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

Which do you prefer:

  • Total voters
    133
obvious Child said:
I'd wager that 99.999% of the tax code is irrelevant to 80% of the population. So people don't need to know it because it never applies to them. Much of the code is also due to lobbyists getting specific deductions applicable to their industries. And significant amounts to prevent abusive schemes setup by accountants and lawyers.
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Yeah, I agree with you. Lobbying and farad checking is a mess.
 
Io0011 said:
A tax on consumption will be complicated. How would you verify it? The only way I have heard would be a new-world-order-esk system of computerized banking where money does not exist. Which I think would be unenforceable, and evil if it was.
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That or audit inventory. I'm not ensure sure how you'd go about doing service sales without having to pull invoices from clients. That will be a mess.

In a cashless society it might work.
 
obvious Child said:
That or audit inventory. I'm not ensure sure how you'd go about doing service sales without having to pull invoices from clients. That will be a mess.

In a cashless society it might work.
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That is unrealistic though. If you use the computerized banking you get taxed. If you don't you don't. Which would you rather do? Now the government will want its money, and start enforcing it's citizens to go with out money that already exists and switch to their new computerized one. You think terrorism in another country is bad? Just want until that happens. Also I computerized system can be re-written. I have infinite money now, because I write the system. I delete your account number, you don't exist.

You don't find that evil?
 
National Sales Tax - With the following exemptions:

1) Food and drugs

2) Mortgage or rent

3) Utilities

4) Education

5) Medical

6) Raw materials for manufacturing, so that products don't end up being taxed twice

With that in place, nobody pays any tax on necessities to live, but does pay taxes on everything else.
 
danarhea said:
National Sales Tax - With the following exemptions:

1) Food and drugs

2) Mortgage or rent

3) Utilities

4) Education

5) Medical

6) Raw materials for manufacturing, so that products don't end up being taxed twice

With that in place, nobody pays any tax on necessities to live, but does pay taxes on everything else.
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OK, you have a plan. Now enforce it.

That is the big issue with this plan. I think most people agree it would work better than the one we have now. We just have to make the sales tax plan work.
 
Io0011 said:
That is unrealistic though.
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Which? Inventory auditing? I agree there. That's borderline insane.

You don't find that evil?
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Pretty much. While centralized banking is somewhat required in today's economy, government control of a computerized cashless currency system is just asking for trouble.
 
obvious Child said:
Eh. All of the options other then cookies suck.

The current system is way to complicated to be viable in the long run.

A flat tax removes many useful methods of stimulating the economy and is regressive.

A national sales tax is completely ridiculous in actual application. We'd need millions of auditors to ensure that companies are actually paying their sale tax. States can't even get accurate sale tax from their vendors. Thinking that we could do it nationally is certifiably insane. Anyone who thinks we could have an honest, accurate and viable national sale tax has never, ever worked in the private sector.
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It's called voting in people who don't insist on complicating things; smart folks with integrity and experience. Until we do that, NO tax system will be viable or efficient.
 
danarhea said:
National Sales Tax - With the following exemptions:

1) Food and drugs
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So people spending large amounts on gourmet food get an exemption?

2) Mortgage or rent
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So if I get a $150 million mortgage, that's exempted too? Technically there wouldn't be sales tax on mortgage because it's not a sale. So if I rent a fabulous house for a million a year, that's not taxable as rental income?

3) Utilities
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So if I start a server farm, I don't pay taxes on that electricity?

I'm a bit lazy now so I won't come up with abuses for the others, but you get the point.
 
danarhea said:
National Sales Tax - With the following exemptions:

1) Food and drugs

2) Mortgage or rent

3) Utilities

4) Education

5) Medical

6) Raw materials for manufacturing, so that products don't end up being taxed twice

With that in place, nobody pays any tax on necessities to live, but does pay taxes on everything else.
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And who gets to decide what is or is not a necessity?

Who determines what is a drug? Okay, a blood pressure prescription might be a necessity, but what about cough drops that people buy and eat in lieu of hard candy? What is food? Anything edible including stuff packaged as dogfood? Fudge? Donuts? (It got so ridiculous in Kansas one time that cookies were taxed but if you bought the ingredients separately to bake them at home, you avoided it.)

