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Income tax; Flat tax; National Sales tax; No tax

Which do you prefer:


  • Total voters
    133
FairTaxFraud.com

Another simple crusher from AJC. More at the link.
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/bookman/stories/2008/05/30/bookmaned_0602.html]Atlanta Opinion *| ajc.com

Farcical FairTax is anything but
Atlanta Journal Constitution ---- 06/02/08

You don't have to have a degree in economics to see the failings of the proposed FairTax[/b]....
New houses would be taxed; Medical care would be taxed; Food would be taxed. Even the Federal government would pay the tax to ITSELF on goods and services.
[............]
Then there's the matter of fairness. At Fairtax.org, you'll find a Calculator that purports to tell you how much you'll save in taxes under the FairTax. I can almost Guarantee that after you plug in your financial information, you will be Promised significant tax savings.
My wife and I certainly would pay a Lot less. Based on their recently released tax returns, so would George and Laura Bush. Under the FairTax, their tax bill would fall by $54,000 on an income of more than $900,000.

That's interesting, because FairTax advocates claim the tax would raise just as much money as the current system. So if a couple with a million-dollar income pays a Lot less, who pays more?


After repeated experiments with the calculator, I FINALLY found that household. A couple with two children, a Rented home and income of $40,000 would pay $860 more.
In other words, to balance out the $54,000 tax cut for someone making a Million dollars a year, we would have to Raise taxes on 62 couples trying to raise their family on $40,000 a year.-
And they call it a FairTax?
[.......]
But the bottom line is, none of it matters anyway.
FairTax supporters are being played for suckers by politicians who have signed their names in support of the proposal but have no intention of enacting such a Crazy idea.
Look at the record. Linder's "Fair Tax Act" has been introduced in every Congress since 1999, drawing scores of co-sponsors. For 8 of those years, Republicans controlled both the House and Senate. Yet with all those co-sponsors and all that time under GOP control, FairTax legislation never got so much as One subcommittee Vote on its provisions.

That's because Nobody, including its co-sponsors, takes it Seriously.
And if the idea was ignored when Republicans were in control, what does that say about its future under Democrats?[.....]
 
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You were saying that having the poor not paying taxes is more or less like what we already have, I inferred welfare.

Not necessarily welfare. Things like the EITC, etc.

Well if the corporate elite don't have to pay for something like the UPKEEP of GM for example, why not bail them out? Corporate welfare, just as bad.

Again, I'm sorry but I don't know what you're trying to say. Are you under the impression that GM was kept afloat to protect monied interests?
 
Not necessarily welfare. Things like the EITC, etc.



Again, I'm sorry but I don't know what you're trying to say. Are you under the impression that GM was kept afloat to protect monied interests?

yes, GM a company that literally should have failed, was propped up. ignoring that is just plain naive
 
yes, GM a company that literally should have failed, was propped up. ignoring that is just plain naive

I'm pointing out that the auto bailout was not designed to protect rich people, but rather the employees and larger economy. Many of the corporate bondholders took a haircut thanks to the bailout.

How you can analogize this to social welfare for poor people is beyond me.
 
I'm pointing out that the auto bailout was not designed to protect rich people, but rather the employees and larger economy. Many of the corporate bondholders took a haircut thanks to the bailout.

How you can analogize this to social welfare for poor people is beyond me.

capitalism. survival of the fittest. you might like that no?
 
Re: FairTaxFraud.com

Another simple crusher from AJC. More at the link.

Spells it out very clearly. Good post! Now it will be completely ignored by the fringe right.
 
I've been trying to spread this message for years,
decades even. Why stop now?

I voted for "Other"

I would like to see a radically revised income tax system
along these approximate lines:

  • Much higher personal exemption of about $15k-20k

  • No other exemptions or deductions

  • Flat rate of 10-15% for income of over personal exemption of
    up to $1 million (Flat rate to include Social Security)

  • Additional surtax of 5% on income over $1 million


I am not sure how to handle a few items such as:

  • Capital gains (I lean toward not taxing them)

  • Inheritance (I lean toward not taxing it)


The benefit of this system is its great simplicity.

