quote:

ORIGINAL: DomKen

This is a miserably bad plan. How do I know that? Because of which republicans are supporting it. Faster than you could say WTF! there would be all sorts of stuff exempt from the sales tax, big real estate sales, luxury goods of every stripe, to stimulate the economy they would claim. Then they would start howling about the welfare queens and their checks offsetting this tax so that would get repealed or sunsetted in short order, much as they try and kill the EITC every few years. And we'd be right back where we are now with the wealthy paying far too little in taxes and the poor and middle class having to carry the load.

I don't particularly like the present income tax system but I'm already paying almost 10% in sales tax on top of a state income tax that wouldn't likely be going away so I would much prefer the present system to paying a sales tax of 30 to 50%.

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ORIGINAL: SimplyMichael

Inflation exists regardless of how money is backed, even when it was actual gold and silver, the Fed doesn't create inflation, they just influence it.

Counting on citizens to do anything is worse than almost anything you can imagine, they are too stupid for their own good.  I mean look how many watch FOX while breathing through their mouths.

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ORIGINAL: Archer

OK to illustraight the progressivness of the Fair Tax I'll work my way through this slowly.

5 families of 4 people each all spending assumed to be on new goods and services making no effort to avoid taxes by buying used goods.
1, 25,000 a year
2, 50,000 a year
3, 75,000 a year
4, 100,000 a year
5, 200,000 a year
Family 1 makes 25K and spends 25K just to make ends meet With the prebate their tax rate is - in other word because their spending is less than the poverty rate (pulling a number outta the air 30K) for the Family of 4 they get more from the prebate than they spend in the sales tax. They actually have a net gain of 1,150.
Effective Tax rate negative 4%

Family # 2, 50K a year They spend all their money as well With the prebate They pay taxes on spending over 30K, 20k X 0.23=  $4,600
Effective tax rate <10%

Family 3, 75K Spend all their money With Prebate they pay taxes on spening over 30K so 45K X 0.23= $10,350
Effective rate about 13%

Family 4 100K again spending all With Prebate they pay taxes on spending over 30K so 70K X 0.23= $16,100
Effective rate just over 16%

Family 5 200K Again spending all, with prebate they pay taxes on spending over 30K so 170 X 0.23 = 39,100
Effective tax rate 19.5%

Now the fly in the ointment that I'l not ignore is the assumption that everyone will spend all they make is a faulty assumption so when you get passed the point where it takes all your income to support a lifestyle you can afford, you begin to reduce your tax rate. So the very high income earners will have a break.
However those smucks who are living off their trust funds spending the money they get taxed on their spending not their income so they get shafted, assuming their spending outpaces their income from interest.

BTW this covers the entire Federal tax requirements including Social Security and Medicare so the regressivness of those taxes is eliminated.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Archer
No fly in the ointment there with the inflation you want to cite, even though your study was for THE WRONG BILL/ proposal.
The economists that have studied the right proposal HR25 and not the other flat tax proposal have by and large said it will reduce interest rates, increase productivity, and reverse the of shoring of jobs. In fact drawing back jobs into the US that had been lost off shore.

It's not a reduction in the money sent to Uncle Sam it's revenue neutral however it's not ment to cure 96926234346923796623568 things wrong with government.
It's workable, feasible and solves a few problems with the current system.
Some extreamists want to solve the problems all with one fell stroke, but none of the proposals they offer up stand a snowflakes chance in hell of getting done.
Rather than trying to solve the entire list of problems this takes a managable sized bite that will move towards the same goals you have championed.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Archer
by and large said it will reduce interest rates, increase productivity, and reverse the of shoring of jobs. In fact drawing back jobs into the US that had been lost off shore.


