Letters to the Editor
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Ron Paul Does Not Support the "FairTax"
It bears repeating that Ron Paul DOES NOT support the FairTax, which will simply exchange one large bureaucracy for another.
As a former state sales tax auditor, I can tell you that sales tax can have a broad reach into people's lives, as well as disrupting businesses and even causing them to fail (as well as creating new ways to steal the money and evade paying).
There will be a new set of complications that come with instituting a national sales tax and would eventually become as oppressive as the IRS.
No method of taxation is 100% fair. The only solution to the tax problem is a small federal government.
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Tolerance, brother, tolerance.
The issue is not whether I can tolerate freedom, it's whether I can tolerate dumb-asses who state since I don't have the same opinions as they do I cannot tolerate freedom.
The reality is the tax system as it is today is unfair. If you are married filing jointly and your income is $63,700 you pay 15%, if you make $63,701 you pay 25%. A 10% tax liability swing for a buck. This is fair - how?
Contrast this to the high end incomes. If you make 349,700 your tax is 33%, if $349,701 you pay 35%. A 2% percent swing for a buck. Still sucks, but alot less. Then to add injury to insult, if you make 100 kabillion zillion dollars you pay at the same rate as the shlob who made $349,701. And this is fair - how?
Sales taxes are inherently unfair to lower and middle income people. No fukkin' around with the numbers or "prebates" can change that.
The only thing I believe that has a chance at fair, is a flat tax on ALL income, NO EXCEPTIONS or endless fukked up formulas.
Inheritance, simple interest, gambling, work, capital gains, real estate gains, lemonade stands, etc. At 10% (just to pick a number) the person making $20,000 a year pays $2,000. The person making $200,000 pays $20,000. The person making 20 kabillion zillion dollars pays 2 kabillion zillion dollars. Now I know paying 2 kabillion zillion dollars in taxes is a lot of money, but come on, the 18 kabillion zillion dollars left is not exactly pocket change.
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How about simply delivering on services they collect taxes for
I truly believe that Americans like to talk shit about paying the almighty dollar to the gubmint but what's at the core of it is the belief that paying taxes is like setting fire to your money in the middle of the street. Americans believe they get essentially nothing for their tax dollar. This is where the French system plays to personal interest in the context of socialism. You pay your 50% and in exchange you get free medical care, free or near free college, vast amounts of maternity leave, lavish unemployment benefits and great gobs of paid time off.
Now is that ideal, for everyone? No. But there is absolutely less resistance from the middle class to higher taxes (and $6/gallon gasoline as well) when they perceive that something comes back to them when they need it. It doesn't just burn in the street or go to solid gold aircraft carriers and whatnot.
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@ sajwan
There is a very basic misunderstanding of the current tax code that would make you, and probably a lot of other people, feel better. The tax rates that you discussed are "marginal" tax rates. That means that when your income jumps from 63,700 to 63,701, only that last $1 is taxed at 25%. The dollars up to that amount are taxed at the lower rate.
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Only Idiots Will Vote For This Guy
No one will ever be able to abolish the American tax industry. Imagine the number of people employed by the entire tax, accounting, servicing, legal, and information distribution systems related to the State and Federal Income Tax entities and you have a substantial percentage of the voters.
Are these people and their families gonna vote themselves out of a job?
In many instances entire corporate structures are created around the Federal Tax Codes.
And most importantly, this is yet another Republican proposing a tax system that benefits the wealthy, at the expense of the middle income taxpayers.
And what about retirees? An extra 30% tax on everything they buy will result in their economic destruction.
If anybody doubts the level of insanity running throughout the Republican Party all they need to do is look at Huckabee.
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Use your brains people!
No one has mentioned the worst part of the "fair tax."
People will stop spending money, overnight. It would be the most devastating blow to the economy that you could possibly imagine. If prices are suddenly 30% higher, people spend less. It's simple economics. Then the government won't be bringing in enough money, so they'll have to raise the tax even higher, causing people to cut back further on spending, until the tax rate is 150%.
People who respond that it will force the government to spend less money are just living in fantasyland. The government deficit spends like there is literally no tomorrow, as if we'll never have to pay it back. So to top it off, we'd be increasing our debt even more than we do already, leading to further devaluation of the dollar, leading to higher prices (inflation), leading to us living in a third world country.
I'm just flabbergasted that the author wrote a 2-page article and didn't mention the effect on the economy.
Anyone who thinks this is a good idea, I hope you're sitting on a HUGE pile of cash. Otherwise, you are an idiot. It would be great for rich folks, a subsistence wage working class with not enough work to go around means cheap labor for the garden, kitchen, and olympic sized swimming pool. For everyone else it would be horrific.
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Nope, ain't gonna listen
"The FairTax would add 30 cents to every dollar spent, but since 30 cents is 23 percent of $1.30, the FairTaxers call the rate 23 percent."
I was ready to listen to the idea of a consumption tax, but anything that has to be sold with this kind of bullshit sleight-of-hand...faggedaboudit.
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"What is to stop [states] from slacking off [sales tax enforcement] and giving their citizens a tax cut at federal expense? "
Oh No!!! That would give the states a chance to respond to federal power grabs. We wouldn't want that.
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"Only Idiots Will Vote For This Guy"
I'm pretty sure that's what Huckabee is counting on.
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Before you keep on supporting it, Democrats
Before you keep on supporting it, Democrats need to take another look at the Federal Income Tax system.
Total Outlays (Federal Funds): $2,387 billion
MILITARY: 51% and $1,228 billion
NON-MILITARY: 49% and $1,159 billion
http://www.warresisters.org/piechart.htm
Why should I be forced to pay for US imperialism?
Why should I pay for the Iraq War?
Why should I pay for US military bases in Japan, South Korea, Italy, Spain, The Netherlands? They all have thriving economies. Can’t they defend themselves?
And even if you do support the above, most would agree that the tax codes are burdensome and at times baffling to comprehend.