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Where would we be with a national VAT tax? I don't know but it is a pretty good bet we will find out. I don't mean a VAT tax instead of an income tax--I mean both. Like California has both high income tax AND high sales tax (and still is broke).
Bruce Bartlett predicted this during the Bush years when Bush & the R's were spending like drunken sailors, running $400 billion deficits. Now we've got Obama and deficits have tripled.
I look forward to this, seeing how you're one of the people that describes Obama as a "Socialist"... lol. But I'm not expecting a whole lot of exposition from you on this, just party talking points lacking any insight. All you know is "taxes are bad" like some political Frankenstein's monster running from fire. But feel free to show you're not just some FOX News parrot and contribute to a discussion that doesn't already have a your talking points laid out.
I have noticed, and have you noticed that none of the leading economies or societies have done away w/ the progressive code?
And yet, a VAT is routinely paraded as an alternative/complement to our current tax code by the "taxes are stealing" crowd.
OK, Eddie I will try to explain the Fair Tax to you as simply as I can so as not to take up too much bandwidth when you could look it up for yourself but won't do it.
The Fair Tax is something I was really convinced wouldn't work at all until I read up on it a little bit. In that system we would all get to pay the same amount. Oh my, that wouldn't be progressive at all would it?
Each household would pay a tax of 23% on every thing they buy. Of course, that sounds horrible until you know something about the plan. Each household would get a monthly probate amounting to the amount that has been determined necessary for them to live on. They would also get a probate monthly based on what it takes for the average family to buy housing, clothing, medical care, and other necessities. Now I am sure that many families would get more in those rebates (probates because they come a month early so it is a rebate ahead of time) than they have in money to pay taxes on.
It seems to me that the wealthier people would get to pay a lot more in taxes under that system than others since they would want to buy things not needed. Bigger cars, bigger, fancier houses and so on. They have more to spend on so they would spend more. The more most families have the more they will spend no matter how you tax. Left leaners would always say that this can't work because when all you can afford is a used vehicle you shouldn't have to pay a tax on it and you would find that once that thing has been taxed it won't get the 23% again. Houses are the same. Once the tax has been paid on a new one the next owner doesn't get to pay.
Now, there is a chance that trying to be short I have screwed this up but you can study the tax for yourself at Fair Tax.org Give it a try and you may find that it would work pretty well.
I forgot the only taxes you would get to pay would be on those goods you buy. No gasoline taxes or any other kind of hidden taxes. Only the Fair Tax. No excise taxes of any kind. No tariffs, no taxes at all.
Look it up and see just what it really is not what so many left leaners say it is. It would be one of the best ways to make sure that the "rich" (whatever that is) get to pay their fair share.
I think if everyone had to pay FED taxes and not get more back than paid in they might not be so agreeable to a lot of the waste.
Which people are most likely to vote for Obama? Those who get a pile for what is called Earned Income in the form of refund on something never paid in or my son who has been griping all night when the Dems cut loose about income taxes? Yep, the first ones but there are so many more of them than there of my son.
I am pretty sure that Mitt Romney pays more in income taxes each year than you do in your whole life. You want him to pay the same percentage you do but aren't able to see that he pays so much more right now and the numbers you are talking about have to do with his taxes on his investments not his income. He gets to go twice there just like I do.
Is is fair that you pay a percentage on your working income and I get to pay income taxes on my social security after having paid taxes on the same thing before I stopped paying on income? I am going around a second time.
Do you really understand what those words, progressive tax, really mean. You seem to think that it' means the more you make the more your percentage should be. Is that right?
The theory of progressive taxation comes from the idea that it often contains "a rent". "Paid enough to kept one honest" has this implication. The responsibility of the position is an income and the one filling it benefits. I suppose nepotism tends towards higher income and unearned income as well. The other argument from a revenue standpoint is that a rich rock star isn't going to stop being a rock star, meaning that the surplus can be used as revenue with no loss in output.
Since we don't need any income taxes in lieu of income from rising rent valuations(or increasing marginal utility of natural resources in modern terms) and revenue from credit creation, its moot. If we must then a tax on luxuries is the third option.
OK, Eddie I will try to explain the Fair Tax to you as simply as I can so as not to take up too much bandwidth when you could look it up for yourself but won't do it.
The Fair Tax is something I was really convinced wouldn't work at all until I read up on it a little bit. In that system we would all get to pay the same amount. Oh my, that wouldn't be progressive at all would it?
Each household would pay a tax of 23% on every thing they buy. Of course, that sounds horrible until you know something about the plan. Each household would get a monthly probate amounting to the amount that has been determined necessary for them to live on. They would also get a probate monthly based on what it takes for the average family to buy housing, clothing, medical care, and other necessities. Now I am sure that many families would get more in those rebates (probates because they come a month early so it is a rebate ahead of time) than they have in money to pay taxes on.