No more H&R Block and other tax preparation overhead,
even for the largest corporations. Everyone's tax could
be submited on a postcard-sized document, and any idiot
with a calculator could prepare his own taxes.

The flat tax system has I think been employed with great
success in countries as disparate as Russia and Singapore,
i.e. it has been fully tested and proven to work.
 
As pointed out above, the rich actually pay a much higher percentage of their income in federal income taxes than do the middle or lower classes.

I have heard the super rich gets away with 5% tax if they do it right and exploit all the loopholes, and they can easily afford to do that.

Either way, more or less, the only fair thing is that everyone pays the same % tax.
 
Re: FairTaxFraud.com

Farcical FairTax is anything but
Atlanta Journal Constitution ---- 06/02/08

You don't have to have a degree in economics to see the failings of the proposed FairTax[/b]....
New houses would be taxed;

And existing housed wouldn't. Those buying new houses generally have the $$$ to pay such a tax. Poorer people generally buy existing housing.

Medical care would be taxed;

Medical care is already taxed up the wazoo by taxes that would go away under the fair tax. Every nurse a doctor hires, every orderly, everybody is paying social security and medicare that costs that employee 7.65% of their gross earnings and costs their EMPLOYER 7.65% of the employee's gross earnings.

Supplies used by doctors and others in the medical fields have costs of manufacture that inclued 35% federal corporate taxes plus an average of about 4.5% state taxes. The 35% would go away under the Fair Tax, and there is at least some hope that the states would eschew corporate income taxes once the Federal framework goes away.

Food would be taxed.

The Fair Tax includes a prebate calculated at the poverty level, which pays for the tax on the necessities of life that those at the poverty level incur, including food. It isn't necessarily big enough to cover someone eating truffles and steak for a $400 plate at some swank restaurant, tho.


Even the Federal government would pay the tax to ITSELF on goods and services.

Necessary, or the gov't could set up its own manufacturing and compete with private industry unfairly.


Then there's the matter of fairness. At Fairtax.org, you'll find a Calculator that purports to tell you how much you'll save in taxes under the FairTax. I can almost Guarantee that after you plug in your financial information, you will be Promised significant tax savings.

My wife and I certainly would pay a Lot less. Based on their recently released tax returns, so would George and Laura Bush. Under the FairTax, their tax bill would fall by $54,000 on an income of more than $900,000.

That's interesting, because FairTax advocates claim the tax would raise just as much money as the current system. So if a couple with a million-dollar income pays a Lot less, who pays more?

After repeated experiments with the calculator, I FINALLY found that household. A couple with two children, a Rented home and income of $40,000 would pay $860 more.

Not possible.

First, the poverty rate for a family of 4 is about $26,000. They pay no Fair Tax at all on that amount.

They would pay Fair Tax on the remaining $14,000 of their SPENDING, and at 23%, that would be $3,220. However, the family of 4 would pay social secuity and medicare tax on the whole $40,000 of their income, which would be $3,060. The max savings, if the family of 4 had NO income tax liability at all, would still be only $160, not $860. It's highly unlikely that they would owe no tax at all.

In other words, to balance out the $54,000 tax cut for someone making a Million dollars a year, we would have to Raise taxes on 62 couples trying to raise their family on $40,000 a year.-
And they call it a FairTax?

Disregarding the bad math, the Fair Tax taps many more sources than the income tax can hope to. The Fair Tax will tax rich people who are simply sitting on a pile of money, spending a little each year, but never earning a taxable dime.

The above would also include those people that are doing the same thing, except living off the interest of untaxable income, such as municipal bonds.

Also untouched by the income tax is the imports that are killing our own industry. They are untaxed, and compete unfairly with locally-produced goods that are heavily taxed by the corporate income tax. Foreign, work-for-peanuts workforces keep our jobs going overseas, while our own income taxes, if lowered to zero, could keep those jobs here, and indeed even get them back from overseas.

Additionally, the income tax also does not tax the proceeds of the illegal drug trade, prostitution, other smuggling, numbers rackets, etc. The Fair Tax would tax these things when the criminals involved use their "earnings" to buy big-screen TVs, fancy cars, etc. No income tax can ever touch that.

