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Subject: Tax Rant
Posted by: Khahan
- [2884979] Mon, Apr 04, 2005, 21:42
If the frickin government can't take out the right amount of money for taxes, then screw 'em. They messed up, they lose.
If I buy a candy bar and the store charges me .27 instead of .75 and I leave t he store...tough sh!t for them. They can't come running out and say, "Gimme another .48 cents."
But the government can turn around and say, "I'm sorry, we let you keep too much of your own money that you are working to earn. You us another $5,000.00."
And yes, for the record, I say this every year, even when I get a return. Nobody should get returns, nobody should owe.
Its a frickin mathematical problem. There's only one answer. Its either right or wrong. If their computers and accountants can't figure out what X% of $X.XX is then they should get new accounts and new computers.
Blah, enough rants for now. |
| 1 | Timing
ID: 460272520
Mon, Apr 04, 2005, 22:03
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I think CCP would agree with that on the math.
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| 2 | sarge33rd
ID: 582341722
Mon, Apr 04, 2005, 22:06
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problem is Khahan, we individualy fill out our W4's to indicate the amounts we want withheld. It isnt the governments "fault" if I claim 5 dependents on my W4 and I'm single with no kids.
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| 3 | Khahan
ID: 2884979
Mon, Apr 04, 2005, 22:14
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Sarge, that isn't what I'm talking about. My wife and I fill out the forms properly. We don't claim anything we don't have. If we have it, we claim it.
Something happened because she stayed home with our daughter for a few months last year (when she was born). Because of that, there was a 'jump in income.'
I'm sorry, but that's a crock of shit.
I don't know the exact witholding %, but it is a fixed amount. If they can't get it right, we suddenly have to foot a $5000 bill?
A prime example of why there should not be tax brackets. Just a flat tax across the board for everybody.
Its a simple concept: We earned $x.xx last year, so withhold X%. This year, we earned $x.xx, so withhold X%.
Leave it the government and irs to screw up a simple concept.
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| 4 | Myboyjack
ID: 121159118
Mon, Apr 04, 2005, 22:18
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It's a progressive tax scheme - so the % of income taxed varies. The amount withheld is wholly withing your control and if the wrong amount is with held - it's you who chose that amount. It's not like you're paying more than you owe now.
I have to pay every year. Join the club.
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| 5 | Madman
ID: 572371022
Mon, Apr 04, 2005, 22:34
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The IRS provides a "withhold calculator" on their website. When I got married last year, I adjusted my W-4's to accurately reflect our likely new filing status. It's a pain, but as long as we continue to view the tax code as a tool for social engineering, this is inevitable.
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| 6 | sarge33rd
ID: 582341722
Mon, Apr 04, 2005, 23:10
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the best of the money managers I know, suggests looking at your tax liability from last year...figure out the minimum you could have had with-held w/o incurring penalty, then have that amount w/h this year. Yes, it maximizes the amount you owe at the end of the year, but the suggestion then is...
look at the w/h table and see what would have been your net under your old w/h amount
figure the diff between that net and this one...
deposit the difference in a seperate "tax only" savings account".
when your tax bill comes due, transfer the requisite amount to checking, write the check, and keep the interest earned vs loaning it interest free to the govt.
problem is...it requires more self discipline than most people are willing to excercise.
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| 7 | leggestand
Leader
ID: 451036518
Tue, Apr 05, 2005, 10:56
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Without year end adjustments, there would be a substantially lower amount of charitable donations. If I made 100k and normally give 5k to charity, why should I be taxed the same amount of someone who makes 100k and gives $0 to charity? f all things are equal, then most people would keep there money, and charity's would get screwed.
Also, too many things happen each year to individuals to allow for a "known" anticipated income amount. Having kids, getting married, receiving a raise, receiving a bonus, commissions, buying a house, buying a second house, stock income and losses, dividend payouts, etc, all change your status or income levels.
I can't tell you today what i think I will make in the next 12 months, so, how can the government know? I could give a guess, but any sane person would give a conservative estimate to avoid a higher tax, thus screwing the gov't.