What constitutes mortgage or rent? All the property you own? Or just that which you live in? If you live in your place of business, is the cost of housing your business then exempt?

What is a utility? Does the high price and great smelling pinon wood bought to burn in my fireplace count?

What counts as education? If I take a pottery class to get out of the house one day a week, should that be exempt? Can I just classify any lecture or seminar for whatever purpose as 'educational' to avoid having to collect the tax? If I need a computer for an on line class, is it exempt?

What constitutes medical? Will my sis's Weight Watcher dues or my spouse's gym membership, both recommended by the doctor, be exempt?

What constitutes raw materials? The basic elements? Or the ingredients purchased to bake Rainbow bread? Will the baker have to buy wheat direct from the farmer and mill his own flour to avoid the tax? If not, where in there is the tax not applied? And those who provide the most basic elements don't have to collect any tax ever?

Each state with a sales tax has its own rules, regs, and policy regarding how taxes are applied and I doubt any two are exacty alike. To impose a Federal sales tax that would apply equally and equitably across the country would require a library full of definitions, rules, regulations, and specifications, a new bureaucracy to monitor, audit, and explain it, and all sorts of ways that our elected leaders would be able to dicker with the system to favor this group or that group.

A flat income tax applied evenly and without equivocation across the board, even if there were a few deductions allowed in order to promote the general welfare, would be far more difficult to manipulate for political advantage.
 
obvious Child said:
Did Scarecrow even address anything I said?
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Yes.

You said it's impossible. I said it's better.

obvious Child said:
I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me how auditing millions of businesses' inventory is easy.
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Nobody said anything about "easy".

We've been saying auditing a business is easier than auditing a bazillion individuals.

Since you don't wish to discuss what we say, why are you bothering to post?
 
Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Yes.

You said it's impossible. I said it's better.
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Wrong again! I never said it was impossible. Just unrealistic and very impractical.

Nobody said anything about "easy".

We've been saying auditing a business is easier than auditing a bazillion individuals.
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Not really. Auditing individuals is largely done on a computerized basis. Specific deductions are searched for and flagged for review. You act like people are individually going through 1040s. That doesn't happen. The programs search for specific information, such as reporting sales of real estate and no matching real estate income. Auditing businesses who operate increasingly on cash basis is far more difficult as you literally have to audit inventory. Tell me how having to send out legions of auditors to physically count inventory is EASIER then having a computer scan for specific flaggable deductions.

Since you don't wish to discuss what we say, why are you bothering to post?
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Too bad you are doing the same thing.
 
AlbqOwl said:
And who gets to decide what is or is not a necessity?
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Congress, but it should be limited to categories, not specific manufacturers; ie, it can tax TV's, it can tax "televisions, plasma", but it can't tax "televisions, plasma, Sony" differently from "televisions, plasma, Life's Good".

However, tariff law isn't changed, so that doesn't stop congress from monkey with imports, if it really wants to.

AlbqOwl said:
A flat income tax applied evenly and without equivocation across the board, even if there were a few deductions allowed in order to promote the general welfare, would be far more difficult to manipulate for political advantage.
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I want the government to get out of the habit of thinking that it can pry into my private finances at whim.

Hence sales tax is preferred over income tax.

Also, it's easier to decline to owe a sales tax, since the tax isn't due until I choose to spend money.

Income taxes are due when I choose to earn money.

By all means we need to push the bureaucrats back into their genie bottle.

Right now the Bureaucrats are like Daffy Duck in the pit with all the treasure, jumping up and down on the genie that guarded the wealth, screaming "mine, all mine, back back, you can't have it, I'm not sharing! Mine! Mine! Mine!"

The taxpayer is the genie, and its time we dealt with the troublesome incompetent duck.
 
obvious Child said:
Wrong again! I never said it was impossible. Just unrealistic and very impractical.
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What's unrealistic and impractical is pretending that it's difficult to inventory a store. Every friggin' retail store every friggin' year counts it's inventory, not only for tax purposes but because that's how the annual profits are determines.

Most firms use LIFO, which I think is a bit of a cheat, but it usually makes them look better.