Some extreamists want to solve the problems all with one fell stroke, but none of the proposals they offer up stand a snowflakes chance in hell of getting done.
Rather than trying to solve the entire list of problems this takes a managable sized bite that will move towards the same goals you have championed.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Archer

LOL in your one and a half days of intermittent research you have formned that much of an opinion. LOL

Huge differences:
1, Prebated to make it progressive

quote:


2. Elimination of the IRS except for a small group to collect the taxes from the states since they act as collection agents.

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3. Elimination of payroll taxes both Social Secutrity and Medicare (placing them under general fund budget) SO that workers get their entire check

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4. Consumption tax vs income tax
5. Removal of embedded taxes people don't see

quote:

ORIGINAL: Archer

LOL in your one and a half days of intermittent research you have formned that much of an opinion. LOL

Huge differences:
1, Prebated to make it progressive
2. Elimination of the IRS except for a small group to collect the taxes from the states since they act as collection agents.
3. Elimination of payroll taxes both Social Secutrity and Medicare (placing them under general fund budget) SO that workers get their entire check
4. Consumption tax vs income tax
5. Removal of embedded taxes people don't see

Just a little pink bow

quote:

ORIGINAL: Real0ne

archer,

i would like to read the same thing you did.

which economists?

In an open letter to the President, the Congress, and the American people, seventy-five economists, including Nobel Laureate Vernon L. Smith, stated that the FairTax would boost the United States economy.[9] According to the National Bureau of Economic Research and Americans For Fair Taxation, GDP would increase almost 10.5% in the year after the FairTax goes into effect.[41]
 
This is of course through Wikipedia (all wikipedia assumptions as to accuracy should apply)


What about inflation?  what good does it do to fix the taxation if they can inflate the piss out of the money and gtet us that way 10 minutes after it goes into effect?
Since it does not effect the Federal Reserves ability to do anything it does not take it into account. But this means no change either way as to their ability. No loss or gain. Although The inflation would effect all holders of US money including the Government's purchasing power. There would be no net gain for them to do it.

How will this effect the small business man just starting out and what incentive is there to go into business?
The paperwork of dealing with the what 6,000 pages of tax code vs 132 pages, make compliance easier and thus is something that opens the doors to start up businesses. Since it is not based on income but consumption it's simple to plan taxation into the business plan. Want to get a new widget machine plan the purchase knowing the tax consequences of the purchase. Far better than having to hire an accountant to tell you when to make the purchase as is all but required now.
But it is not by design made to be an incentive to small business
However income tax complications of the curent system cause many failures to occure when the business owner simply doesn't know enough to be able without spending on accountants to be able to comply with the current tax code that even the IRS can't always agree on.

How does this give incentive to improve a home for instance?  i would let th rot so i did not have to pay the tax or make minimal repairs instead of "improve"
No incentve other than the improvement of your home, it's not well suited to Governmental preasure to do what is "Best for you" acording to the government. The government will lose alot of the social engineering ability it pushes through by tax policy.
small biz will lose all write offs, does not sound to incentivating to me.
Write offs don't exactly matter when you don't tax income but rather you tax consumption.
how does the small biz fit into this scheme

what makes you think it wont be 30% 3 years after it is enacted?   the tax we have now started out at a mere 2% and that was on the corps not the citizens!  Look what it is now?
True they could raise the rate, however because it is a flat 23% rate on consumption by everyone, the divide and conqure scheme they use to be able to do it today will no longer be available to them. Raise the rate and ALL the voters get shafted how you gonna do that and get re elected??? They could get away with it when they only raised taxes on a small group at anyone time.
 
They have two things they can adjust and they both effect everyone, they can adjust the tax rate losing votes, or they can raise the poverty level to gain a few votes, but that raise in the poverty rate will benifit everyone, although mostly it will effect that benifit for the lower income sets more than the upper ones.
 

Do you really think the gov is going to give us a good deal?  They havent so far why would they now?
That's part of the thing about The Fair Tax, it wasn't designed by the government, it was given as a project to a group of Economists to design the fairest tax structure system they could come up with from a private group. The Fair Tax is what they came up with. Linder didn't think this up on his own.