Finally, the Fair Tax opens up a whole new avenue of taxation, that of foreign tourists. We have about 45 million to 56 million foreign toursts a year. If they each spend $5K while here, that's a lot of money at 23% taxation rate.

Overall, the Fair Tax would radically boost the economy, causing massive investment in the USA with its new 0% manufacturing tax rate. Right now, companies are moving to places like Mexico because of the labor rates, but the savings from taxes going away exceeds the savings in labor in Mexico or anywhere else. A manufacturing tax rate of 0% would be like building things in the USA without having to pay a workforce at all. For instance, it takes from 30 to 33 hours of labor to build a car in this country, depending on whether it is Ford, GM, or Chrysler doing the building. If the workers are getting the $78 / hr that the companies all claimed they were last year when they were whining about labor costs, just before 2 of 'em went bankrupt, that would only be from $2340 to $2574. But, according to who you talk to, the price of goods and services would fall anywhere from 10% to 22%. For a Jeep Liberty SUV, built in Toledo, Ohio, and selling for $25,000, that would be a price reduction of at least $2,500, and possibly $5,500. Easily, the Fair Tax would have the same effect as hiring a $0/hr workforce. We can even beat the Chinese with a wage scale like that.

The Fair Tax, I believe, is the answer to our overall problems that has been slowly gutting our economy over the last 50 years. And, it's the income tax that has been doing it.

I not only believe that the Fair Tax is the overall answer to our long-standing economic problems, but further believe that if we _don't_ pass the fair tax and get rid of the income tax, we're headed for an eventual economic train wreck, like Zimbabwe, where there will only be the very very rich and the very very poor, and nobody in between.
 
I've been trying to spread this message for years,
decades even. Why stop now?

I voted for "Other"

I would like to see a radically revised income tax system...

Why tax income? Income taxes are taxes on prosperity. As Ronald Reagan said, "If you want less of something, tax it."

That's how our country has been going - less and less prosperity. As foreigners have become more and more able to compete, they are overwhelming the USA, and siphoning off all the good jobs that made the middle class prosperous. It is getting so you need a masters degree to be prosperous now. And, I think it'll get worse.

Study the Fair Tax, a tax on consumption. It has many advantages, and would, I believe, bring jobs back from overseas.
 
Re: FairTaxFraud.com

Additionally, the income tax also does not tax the proceeds of the illegal drug trade, prostitution, other smuggling, numbers rackets, etc. The Fair Tax would tax these things when the criminals involved use their "earnings" to buy big-screen TVs, fancy cars, etc. No income tax can ever touch that.

Or we could legalize, regulate, and tax drugs, brothels, and gambling.
 
Re: FairTaxFraud.com

Or we could legalize, regulate, and tax drugs, brothels, and gambling.

Yeah, but that wouldn't get (good, manufacturing) jobs to come back to the USA.
 
Again, I'm sorry but I don't know what you're trying to say. Are you under the impression that GM was kept afloat to protect monied interests?

Goonion leaders are "moneyed interests".

So are corrupt Democrat politicians that voted for the GM bailout (if they weren't corrupt, they wouldn't have voted for it.)
 
I'm pointing out that the auto bailout was not designed to protect rich people, but rather the employees and larger economy.

You're either trying to fool others, or you've managed to fool yourself.

The GM bailout had nothing to do with protecting the little people and everything to do with protecting the Congressmen and their goonion leader friends.
 
Re: FairTaxFraud.com

And existing housed wouldn't. Those buying new houses generally have the $$$ to pay such a tax. Poorer people generally buy existing housing.

Easy way to make that fair.

Everyone that buys a house pays either no tax or the same percentage.

Anything else is not equal and hence unfair.
 
Re: FairTaxFraud.com

Easy way to make that fair.

Everyone that buys a house pays either no tax or the same percentage.

Anything else is not equal and hence unfair.

Not all that hung up on any particular sense of "fair", as much as I am a system that would work to not overburden people that can't afford to be, and raise revenues where those who pay are in a position to be able to, and not really harm anyone.

