Re: The Fair Tax

On Wed, 10 Jun 2009 22:17:16 -0400, tlvp <PmUiRsGcE.TtHlEvSpE@xxxxxxx>
wrote:

Buzz wrote:
On Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:26:30 -0500, "Ouroboros Rex" <its@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:


Buzz wrote:

On Mon, 8 Jun 2009 11:35:12 -0500, "Ouroboros Rex" <its@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:


Buzz wrote:

On Fri, 5 Jun 2009 10:43:55 -0500, "Ouroboros Rex" <its@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:


Buzz wrote:

On Thu, 04 Jun 2009 23:02:16 GMT, Dave Head <rally2xs@xxxxxxx>
wrote:


On Thu, 4 Jun 2009 11:43:24 -0500, "Ouroboros Rex"
<its@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


Dave Head wrote:

Have been reading the site: www.fairtax.org. This looks like
great stuff - touched on it a few months ago in conversation
here, but I was considering my own ideas. Having read these,
it looks like dynamite. Briefly:

1) Repeal the income tax, corporate taxes, payroll taxes such
as social security and FICA.

2) Run the country on a retail sales tax. The concept is that
everything gets taxed at retail, and only taxed once. So, used
things (pre-existing homes, cars, etc) don't get taxed (again.)
Doesn't matter that they were never taxed under this system
before, we're going to pretend.

3) Everyone gets all the money he/she makes, no witholding of
income tax, FICA tax, SS tax. This is true for 401K / IRA that
was _supposed_ to have been taxed upon withdrawal too - its a
"take the money and run" scenario.

4) Everyone, and that's the everyone from the street person all
the way up to Bill Gates, gets the tax rate multiplied by the
poverty level. So, if the poverty level is $11K / yr, and the
tax rate turns out to be 30% (don't have a heart attack - this
is really not that bad) then everyone gets a check from Uncle
Sam for $3300 every year, or probably 1/52nd of that every
week. This is called a "prebated" and is proposed to make the
tax progressive rather than regressive.

And that's about it.

The website is saying that a 23% inclusive tax (or 30% figured
the way your math teacher would have expected you to do it)
will run the country with a neutral tax revenue posture - the
government gets exactly as much as it does now from the present
tax system.

My own analysis of my personal situation found that I would
have $6K - $9K extra pocket money left over as compared to the
present system, if there was a 23% (30%) tax rate on retail
sales. Its partially because a significant part of my
take-home pay goes to a house payment that is not classified
as a retail sale, and so wouldn't be taxed, and I save a pile
of $$$ for retirement, and savings isn't taxed either.

Anyone else want to try an analysis, see what you come up with?
It was fairly easy for me - except for my house payment, and
the automatic savings of a 401K-like instrument and the
pension, I pretty much spend everything I make. Multiplying
that by 30% and then comparing with the amount of tax that I
wouldn't be sending to witholding and FICA, I came up with a
$6K advantage. Adding in a $3300 / yr prebate, or $2530
figured "inclusively" boosts that to around $9K. Either way,
I like this.

The fairtax website says that studies have estimated a $15
trillion influx of investment money if this were adopted, and
converted the USA to the world's biggest tax haven. My
speculation is that we get our software industry back, our
steel industry back, our auto industry back, our textile
industry back, etc.

More of my own speculation is that we would have enough _good_
jobs (read _factory_ jobs) that we could lift immigration
quotas and let anyone come that wanted to (and put them to
work... paying taxes...) (Whaddaya think?)

Figure that anything manufactured here will be able to lower
its cost of manufacture dramatically by not paying corporate
taxes, and it should cost about the same on the market after
the "fairtax" is applied at retail. Make sense? I think so.

If course, foreign goods would not see a dramatic decline in
their costs of manufacture, since they aren't paying US
corporate taxes. This would be an excellent reason that foreign
manufacturers would see that they really want to build a
factory in the USA to make their goods, and bring jobs to our
shores.

This looks like the reversal of the decades long trend of
industry fleeing US shores to do business overseas. I can live
with that too.

Anybody?

As I understand it, I would have to pay a 23% tax on bread,
while G.E. gets off scot free.

Perhaps I've missed something?

Yes.

But who is GE?

Good luck 'splaining to Rex how corporations don't pay taxes, they
merely collect them.

Now, do they collect them from everybody, which would make your
point relevant, or do they only collect them from their customers,
which would make it simply a dodge for the fact that now they get
to nationalize their infrastructure responsibilities?

Ohhhh... I think I see now. If it's good for a corporatioin
(sinister music), then you don't like it. Even if it will benefit
you, it's not worth it if they don't pay "their fair share". Is
that it?

How will a national sales tax allow them to nationalize their
infrastructure responsibilities?

How much tax will corporations pay for use of infrastructure under
FairTax?


How much do they pay now?

Sorry, no longer interested in watching you play stupid. You lose.



Fact is, once again, the FairTax is revenue neutral for the
government.

This nonsense you're making up about an infrastructure tax is
ludicrous.

Read the book. Save some face.

My 2 cents: Any tax a corporation must pay is, in turn, paid *for*
by that corporation's customers, in addition to whatever *other*
taxes those customers may be responsible for.

Highway use taxes for a trucking company? Paid for by those the company
trucks for (and if "those" are Walmart, or Stop'n'Shop, or Circuit City,
collected back from *their* customers, in turn).

Ultimately, it's you and I who pay all corporations' taxes :-{ .
(As well as our own.)

Somehow, that concept is incomprehensible to some.


.

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