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| 8 | Motley Crue
Dude
ID: 439372011
Tue, Apr 05, 2005, 13:28
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Legge, don't forget to include all of that income you earned from beating me in silly RotoGuru bets last year when preparing your return.
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| 9 | leggestand
Leader
ID: 451036518
Tue, Apr 05, 2005, 13:46
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Shhhhhh......
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| 10 | leggestand
Leader
ID: 451036518
Tue, Apr 05, 2005, 14:14
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By the way Motley, nice work on the Dude status. Can we make some bets so I can get up there?
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| 11 | Cosmo's Cod Piece
ID: 481152817
Wed, Apr 06, 2005, 06:24
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Khahan: I'm standing up and giving you an AMEN! brother.
What kind of half=baked cockamamee tax system did our government stick us with? It's bureacracy for the sake of bureacracy.
They should switch to a federal use tax at the point of sale. It would ensure 100% compliance at the consumer level and 100% correct calculation.
They'd still have their happy punitive tax system for those who consume more.
We could shrink the size of government by getting rid of a good portion of the IRS. We'd need some tax folks around to collect money from the companies who collect the use tax, but their division of government would cost a fraction of what they do now.
I also heard on NBC Nightly News over the weekend that an estimated $300 billion dollars of taxes over a three year period was miscalculated and never paid because of incorrect data on the forms. The IRS was only able to collect $30 billion of that.
An extra $270 billion sure would help.
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| 12 | biliruben
ID: 531202411
Wed, Apr 06, 2005, 09:28
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We don't have an income tax here in Washington, just a sales tax. It is the most regessive system in the nation. Lower income workers pay 18% of their income, upper income, 3%.
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| 13 | Perm Dude
Dude
ID: 030792616
Wed, Apr 06, 2005, 10:38
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A consumables tax would burden business with, essentially, collecting what is an income tax now, except doing so billions of times. CCP, I thought you were all about lowering the costs of businesses, not raising them?
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| 14 | Motley Crue
Dude
ID: 439372011
Wed, Apr 06, 2005, 11:21
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I have to file a part-year resident return for Massachusetts. I don't want to hear anymore complaining unless someone can top that.
It sucks.
Legge, I am still kicking myself for not betting you on the Pats-Steelers. After I watched the Patriots demolish the Colts (again) I knew they were going to win it all. I could have won my money back easily. I had to get to Dude the old-fashioned way: credit card. ; )
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| 15 | Cosmo's Cod Piece
ID: 481152817
Wed, Apr 06, 2005, 17:25
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PD: "CCP, I thought you were all about lowering the costs of businesses, not raising them?"
It actually doesn't require that much time with sales tax. There's some software like Vertex that makes it quite easy actually.
Can't imagine the use tax being that much worse.
I don't think the effect on jobs would be that great. H&R Block would be S.O.L. for the defunct tax season as would some of the folks at Intuit who make TurboTax. Some of those would be offset by the new hires to handle the use tax forms.
The use tax would give the government some cash flow instead of essentially a one-time huge revenue push. The gov't could require that the use tax be collected from the corporations monthly or quarterly depending on volume.
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| 16 | FRICK@Work
ID: 220211
Wed, Apr 06, 2005, 17:31
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Most corporations already pay taxes quarterly, along with some private citizens. I don't see where the benefit of a steady income stream would help.
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| 17 | Toral
ID: 14263120
Wed, Apr 06, 2005, 18:17
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(1) There is no way this will ever happen in the U.S., under its political system. Whether the tax replaces income tax or is an add-on. These taxes are hideously unpopular with consumers. Canada's 7% Goods and Services Tax was certainly enough to sink the Mulroney Conservative government. Tho it was probably going down anyway. The tax was supposed to be revenue-neutral, replacing a tax on production of manufactured goods that hurt our import industry.
The Liberals promised to repeal it if elected. Needless to say, they didn't.
(2) The best form of such a tax is the European style Value-Added Tax. If only because you know the entire price of the product before you go to the cashier, and don't need to do mental calculations in your head before you go to the cashier, or figure out how to dispose of the hundreds of pennies you get in change.
A pure VAT would be impossible in the U.S. because of its federalism. State and federal taxes would have to be combined for it to work well.