So the IRS has to audit a company and in worse cases it has to go and do an on-site inventory. BFD.

The costs of that are outweighed by the savings of every citizen who no longer has to shell out $60-$100 or more for tax preparation, who no longer need to pay financial advisors to keep track of their IRA's, their 401(k)s, their medical accounts, their money hidden to keep eligibility for Pell Grants and all the other complete BULL**** the federal government forces citizens to make just to protect their own money from their own government.

So let's stop pretending your argument has merit. It's infantile. An inventory is an inventory is no big deal. I've done them for K-Mart, I've done them for my own business, it's a chore. Whoopty do.

AlbqOwl said:
Not really. Auditing individuals is largely done on a computerized basis.
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Yeah, no one would ever think of using computers to compare a company's recieving invoices with it's shipping invoices to see if someone's pulling a fast one. Why, that would take intelligence, and that's never found in the IRS.

AlbqOwl said:
Specific deductions are searched for and flagged for review.
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Yeah, I know, I made a boo-boo once, or rather, my accountant failed to write it down and I'd forgotten about it so I got an audit once. No big deal, pay the owed tax, be done with it. So what?

AlbqOwl said:
You act like people are individually going through 1040s.
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No. YOU'RE acting like I said that because otherwise your argument is totally weak. Actually, your argument totally weak anyway. You want to pretend that the government isn't already using computers to track what businesses are reporting and flagging various lines and independent reports from banks etc.

AlbqOwl said:
Tell me how having to send out legions of auditors to physically count inventory is EASIER then having a computer scan for specific flaggable deductions.
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It's not "easier".

It's "better", since they're going to a business I don't own and won't be bothered by. Same as everyone else in America who doesn't own a business. You know, the VAST MAJORITY.

Also, with sales tax being the case, there won't be any more EITC fraud. My father, the tax accountant regaled me tales of how people would come in claiming wages that were the EXACT amount needed to maximize that EITC refund.

No chance of that happening under a National Sales Tax.

Given the simplicity of calculating a sales tax, it's practically impossible for anyone to over pay (how many times have you overpaid your sales tax?) and the cost of processing refunds will drop to practically zero.
 
RightinNYC said:
Here's my question:

If this type of user fee is actually designed to cover things like that, then how come state legislatures routinely double or triple the fees in years when they have budget shortfalls? Is it because the cost of maintaining the wildlife actually tripled this year, or is it because it's entirely unrelated to the cost of maintaining the wildlife and is instead used as a general revenue raising tool?
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This was in regard to hunting license fees and what they are intended to cover.

There are a number of scenarios. I have seen the fees jacked up when there was an unusual abundance of wildlife 'targets' out there because the state knew the hunters would be flocking into the area and would be willing to pay more and it was a way to shore up revenues. I have seen the fees jacked up when there was a scarcity of wildlife reducing the number of licenses to be issued meaning there would otherwise be insufficient revenues to cover the expenses.

But states do indeed look for ways to increase revenues when they need more money, and in my opinion, increasing fees on non essential services is less onerous than some forms of taxation because whether or not you pay the fees is voluntary.
 
TO: Scarecrow Akhbar:

I am sure it was unintentional but you attributed this to me which I did not post:

Originally Posted by AlbqOwl
Not really. Auditing individuals is largely done on a computerized basis.
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Also this:
Originally Posted by AlbqOwl
Specific deductions are searched for and flagged for review.
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And this:
Originally Posted by AlbqOwl
You act like people are individually going through 1040s.
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And this:
Originally Posted by AlbqOwl
Tell me how having to send out legions of auditors to physically count inventory is EASIER then having a computer scan for specific flaggable deductions.
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A form of flat tax, the "Fair Tax" is what I endorse. It ensures all pay tax and taxes those who make more, are here illegally, and still preserves the progressive nature of our current tax code. It does away with those loopholes and takes away the political control our reps exploit for votes.
 
Reality Land said:
A form of flat tax, the "Fair Tax" is what I endorse. It ensures all pay tax and taxes those who make more, are here illegally, and still preserves the progressive nature of our current tax code. It does away with those loopholes and takes away the political control our reps exploit for votes.
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So how does the "Fair Tax" work? Is this Huckabee's version?
 