"Fair" is just a catch-word.
 
Unspinning the FairTax

We look at the numbers behind the numbers.

Summary
In our recent article on the second GOP debate, we called out Gov. Mike Huckabee as well as Reps. Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter for their support of the FairTax. We wrote that the bipartisan Advisory Panel on Tax Reform had “calculated that a sales tax would have to be set at 34 percent of retail sales prices to bring in the same revenue as the taxes it would replace, meaning that an automobile with a retail price of $10,000 would cost $13,400 including the new sales tax.” A number of readers pointed out that H.R. 25, the specific bill mentioned by Gov. Huckabee, calls for a 23 percent retail sales tax and not the 34 percent used by the Advisory Panel on Tax Reform. That 23 percent number, however, is misleading and based on some extremely optimistic assumptions. We found that while there are several good economic arguments for the FairTax, unless you earn more than $200,000 per year, fairness is not one of them."

FactCheck.org: Unspinning the FairTax
 
Unspinning the FairTax

We look at the numbers behind the numbers.

Summary
In our recent article on the second GOP debate, we called out Gov. Mike Huckabee as well as Reps. Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter for their support of the FairTax. We wrote that the bipartisan Advisory Panel on Tax Reform had “calculated that a sales tax would have to be set at 34 percent of retail sales prices to bring in the same revenue as the taxes it would replace, meaning that an automobile with a retail price of $10,000 would cost $13,400 including the new sales tax.” A number of readers pointed out that H.R. 25, the specific bill mentioned by Gov. Huckabee, calls for a 23 percent retail sales tax and not the 34 percent used by the Advisory Panel on Tax Reform. That 23 percent number, however, is misleading and based on some extremely optimistic assumptions. We found that while there are several good economic arguments for the FairTax, unless you earn more than $200,000 per year, fairness is not one of them."

FactCheck.org: Unspinning the FairTax

The factcheck article is an internet relic of the 2008 presidential campaign, and is, I believe, simply a hit piece on the platform centerpiece of gov. Mike Huckabee.

At any rate, its misleading on several levels. A rebuttal can be found here:

Americans For Fair Taxation: A Response to FactCheck.org article "Unspinning the FairTax"

Factcheck ain't Snopes - unbiased it ain't.
 
I have heard the super rich gets away with 5% tax if they do it right and exploit all the loopholes, and they can easily afford to do that.

Either way, more or less, the only fair thing is that everyone pays the same % tax.

You heard? Well, it must be true then.
 
Re: FairTaxFraud.com

And existing housed wouldn't. Those buying new houses generally have the $$$ to pay such a tax. Poorer people generally buy existing housing.

"Poorer People generally" RENT which would be Taxed at 30%
.. even at Fairytax's Bogus Claimed rate.
Fairytax Discriminates against those who don't have enough money to buy (and never will will with taxing their rent).
Creating a PERMANENT Underclass.

When They do buy it's Oft New inexpensive attached housing.

Taxing RENT is just one of the things that makes Fairytax a NON-starter even for the non-poor.
Rental costs in cities like NY, SF, Boston, etc are often 50% of a persons income.. especially, but not limited to, the young who are Saving to try and buy a house (which will also be 30% higher if new).
and I'm not talking 'poor' here. I'm talking a good percent.

You think most can pay a 30% increase?


Medical care is already taxed up the wazoo by taxes that would go away under the fair tax. Every nurse a doctor hires, every orderly, everybody is paying social security and medicare that costs that employee 7.65% of their gross earnings and costs their EMPLOYER 7.65% of the employee's gross earnings.

Oooooh, that's only 1/4 of Fairtax's Claimed rate of 30%. Which is Actually 56% when scored independently
.

You think Anyone can afford to pay 30% more for costly Heart operations (or Kidney, Chemo etc)?
Insurance companies will have to Raise Their rates too to pay for that Huge increase. Not to mention Auto insurance etc.

I suggest you go back and read/try rebuting posts 144, 147, 149, and 184 .... all debunking/Documenting that Fairtax's ACTUAL neeed rate is in the Mid 50's% range.


