Why is the FAIR TAX good for you and good for America???

You can make the opposite argument as well. For example, in Canada reducing the sales tax actually benefited the more well-off. The primary goods that people below the poverty line (food, rent, etc) already have no sales tax on them.

 

Your first statement is part of the problem I have with it. If we have a flat tax on spending, it puts tax collection in the hands of companies and I don't trust companies to be entirely truthful about it. Big firms can get the best accountants to hide the money the bring in.

I know governments aren't perfect either, but I don't think they're any less trustworthy than business.

With repect to your second point, income taxes are more beneficial to the poor than the rich. I've five degrees now and have worked in the public sector all my life. This means that I'm never going to be as well paid as someone with equal ability and qualifications who does exactly the same job in the private sector. A flat sales tax will doubly penalize me because I will earn less and see someone who uses the services I provide not be penalized as much as I am for them.

Why should I be penalized for my commitment to public service?

 

You think just because corporate owners and business aren't having to withhold taxes or pay you benefits they are going to lower the prices of the commodities they are selling you...guess again!

Those same corporations and business receive Federal grants for research and development, when that's cut off who will eat those cuts and pay more for the product? Your agrument is way to simplistic. Think about it for a while.

 

You have any stats to back that up? How many large multibillion dollar corporations pay no taxes, compared to Joe Blow that makes perhaps 12,000.00 per year? Would forcing all the Joe Blows to pay for goods and services ever compensate for the number of huge corporations that operate and use tax payer protections and services ?

 

You do realize that the federal government has been using the Social Security moneys that have been paid in excess of the payouts for years to balance their corporate welfare. The rich only pay social security taxes on the first 90,000.00 they earn each year. Everything past that they have no social security withholding on. They receive full pay on anything over 90,000.00. I'd love to reach that bracket.

I think before we raise the price of bread and milk, we should tax the entire earnings of the fat cats.

 

Halliburton and their ilk have it made:

http://www.corruptionchronicles.com/2007/03/halliburtons_dubai_move_will_a.html

Your solution would only allow them to up their prices at a further expense to the people that are sacrificing their children in this unholy war right now. They must be laughing and joking it up right now contemplating the poor absorbing more of the costs while they squeak through without paying a penny.

 

I don't think this argument is entirely coherent anyway. Is she suggesting that this will somehow magically reduce taxes? That it will weight taxes less heavily on the poor? Or that it will save you 3 hours a year at tax time?

Neither of these seem particularly likely.

 

lai pantha, youre either bigging up your role in government or else you really are just saying this stuff to back up funkyphreshmama, because if you think that what I wrote previously was manipulating the figures you have seriously got no clue as to accounting, politics, or the tax system. All I can say is that you are trying to make a political point by repeating over and over some nonesense about sales tax being fair.

In the uk and europe we have "VAT" (Value added tax) which in the uk is 17.5%
thats on top of income tax which is 25% and national insurance of, I believe 11%
ok so thats a tax on us of 48% or so it would seem.

except that its not because businesses can claim back all of their vat.

What you are saying is ridiculous, because anyone advocating that system who cannot also acknowledge that it vastly favours higher income earners, is either a liar or so naive that they lack credibility

 

The idea behind the FairTax is not to save money, or lower prices, but instead, refuse to allow the government to "double dip" in people's money.


Sales tax will not be higher with the FairTax, in a way, there will be no sales tax. As of right now, for example, any item that you would purchase at a dollar store, includes 23 cents of impeded taxes, from individual manufactures all the way down to the trucking company which delivers the product. The FairTax would simple remove these taxes, and in it's stead, include a 23 cent FairTax. The biggest advantage to this tax reform however, is that the income tax and all other taxes, including social security taxes and such, are not automatically removed, or taken out from your income. Instead, you are free to do whatever you choose to do with your money, invest it, or blow it completely.

I fully understand that there are people who are worried that this is not a good system. But let's face it, the current system is far from even as close as good. The FairTax does not have a preferable class in society, but instead is fair (hence the name I guess) to all slices of society.


TIME TO TAKE THE POWER BACK!

It is time for the American government to realize that they are not the drivers in this country, but are instead the car, and that the people are the drivers. (Ronald Reagan)
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The effective tax rate for any household would be variable due to the fixed monthly tax rebates. The rebates would have the greatest impact at low spending levels, where they could lower a household's effective rate to zero or a negative rate. At higher spending levels, the rebate has less impact, and a household's effective tax rate would approach 23% of total spending. For example, a household of three spending $30,000 a year on taxable items would devote about 6% of total spending to the FairTax after the rebate. A household spending $125,000 on taxable items would spend around 19% on the FairTax. The total amount of spending and the proportion of spending allocated to taxable items would determine a household's effective tax rate.​

 

If this tax isn't charged at the same rate for all, what's the difference between it and a tax on income? Why not just say that the rebate is non-taxable income and that we'll charge a 6% on the first $30,000 of taxable income rising to 19% on taxable incomes of $125,000 and get rid of sales tax?

The only advantage of taxing sales rather than income is that it might get companies to pay more tax, because sharholders might not be happy if they don't show all the sales income they get.

