it overseas.

That is just scratching the surface. The current system is arbitrary and capricious and favors people who can afford battalions of high priced tax lawyers or buy politicians to insert favorable tax rules.

Crosshair

...ran away.

Sad, I'd like to see an answer to Code_Archeologist's question.

hey, let's cut the corporate-military-industrial-complex down to size and be a free, educated, innovative people!

or let's distract ourselves with mindless entertainment while all the rich warmongers feed off our blood!

one of those! yay!

CityHall: "Fair Tax" was invented and or being pushed by Scientology as part of their vendetta against the IRS.

It's a 30% tax, which is fraudulently passed off as 23% because 30 cents tax divided by $1.30 new price = 23%.

Incorrect. Yes, the scientologists did have a tax plan that also called for a retail sales tax, but the plan that is being pushed now is not the same and has nothing to do with Scientologists.

Ah the miraculous "fair"tax, where the rich and poor see their overall tax rate go down, government incomes do not decrease, and everyone stays silent about what that implies about the tax rates on the middle class.

LargeCanine

First says:
EVERYONE would recieve a check equal to the tax they would pay for necessities at the poverty level.

Then has the balls to say:

Think of it, tens of thousands of tax lawyers and accountants would need new jobs

Uhm, this wouldn't kill the system, it would just merely change it. The amount of finagling and bureaucracy that would go into determining "what's at the poverty level" and the geographic variability of the poverty level line would be massive.

And again, how does this do anything except force corporations to move further out of our country so their materials aren't taxed?

Let alone rich private citizens (and border people like me)...

//So many half baked ideas, so little time.

SacriliciousBeerSwiller and FlatusJones

Thanks for setting me straight! So, to even it out, you have the percentage get a little higher as the income goes up? Isn't that how it's all ready done in America?

And if so, why do people want to change it?

QU!RK1019: So, to even it out, you have the percentage get a little higher as the income goes up? Isn't that how it's all ready done in America?

Yep.

And if so, why do people want to change it?

Because nobody hates paying taxes more than the people with the least to lose, paying them, and those people own pretty much everything. Basically.