This article you responded to was just last in a series of debunkings, and Probably it's weakest. But still decnt and informative.

The Fair Tax includes a prebate calculated at the poverty level, which pays for the tax on the necessities of life that those at the poverty level incur, including food. It isn't necessarily big enough to cover someone eating truffles and steak for a $400 plate at some swank restaurant, tho.
That BS.
The prebate is far INadequate and only added to try and hide the obvious Regressivity of the tax... but it doesn't come close to mitigating it.

Do you think the rich and super-rich who now pay either 38% income, or 15% Capital, Gains and Divs, taxes are going to be taxed more or less?

CEOs of Goldman Sachs/GE/Disney? Billionaires like Buffett who spend relatively NOTHING compared to their active and passive incomes?

The whole Sick basis of Fairtax is making those who NECESSARILY spend a higher part (next to all) of their incomes pay a Higher Burden. While The Rich who sit on money and collect interest will pay next to nothing Relative to current rates.. not to mention estate taxes.

(ie simplification), If I make $1 billion and pay $380,000,000 in Income tax alone as well as Divs and Cap gains on my other Invested money.
WHO Is Going to pay more to make up for the HUGE Tax decrease on me?

Who's going to make up for their Huge tax Decrease since FT Claims 'Revenue neutral'?


In fact, what 'Fairytax' does is INVERT The tax Brackets!!
The new Top bracket will be the Poor and Middle who spend virtually all the make to live .. they'll now pay "30%" of their income since they necessarily spend virtually all of it to live...
while the Rich will be the new 0-10% Bracket since they spend so Little of their income to live!

Yes, that's the truth of this tax Designed and Financed, by Two Billionaires.
Hark!


Disregarding the bad math, the Fair Tax taps many more sources than the income tax can hope to. The Fair Tax will tax rich people who are simply sitting on a pile of money, spending a little each year, but never earning a taxable dime.
100% wrong.
They now pay 15% Divs and Cap Gains... and an estate tax.
And that's down from 28% ONLY because Bush lowered from that higher rate. 7 years ago. There is talk now of at least putting it back at 20%.
Their 'Fairytax' would be in the Low Single Digits.
You couldn't even tax that old mansion they buy in Newport every 20 years.

Also untouched by the income tax is the imports that are killing our own industry.
What's killing our industry and wouldn't change is in Mexico and China they pay 1/10 as much.

Additionally, the income tax also does not tax the proceeds of the illegal drug trade, prostitution, other smuggling, numbers rackets, etc. ..
WHAT!
Those people would be no more easily taxable//findable than they are under the current system!

In fact Fairytax will created MILLIONS/TENS of MILLIONS More offenders who will 'Go Cash' to avoid the 30% (+ their 5-10% State sales Taxes). Say over 40% in New york already and that again allowing for Fairytax's Bogus "30%" instead of the real 56%.

It will be Mindboggling. The Fairtax creates the biggest Beauracracy in history.. keeping track of prebate amounts, and turns everyone who sells anything into another tax entity and impossible really to monitor.


Overall, the Fair Tax would radically boost the economy, causing massive investment in the USA with its new 0% manufacturing tax rate.
As I said, its wages will still Not be competitive with Foreign wages in Mexico etc. .. and if you think a 30% Tax on New House and Cars will create "Massive Investment" do you?

Under Fairtax the Domestic Car company has to pay it's suppliers 30% More,
and has to pay the Railroad Company which brings is Coal 30% More,
The Coal company itself 30% more,
the Railroad company has to pay 30% more when it buys new cars, or new rails, and so down the line..
taxing at every level and Increasing costs.

Fairtax BOGUSLY also depends on the government paying Taxes to Itself! when it buys anything Medical care, Tanks, Jets, Uniforms, etc.

The Fair Tax, I believe, is the answer to our overall problems that has been slowly gutting our economy over the last 50 years. And, it's the income tax that has been doing it.
The economy has NOT been Gutted over "50 years"..
WHAT!
The USA became a powerhouse during the first Half of those 50 years.
and with a Large Middle Class.
THAT is what made/Makes America what it is.. NOT a few Billiionaires like Costa Rica.


