New Tax Reform Proposal

[DanS]

Yes, you would still have state taxes, local property taxes, etc.

You would still also have to file an income tax return in order to pay the payroll tax. Just that no money would change hands based on the filing. Something that the article doesn't mention.

[Colon™]

Originally posted by DanS


I don't understand the question. Could you please rephrase?

Such costs due to inspections and the like are a trade impedement. Would you want to rely on trade impedements to keep a tax system sustainable?

[DanS]

A trade impediment? Hmmm... I guess I discount how much of an impediment it really is.

But you're right in that if you start adding on a whole lot of taxes, the system might become rife with abuse and ineffective at collecting either the service charge or the taxes. For instance, right now, exporters to Europe are incentivized to commit fraud by declaring artificially low values for what they are shipping.

In fact, broadly speaking, higher sales taxes would incentivize businesses to not collect the tax. Here in DC, we already have some non-compliance with a 5.5% (goods)/10% (restaurant) tax rate.

[Dinner]

If the tax was put on every purchase then why wouldn't the purchase of stocks also be taxed? Is that claim just speculation or are stocks/bonds/etc really exempted in this proposal?

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by GePap


How does an income tax cost employers anything? What makes American workers more expensive are minimum wage, hour and age labor laws, the cost of providing health care, and so forth. It has nothing to do with income taxes.

A very simialr way to how the sales tax costs vendors, maybe.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Oerdin
If the tax was put on every purchase then why wouldn't the purchase of stocks also be taxed? Is that claim just speculation or are stocks/bonds/etc really exempted in this proposal?

If anything they would be covered by something similar to stamp duty. Here for example, the buyer pays 0.5% of the value of the transaction in duty.

[Sava]

consumption taxes are terribly regressive

progressive income taxes


moron libertarian ideas

[Dauphin]

I believe in a flat income tax, as long as the starting rate is $1 over what ever my current earnings are.

[Sava]

Originally posted by Dauphin
I believe in a flat income tax,

the flat income tax is wrong

because 15% (an arbitary number) of my wages, if I am making say $25,000 a year, is much more valuable to me than say 15% of someone making $200,000,000...

they can afford to pay that much in taxes... in fact, they can afford to pay a lot more in taxes...


progressive taxation

[Dinner]

A flater income tax might be a good idea but not a completely flat tax. Poor people should have lower tax rates while it is reasonable to progressively tax the wealthy in order to pay for much needed social programs like education and healthcare as well as infastructure and military spending.

We have a crap load of worthless pork in the federal budget especially the defense budget. The half trillion dollar defense budget contains numerous worthless weapon systems which are unneeded, ineffective, and mostly just pork projects Congressmen use to create jobs in their districts. We can improve the existing system by cutting unnecissary pork spending so do we really need such a radical shift?

I'm reserving judgement as of now since I really don't know the details in this proposal though any changes should be revenue neutral given our existing massive deficits.

[rah]

A line item veto would help.
Now would be a good time to pass one, since neither side is guarenteed the White House next time. Of course this isn't likely with all the porkers in Congress.

[GePap]

The executive should have no power of the purse. If people actually hated pork, they would vote out people who did it. But everyone likes getting pork-they just hate others getting it.

[OzzyKP]

This proposal, in some ways does function like a progressive tax. For example, many essential living necessities will no doubt be exempt from this tax (medicine, food, rent), spending that makes up a larger part of the expenditures of low-income families. Also low-income are more likely to buy used products, like from a friend or classified ad, which I imagine would be less likely to have this sales tax applied to it. So the burden is much less on them than it would be on wealthier folks.

Also, don't ignore the rebate thing, that's a big part of this. How can you say its not progressive when the poor are getting a big check every year from it? Heck, even if all of my first paragraph wasn't true, and all goods and services were taxed, then the poor still wouldn't be paying for it, due to the rebate.

The sad fact though is that many of you would rather a 'progressive' tax system where the poor paid 30%, the middle class paid 50% and the rich paid 80% over a system where everyone paid 20%.

You don't care about how much the poor pay, you just want to stick the rich.

[GePap]

The more items you exempt, the less revenue you get, unless you decide to raise the rate.

As for "sticking it to the rich", they are by definition those that benefit most form the system-hence those that should pay most for it. It keeps the masses from getting rid of them.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by rah
A line item veto would help.
Now would be a good time to pass one, since neither side is guarenteed the White House next time. Of course this isn't likely with all the porkers in Congress.

Actually Congress DID pass a line item veto in Clinton's term and Clinton SIGNED it, but it was struck down as unconstitutional (I believe the case is New York v. Clinton), because under the Constitution a bill can only be approved or vetoed by the President. He can't modify law, which a line item essentially does.