Toral
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| 18 | Cosmo's Cod Piece
ID: 481152817
Wed, Apr 06, 2005, 19:48
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Frick: A steady income stream would help the government.
From a business perspective, its always easier to manage single piece flow than it is to manage a batch.
The stream of income would allow our government size to shrink because they wouldn't need all hands on deck for the first five months of the year just for the sheer quantity of returns.
The number of returns to process would also go down, especially if they consolidated the business sales tax form with this new use tax.
Since the compliance % would go up at least in terms of a percentage of returns, the need for auditors would shrink as well thus further decreasing the size of government.
Toral: You are probably on to something. Everytime somebody reaches for their wallet they'll curse the government. Then again, they do that every payday and they curse the state government everytime they buy something now.
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| 19 | Cosmo's Cod Piece
ID: 481152817
Wed, Apr 06, 2005, 19:52
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One more point...
Another benefit of having the use tax is that businesses would be more capable to do things electronically than would a great number of citizens.
Instead of dealing with paper returns and poor handwriting, all (or maybe 80%) of the returns could be filled out electronically. You could gradually phase in 100% electronic transmission over a couple of years.
That process would allow an even faster and more accurate way to handle the returns.
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| 20 | Perm Dude
Dude
ID: 030792616
Wed, Apr 06, 2005, 20:47
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A consumption tax is not a steady stream any more than corporate taxes are steady streams. The taxes are paid quarterly.
If size of government is a problem then vote out the bastards that are currently swelling the size of government. It doesn't take a wholesale shifting of taxes onto the poor in order to see that the problem with a larger government is not coming from the method of tax collection but from a Congress which can't say "no" and a President who can't veto a spending bill.
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| 21 | Toral
ID: 14263120
Wed, Apr 06, 2005, 20:57
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Then again, they do that every payday
I wonder if that's true, CCP. If taxes are too high in the employee's opinion, maybe they should.
But my guess is that people curse the government only when their withdrawals are raised. Other than that, they just accept it as a fact of life.
On-site taxes lend to cursing the government with any purchase. Particularly if you don't have enuf money in your pocket one time, forget about the tax or miscalculate it (in Ontario, tax is 15%, 8% provincial, 7% federal, easy to calculate, take the last digit off and add another half to that amount) and don't have enough money to pay for what you brought to the cashier. Not an important thing rationally -- but people dislike that sort of thing happening to them a lot.
Toral
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| 22 | Cosmo's Cod Piece
ID: 481152817
Thu, Apr 07, 2005, 06:16
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PD: "A consumption tax is not a steady stream any more than corporate taxes are steady streams."
A lot of Americans, I'd presume the majority, file their income tax once a year. That's a lot to handle at one time whether its a refund situation or not.
A by product of going to a more efficient taxation system would be shrinking the government and increasing the % of tax compliance and collection.
Based on the one report I heard, the government could've collected an additional $270 billion dollars over three years if they had a better system. That figure alone is worth taking a serious look at this.
Toral: The psychological aspect of this would have a hard time selling it. Probably because people look at the deduction on their paycheck and its not really something tangible, just a number on a piece of paper. Even though that person may think their taxes are too high, that's still better on the psyche than literally taking money out of someone's pocket at a store.
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| 23 | Perm Dude
Dude
ID: 030792616
Thu, Apr 07, 2005, 10:03
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CCP: Most Americans do fill out their taxes, but the vast majority of individual taxpayers get refunds.
My point, however, wasn't about individual taxpaying (which is usually overpaid). Your point was how often the government actually gets the tax receipts, and a consumption tax, collected by businesses, would be paid quarterly just as often as businesses report them. While they are collected by businesses everyday, they aren't sent into the goverment everyday, they are sent quarterly. So the government would not get a more steady income under a consumption tax.