The last 25 years...
When the top Marginal Income tax rates Dropped from the 70-90% it was in the 50's to early 80's to 35-40% it was since.

I not only believe that the Fair Tax is the overall answer to our long-standing economic problems, but further believe that if we _don't_ pass the fair tax and get rid of the income tax, we're headed for an eventual economic train wreck, like Zimbabwe, where there will only be the very very rich and the very very poor, and nobody in between.
You got it Backwards again
THAT where we're headed now.
OBVIOUSLY the less progressve a tax will lead to more Polarity of wealth/Standard of living.

The Income tax was Inroduced, Successfully, in the First place as there were VERY rich like the Rockefellers and Melllons; and VERY poor.
The Income tax/Progressive Income tax, DID succesfully Help create a large middle class that is the Hallmark of America.
Regressive taxes as Fairytax or Flat tax will just reverse that progress.
As have the Tax cuts for the rich since.
-

And now, even after being Wrong on all the above... you have again to answer the REAL RATE, 56/57% questions of this SCAM in the aforementioned posts and articles.
144, 147, 149, and 184 etc.
-
 
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The factcheck article is an internet relic of the 2008 presidential campaign, and is, I believe, simply a hit piece on the platform centerpiece of gov. Mike Huckabee.

At any rate, its misleading on several levels. A rebuttal can be found here:

Americans For Fair Taxation: A Response to FactCheck.org article "Unspinning the FairTax"

Factcheck ain't Snopes - unbiased it ain't.

LOL! You call FactCheck.org biased and you reference The Tax Foundation, an organization set up by wealthy corporations to work to lower their taxes. I guess that makes sense if you are promoting a lower tax for those making over $200,000 a year, and a higher tax for those making less.
 
A flat tax favors the weathly and is therefore unacceptable.

Income tax is, unforuntely, a necessary evil.
 
Re: FairTaxFraud.com

I can see from the demeanor, and factual errors of this particular post, that you are going to simply ignore any arguments that I come up with for the fair tax. Your previous articles to which you refer by number are, largely, simply assertions without any numbers to back them up. So, since it is incredibly time-consuming to answer a post this long on a point-by-point basis, I'm just going to hit the high spots.

Rent - where I come from, pretty much anyone can buy a house, just not a new house. No real NEED for rent. Here's a few offerings; these are good houses, not decrepit fixer-uppers:

$11,000:
310 S Poplar, Fostoria, OH, 44830 - MLS #113368 - Single Family Home real estate - REALTOR.com®

$14,900:
114 W Culbertson, Fostoria, OH, 44830 - MLS #115871 - Single Family Home real estate - REALTOR.com®

$15,000:
505 College Ave., Fostoria, OH, 44830 - MLS #115973 - Single Family Home real estate - REALTOR.com®

Just 3 examples.

That's my home town, where there are mostly factories to work in, although not nearly as much as there used to be.

As for rent elsewhere, it will fall in price for several reasons. First, that rent is set by what the market will bear. It has virtually no relationship to the costs of ownership. So, if the price goes up because of the Fair Tax, it will come down, somewhat, because the places will sit empty for lack of renters, since there won't be so many that can afford the new price.

Also, there are embedded costs in some of the rents that are income tax. When the income tax goes away, those costs will go away. Again, the price can be lowered when that happens, and it will be.

Can most people pay a 30% increase? Well, it won't be 30%, now will it? Those goods and services have anywhere from 10% to 22% of their price composed of income tax, which will go away upon the abolition of the IRS and the income tax. So, prices might go up from 1% - 17%.

Yes, many can afford a 17% increase because they're paying more than that in their own personal income taxes, and social security and medicare taxes. I'm square in the middle of the middle class, and sent $17,000 to the Feds for 2008. That is money that will be jingling around in my pocket, so yeah, I can afford a lot of tax, and I'll STILL have enough to visit the Big Screen Store, and maybe even my Jeep Dealer.

People's insurance companies are going to pay for their heart operations, just like they do now. Having the income tax go away are going to make these operations, and all medical things cheaper. We're going to be replacing one tax with another, so it is not valid to ignore the 1st tax going away while dealing with the effects of the 2nd tax. It will balance out, and mostly in favor of the American people.