It seems to me that the wealthier people would get to pay a lot more in taxes under that system than others since they would want to buy things not needed. Bigger cars, bigger, fancier houses and so on. They have more to spend on so they would spend more. The more most families have the more they will spend no matter how you tax. Left leaners would always say that this can't work because when all you can afford is a used vehicle you shouldn't have to pay a tax on it and you would find that once that thing has been taxed it won't get the 23% again. Houses are the same. Once the tax has been paid on a new one the next owner doesn't get to pay.
Now, there is a chance that trying to be short I have screwed this up but you can study the tax for yourself at Fair Tax.org Give it a try and you may find that it would work pretty well.
I forgot the only taxes you would get to pay would be on those goods you buy. No gasoline taxes or any other kind of hidden taxes. Only the Fair Tax. No excise taxes of any kind. No tariffs, no taxes at all.
Look it up and see just what it really is not what so many left leaners say it is. It would be one of the best ways to make sure that the "rich" (whatever that is) get to pay their fair share.
Why would you implement a tax that was savagely exposed hundreds of years ago? I'll tell you why. Those who benefit from gentrification and make money doing nothing have seen fit to bury the work of every classical economist before the 20th century. That's why. All the junk economics since have seen fit to tax shift off natural wealth and on to labor and capital. VAT is abysmal.
I am pretty sure that Mitt Romney pays more in income taxes each year than you do in your whole life. You want him to pay the same percentage you do but aren't able to see that he pays so much more right now and the numbers you are talking about have to do with his taxes on his investments not his income. He gets to go twice there just like I do.
Is is fair that you pay a percentage on your working income and I get to pay income taxes on my social security after having paid taxes on the same thing before I stopped paying on income? I am going around a second time.
Do you really understand what those words, progressive tax, really mean. You seem to think that it means the more you make the more your percentage should be. Is that right?
Not as a percentage he does not. And a third of my income is SS and pension.
I know reasonably precisely how taxes work. I would favor a progressive income tax. I would however limit the total tax load on an individual to 50%. That is actually quite arbitrary...but I think one should work at least half time for yourself. I will leave the FICA and such questions to the experts.
I would also do away with the differential between capital gains and income. Too complicated to ever be successfully administered. If we wish to award a sum to income based on capital appreciation let us make it a clear payment and not a tax differential. That way we get to see it.
My mother, who was a tax maven, thought the right way to do this is simply pay everyone a salary sufficient to avoid extreme poverty. Than tax enough to pay for it. This is independent of how progressive you chose to make the tax code.
Today’s post-industrial strategy of “wealth creation” is to use debt leveraging to bid up asset prices. From corporate raiders to arbitrageurs and computerized trading programs, this “casino capitalist” strategy works as long as asset prices rise at a faster rate than the interest that has to be paid. But it contains the seeds of its own destruction, because it builds up financial claims on the assets pledged as collateral – without creating new means of production. Instead of steering credit into tangible capital formation, banks find it easier to make money by lending to real estate and monopolies (and to other financial institutions). Their plan is to capitalize land rent, natural resource rent and monopoly privileges into loans, stocks and bonds.
This leads the banks to act as lobbyist for their rentier clients, to free them from taxes so that they will have more available to pay interest. The resulting tax shift onto labor and industry adds a fiscal burden to the debt overhead.
I will keep in mind the fact that you don't know chit about anything other than what we now have. You don't seem to understand the difference in the sales tax, a flat tax, and the Fair Tax. Most people of the left lean sure don't know about the Fair Tax and how it works. Maybe you should use everybody's friend, Google, and learn about that one.
"Consume more pay less." This message brought to you by the National Association of REALTORS (TM).
Is is fair that you pay a percentage on your working income and I get to pay income taxes on my social security after having paid taxes on the same thing before I stopped paying on income? I am going around a second time.
This is one thing I find exasperating. (ex = out + aspera = hope --> replacing hope with despair)
It is a long established principle of taxation that insurance payouts - when the insurance is paid for with post-tax dollars - should not be taxed.
This is why, for example, life insurance payouts are not taxed when the insurance was purchased with post-tax dollars.
Congress established Social Security as an "insurance" program, that's why your SS taxes are called FICA taxes - Federal Insurance Contributions Act - on your pay stub.
Your FICA taxes, deducted from your paycheck, are post-income tax dollars. Therefore, Social Security benefits should NOT be taxed.
Crooked politicians in Washington are stealing from you at both ends.
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