Charlie Self wrote:
On Dec 9, 11:17 am, Tim Daneliuk wrote:
J. Clarke wrote:
SNIP
Not sure that penalizing them for deficit spending is necessarily a
good idea. Sometimes that helps the economy.
This is arguable. The government produces nothing, hence cannot
add to the GDP. But even if it did so, the Federal Government
has no Constitutional authority to "help the economy".
Step Three
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Instantiate a flat tax like the Fair Tax via a Constitutional
Amendment that forbids the institution of *any* other kind of tax.
So no protective tariffs on foreign trade even if other countries do
enact such tariffs?
Right. Tariffs are yet another attempt to "manage" economics.
The "Fair Tax" proposal seems to be a 23% sales
tax, which is a "soak the poor" scheme.
Go reread it. It does no such thing. It rebates *everyone* the
amount of money a "poor" family would pay in taxes. This means
the truly poor pay no taxes.
Basic problem: the poor have to lay out the 23% and wait for the
rebate, and some are at a marginal level that does not allow paying
23% out. They are already paying only whatever the local sales tax is,
and not much, or anything, else, so, for example, a 5% sales tax state
would see the poor paying the further 18% out-of-pocket, when their
pockets are already empty. When is the rebate made? Instantly? Will
that work?
Monthly, in the form of a stipend check to each and every taxpayer.
All these flat tax and simple tax ideas work nicely on paper. I'm not
at all sure they will work any better in practice than the horrendous
and untrackable mishmash we already have. Then again, if a few simple
objections, as above, can be answered, they sure as hell cannot be
worse.
Of course they would work better. Do you spend *any* significant
amount of time/money/effort to pay your state or local sales taxes?
This is no different. It abolishes the IRS and places the burden
of collection on the *seller* of goods/services who already has
the capacity to do this because of said local/state taxation
systems. Moreover, it taxes the underground economy - even drug
dealers buy Ferraris, for example. It is indeed fairer, simpler,
cheaper to administer, and has all kinds of other indicidental
benefits (like making markets more efficient by eliminating
capital gains taxation).
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Tim Daneliuk
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