Incidentally I'm interested in what book you read for this, which was it?

 

I am surprised not many of you have heard of this it is a bill in congress right now H.R. 25: Fair Tax Act of 2007... This bill is in the first stage of the legislative process where the bill is considered in committee...



If you want to learn more you can look the bill up and read the whole thing or even read "The Fair Tax Book" by: John Linder & Neal Boortz

 

The thing I don't like about the Fair Tax is the rebate. To me it does not make much sense. I think that instead of the rebate they should just excempt basic, non-processed food from tax; milk, eggs, cheese, produce, etc, but still tax things like chips, tv dinners, etc. This would help everyone, though mostly the poor, with buying food while at the same time encouraging healthier food choices.

 

How do you know who votes in Tennessee? If the poor don't vote then why do we even have anything like Social Security, Welfare, and health care assistance programs?

 

I completely understand that...

nothing to do with fair tax but:

reminds me of a few days ago there was a woman in line ahead of me, she had 3 or 4 kids with her and was using her foodstamps to buy kool aid and about 12 boxes of twinkies (i am not making this up, she didnt buy anything else).......... woulda been cheaper and more beneficial for her kids to feed them fresh veggies and REAL juice!!! I am not hating because I used to get food stamps when I was working 40 hours a week to bring home less than $1,000 a month to feed a family of 4 (eww makes me cringe just thinking about those crappy old days) but I would have felt guilty if I spent the food stamps on a buncha twinkies and sodas and stuff!!

 

With respect to your first question googling "voter turnout by income" or "voter turnout by income in Tenessee" produced over 750,000 references. Selecting any of those on the first page will cofirm what I said.

If you can't be bothered to, here are two:

http://www.eco.utexas.edu/graduate/Bonaparte/hyperbolic.pdf

http://www.prcdc.org/summaries/voting/voting.html

With regard to your second question, I would point out that we should treat people decently even if they don't vote.

 

Googling "voter turnout by income in Tenessee" did return a lot of references, though most where about general voter turn out about the last election. Others are about general voter turnout by income but I did not see much specific to Tennessee. Does it really matter? If those that did want an income tax in Tennessee cared enough they would vote. Should those that vote care what others want when they cast their votes if they don't care enough to vote themselves? There are those that have pushed for an income tax in the past, but their support from the populus was still in the minority, with or without voters.

Yes, we should treat people decently regardless. But if the poor have no political power why would we have anything to benefit them? Should everything be geared to benefit the poor above all else? Though we would probably disagree on the best ways to benefit the poor.

 

Taxing sales is a lot less intrusive than taxing income. Taxing sales we would not need a big bloated IRS tracking and investigating income, which would save money, which could then lower taxes. Taxing sales would not have all the loopholes that we currently have with taxing income. And who has the means to find all those loopholes and tax dodges on income? So even if the tax rate doesn't change, taxing sales does have advantages.

 

Admitedly they didn't say anything much specifically about Tennessee, but I don't imagine that Tennessee's a special case in any way and that the poor turn out in significantly greater numbers there than elsewhere.

With regard to the poor, you could view what is done for them in a number of ways. It could be viewed as a safety net that could catch you if you ever lost your job (or income or whatever) for a prolonged period of time or it could be viewed as the moral way to help those people in society who have nothing.

Also, I think that you're profoundly mistaken if you think that everything's geared to help the poor. Everything from white flight from the cities, urban renewal that buldozes working poor neighborhoods and the fact that wherever they go Americans see the message that "buying stuff is the American way" works against the poor.

I'm from England and the fact that some Americans don't see it as a moral responsibility to help out those that are worse off than you is something that I've always found problematic since I moved here. Especially as Americans are more religious than Europeans and I've always felt that people were looking down their noses at me because I'm not very religious.

 

I am not saying that everything is geared toward the poor. I was asking if everything should be. It seems every time any ideas are put forth that people are crying about how it will hurt the poor. Now I am not saying we should not consider the poor, but we should be open to new ideas to atleast be explored. The Fair Tax does address the poor. But being poor is just a difficult situation regardless of what is done.

While I am certainly not crazy about the "buying stuff is the American way" it does create jobs.

In which way do you see Americans not helping the poor? Politically I might agree with you, but not in the private charity area. Atleast in the areas I have lived, South East Kentucky and East Tennessee, people are usually pretty giving. There are many organizations that exist to help the less fortunate. Many, unfortunately not all, churches in these areas do things to help the poor. None of these could happen if Americans didn't care about the poor and want to personally do something to help. And it is here that I think the poor are best served, and not from the government.

Now personally I think the income tax can actually hinder the poor, mostly out of fear. The poor have the greatest motivation to find alternative ways to make money, but with a complex tax code that even few professionals understand it would be overwhelming to someone trying to make it on their own. This not to mention that you actually have to pay more taxes going out on your own than if you work for someone else. I wonder how many people might have had good ideas that might not only have helped them but others as well, but felt discouraged because of an overwhelming tax system and an aggressive IRS. A simple sales tax would allow not only these people but everyone to not have to worry about how much money they are making and how much of it is taxable, but only think about taxes when buying and selling. And then it would be a simple, flat rate.