AlbqOwl said:
So how does the "Fair Tax" work? Is this Huckabee's version?
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He supports it yes. But the "Fair Tax" was written and proposed by Congressman John Linder as H.R. 25. It was the result of research groups looking for a better way to tax. Many universities contributed to it and it is currently supported by a group known as the AFFT. (Americans for fair tax.)

http://www.fairtaxblog.com/cat/afft-updates/

The number of lawmakers supporting it is growing each year.
 
RightinNYC said:
Here's my question:

If this type of user fee is actually designed to cover things like that, then how come state legislatures routinely double or triple the fees in years when they have budget shortfalls? Is it because the cost of maintaining the wildlife actually tripled this year, or is it because it's entirely unrelated to the cost of maintaining the wildlife and is instead used as a general revenue raising tool?
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The people who use those "things" are a smaller group than the rest of the state, exploiting them in tough times is pretty easy.

My state has been pretty good with those fees though, I think it still costs $7 year long fishing license.
 
Scarecrow Akhbar said:
{ A National sales tax plan}
It's "better", since they're going to a business I don't own and won't be bothered by. Same as everyone else in America who doesn't own a business. You know, the VAST MAJORITY.
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That same vast majority get the bulk of their goods at a large business though. Places that know how to make money are always going to learn better ways of cheating. One way is to pass on the added expense of hiring new workers (to count inventory) would be to rase prices. They would then have to worry about some kind of "loss prevention" (ie: un skilled temporary workers who steal the most valuable, smallest inventory to offset the low wedges they will be paid and long hours they will be working.) That means more skilled workers watching their backs, some kind of system that would prove theft in a court of law, law suits on both sides (ie: excessive force by loss prevention vs innocent worker / or sneaky worker vs honest company.) Those prices get passed down and all of a sudden your paying twenty bucks for a tooth brush.

Just to be clear I am in favor of a national sales tax plan. I am only saying that plan is not going to be easy.
 
I say everybody just pay in about a hundred bucks, and make the gubment work with what we give them. they have proven they will spend every cent we give them, and still want more. Spoiled Brats, is all they are.
 
Skateguy said:
I say everybody just pay in about a hundred bucks, and make the gubment work with what we give them. they have proven they will spend every cent we give them, and still want more. Spoiled Brats, is all they are.
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Well, under my preferred tax plan, a person making $1,000 would pay about a hundred bucks, but a person making $20,000 would pay $2,000 and a person making $200,000 would pay $20,000. I think such a tax system would so free up resources and so spur the economy that there would be lots and lots more people making closer to that $200,000 and those willing to prepare themselves to be valuable employees and willing to work wouldn't be stuck at the $20,000 for long.

But you are absolutely right that the government, as it currently is, will spend every penny it can get its hands on, look for any way it can collect even more, and will borrow on top of that.

I challenge all members to watch this relatively short CNN clip and then tell me that the government needs more money:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6_xgKWzhRw"]YouTube- Cafferty on Pelosi[/ame]

I envision tax reform of the sort that the Federal government, in addition to initiating a fair, flat, and across the board tax system that is applied to all working Americans, will also be restricted to spending only that which it absolutely has to have to fulfill its Constitutionally mandated responsibilities. And, if it collects more than it needs for that, it will put the excess into a trust fund and reduce tax rates across the board because it will be obviously collecting more than it needs.
 
Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Can someone explain how stealing more money from someone solely because he has more money is "progressive" and how allowing someone to keep the money he earned is "regressive"?
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I wouldn't know about that but I do know why our forefathers set up the progressive tax 96 years ago, and why it has been continued by both parties ever since then.

It was set up that way to prevent a small number of robber barons from owning everything in the country, thus ruining the dreams of the nation's founding fathers of an egalitarian society.

Even today, the top 20% own 80% of the wealth.
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Reality Land said:
A form of flat tax, the "Fair Tax" is what I endorse. It ensures all pay tax and taxes those who make more, are here illegally, and still preserves the progressive nature of our current tax code. It does away with those loopholes and takes away the political control our reps exploit for votes.
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If it retains the socialist...er "pro-gressive" nature of the current tax code it isn't very fair, now is it?
 
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