The prebate is going to pay for the poor person's share of the Fair Tax all the way up to the poverty level. For instance, if a poor person buys a $1.00 tomato today, he'll pay $1.00 after working to make considerably more than $1.00, because he has to pay the income tax on his earnings, including the social security and medicare taxes.

If the poor person buys a $1.00 tomato after the Fair Tax, well, it's going to cost about $0.22 less, since there will be about that much embedded income tax in the price of the tomato. To pay for the tomato, the poor person reaches into his pocket and pulls out his payroll check, cashes it, and pays the store owner $0.78 for the tomato. Then, he reaches into his other pocket, pulls out the prebate check he got from the government, and pays the store owner $0.23 to cover the Fair Tax on the tomato. That will work, all the way up to the poverty level, for all purchases. The prebate check will run out exactly when the person has spent the poverty level of purchases of new items. (If it runs out early, then the poverty level calculation was off, or the poor person is buying some particularly expensive items. If the poverty level is erroneous, then it will be corrected in the next month's calculations.)

You're rant about who thought of the fair tax and what the rich might be getting or not betrays your underpinnings; You're upset that the Fair Tax is absolutely no good as an instrument to "stick it to the rich." Nope, its for financing the government, not for punishing success.

You're wrong about the example of the rich that I gave. In order for the rich to be paying capital gains, they'd have to own some stocks. I said, they just sat on their pile of money, and if anything, they invested in some municipal bonds. Their tax liability under the income tax is zero. Nada. Nothing. If they don't have any muni bonds, then the same thing. And, of course, there's $10 - $15 trillion dollars ALREADY overseas, both legally and illegally, for the single, sole purpose of avoiding the income tax. It works, too. With the Fair Tax, it will come rushing back into the country, either to invest in works that will ultimately create jobs, or be put in banks, who will loan it out to entrepreneurs that will build factories, in order to make money, and.. that will create more jobs.

You get hung up on the rate of foreign wages. Don't worry about it. Only about 10% of the price of a lot of heavy industrial things is wages. 90% of the price of a car built here is NOT wages, but materials and overhead. Removing the income tax from a car costing $25,000 here will be the equivalent of paying the workers $0.00 / hr. That's how we'll win the fight with the foreign workers, and their work-for-peanuts attitude. There'll be nothing they can do to keep their factories from outsourcing their labor to... the USA.

You're totally wrong about companies paying Fair Tax on their supplies. The Fair Tax is not collected on items used in business - not the auto maker's machine tools, raw materials, or the farmer's tractors. Its statements like this that reveal that you're talking just to hear yourself make noise, with absolutely no understanding of what you're talking about. I'm just typing this for the casual observers. I know you're going to ignore me.

The economy _has_ been gutted over the last 50 years. Go see the hulks of buildings in new England, that used to be textile mills. Go to Pittsburgh, try to find the big steel making plants. Go to Detroit, and see them attempting to do subsistence farming in downtown Detroit to attempt to keep from starving. I actually went to a Rolling Stones concert in Detroit, 4 years ago, and paid half-price for a set of tickets in the 7th row on the floor, from a scalper over the internet, 'cuz there's no money in that town. They can't sell anything there unless they're willing to do 50% discounts.

The American economy is on a decades-long, downhill slide that is about to end with the ultimate economic train wreck. We’re going to have just the very, very rich, and the very, very poor, nobody in between, and it will all be the work of the income tax, sucking the life out of our industries and chasing good jobs overseas.

You're 56 / 57 percent rants as figures for the fair tax are laughable. You have no math basis on which to base them, only the political rants from a website that was created to attack a Republican candidate for president last year.
 
I guess that makes sense if you are promoting a lower tax for those making over $200,000 a year, and a higher tax for those making less.

Ha! I'm promoting a lower tax for _ME_, and I'm square in the middle of the middle class. Sent $17K to the Feds in 2008. Would like to have ALL that money in my pockets. Prices really won't go up as much as the detractors are trying to say.
 
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