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| 24 | sarge33rd
ID: 5733615
Thu, Apr 07, 2005, 10:07
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I used to be in favor of a national sales tax to replace/augment the income tax. But the fact is, the poor, spend a far greater per centage of their income on "non discretionary" goods/services than do the wealthy. This by definition means, that the poor would see an entirely unfair percentage of their annual income, going to taxes vs the wealthy. (see bili's post 12 above)
I have no real idea of the "how to" so as to make it fair to the small businessman, but IMHO, the only really "right" fix, is top go to a flat tax. You pay 10%, or 15% or whatever the nr needs to be, of your taxable income each and every month. No need to file returns, but there would be no refunds, no deductions, no exemptions, nothing. Now the problem becomes, defining exactly what constitutes "taxable income". Here comes 1714 pgs of legislation to accomplish that seemingly simply task, and we are headed right back to where we came from.
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| 25 | Baldwin
ID: 241292815
Thu, Apr 07, 2005, 12:12
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The plus side of switching from a national income tax to a national sales tax is that you could exempt non-discretionary spending like food, housing and medicine and make it a very progressive tax while ridding ourselves of the odious IRS and the mountainous reams of tax breaks bought by special interest groups.
The downside is that much trade would be lost by consumers buying elsewhere to avoid the tax, and lawmakers would inevitably keep the income tax and just add one more tax. They almost never give up a revenue stream once the public has accepted paying it.
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| 26 | Cosmo's Cod Piece
ID: 481152817
Thu, Apr 07, 2005, 17:24
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PD: "While they are collected by businesses everyday, they aren't sent into the goverment everyday, they are sent quarterly. So the government would not get a more steady income under a consumption tax."
Quarterly is much better than annually. The gov't is used to getting tax information from regular citizens annually. Getting this from businesses quarterly is indeed faster. It also eliminates the refund so the government always knows that there is money coming in the door.
Baldwin brought up an excellent point that I completely forgot about...
"mountainous reams of tax breaks bought by special interest groups"
All the corporate/individual tax loopholes would be closed.
To echo Baldwin's answer and to address Sarge's concern, we could lower the tax on necessities and add a little bit to cars or other higher priced items. I'd like to add reading materials to Baldwin's list. I could never understand why any branch of our government would want to punish people for reading.
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| 27 | Perm Dude
Dude
ID: 030792616
Thu, Apr 07, 2005, 21:15
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CCP: They don't get the money annually under the current system. They get it quarterly, when businesses remit the withholdings. You seem to believe that a consumption tax would result in the government getting its money more often than they get it now, but that would not be the case.
There are plenty of reasons to be both for and against a consumption tax, but payment frequency is a wash.
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| 28 | Cosmo's Cod Piece
ID: 11314719
Thu, Apr 07, 2005, 21:26
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PD:
Currently: Citizens file their taxes annually right?
New system: Citizens pay the consumption tax at the point of sale. The corporation files the return quarterly.
How is this not faster?
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| 29 | Pancho Villa
Sustainer
ID: 533817
Thu, Apr 07, 2005, 22:07
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Self employed are supposed to pay quarterly estimated tax based on the previous year's earnings. This includes independent contractors and commission-based employees. The on 4/15 the balance, plus or minus is to be paid.
With my business, my sales tax and estimated federal are due 3 times a year on the same date, 7/31, 10/30 and 1/31. There is a 15 day discrepancy between income due 4/15 and sales tax due 4/30.
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| 30 | Perm Dude
Dude
ID: 030792616
Thu, Apr 07, 2005, 22:29
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CCP: Currently: Citizens file their taxes annually right?
No, not right. Currently nearly all individuals have taxes withheld from their paychecks. The withheld amounts are remitted to the government quarterly by businesses.
Individual taxpayers file tax forms to reconcile the withheld amounts from the final taxes due based upon exemptions. And the majority of those individual taxpayers get refunds (which are, in essence, interest-free loans to the governement).
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| 31 | Cosmo's Cod Piece
ID: 11314719
Fri, Apr 08, 2005, 06:12
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PD: I think we're having a hard time communicating with each other. :)
"majority of those individual taxpayers get refunds"
Really? Couldn't tell in my home.
A refund is a form of cash flow. NEGATIVE cash flow. That would go away in this system.
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| 32 | sarge33rd
ID: 5733615
Fri, Apr 08, 2005, 08:37
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I'd like to add reading materials to Baldwin's list. I could never understand why any branch of our government would want to punish people for reading.
and the loopholes....begin. Somone else, will want to add computers. Why punish the poor for trying to make their kids as technology proficient as the rich kids? Another group, will want to exempt...bicycles. Why punish people, for being ecologically friendly and healthy? Yet another group, will want to exempt...
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| 33 | FRICK@Work
ID: 220211
Fri, Apr 08, 2005, 10:42
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I agree with Sarge on 32.
Wasn't a luxury tax placed on high-end items sometime in the 90's? IIRC there was a tax an yachts and yacht makers revolted because their business took a huge it.
If you exempt food items, do you also exempt restaurants? I know in Indiana if you go into a store and buy milk it is not taxed, but if you buy a cand bar it is. It has something to do with ready to eat vs. has to be cooked. You don't think there would be lobbyist trying to get their products tax-exempted.
What would you do with internet sales? Are those taxed?
Also in Indiana we have sales tax-exempt groups, non-profits, that don't pay sales taxes. Would they keep that status?
Do Indian lands keep their tax-exempt status?
I'm not saying that the sales-tax would not be less paperwork/bureacracy, but it is not as simple as you make it sound.
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| 34 | FRICK@Work
ID: 220211
Fri, Apr 08, 2005, 10:42
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I agree with Sarge on 32.
Wasn't a luxury tax placed on high-end items sometime in the 90's? IIRC there was a tax an yachts and yacht makers revolted because their business took a huge it.
If you exempt food items, do you also exempt restaurants? I know in Indiana if you go into a store and buy milk it is not taxed, but if you buy a cand bar it is. It has something to do with ready to eat vs. has to be cooked. You don't think there would be lobbyist trying to get their products tax-exempted.
What would you do with internet sales? Are those taxed?
Also in Indiana we have sales tax-exempt groups, non-profits, that don't pay sales taxes. Would they keep that status?
Do Indian lands keep their tax-exempt status?
I'm not saying that the sales-tax would not be less paperwork/bureacracy, but it is not as simple as you make it sound.
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| 35 | Perm Dude
Dude
ID: 030792616
Fri, Apr 08, 2005, 10:48
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CCP: Refunds, which are loans to the government, is a good thing for government cash flow (which is what you seems to be using as an argument for your consumption tax). Yeah, they'd mostly go away, assuming that you are also doing away with state income taxes.
BTW, about half of all filers last year filed electronically.
You might not be getting a refund, but not all taxpayers do, just most.
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| 36 | Baldwin
ID: 59333101
Sun, Apr 10, 2005, 04:13
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The suppression of unnecessary offices, of useless establishments and expenses, enabled us to discontinue our internal taxes. These covering our land with officers, and opening our doors to their intrusions, had already begun that process of domiciliary vexation which, once entered, is scarcely to be restrained from reaching successively every article of produce and property. -- Thomas Jefferson, explaining why he had eliminated taxes.
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| 37 | Cosmo's Cod Piece
ID: 11314719
Sun, Apr 10, 2005, 08:18
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Frick: Under the plan I would like to see, nothing would be exempt from the tax. It would be a use tax on sales.
I tacked on reading materials to Baldwin's list because I was trying to see a compromise of sorts even if only for my own benefit knowing that this could work.
I'm actually for taxing religious institutions. Our constitution dictates a seperation of church and state, yet if you are a "religious organization" you don't pay taxes. Why would the gov't be giving special treatment to an institutiion it is to be seperate from?
A good way to show the true seperation of church and state is to tax them, if just for symbolism only.
Sarge: I get what you're saying about a heavier percentage on the poor. Even this pro-business, pro-growth, anti-punitive tax, anti-tax Republican thinks they'd get the shaft.
There has to be an equitable workaround to this because tax reform is sorely needed.
I'm sure there are some actuaries out there who could create some sort of "use tax rebate table" for the poor to take advantage of at the end of the year.
A household that is under the poverty line at the end of the year could file just like they do now and receive a rebate based on an actuarial estimation of their purchases.
PD: We seem to have a philosophical disagreement. I believe the government would create more consistent cash flow by having all taxes come in quarterly and that the net cash flow would be increased by not having to pay out refunds. I also know that the cost of gov't would decrease drastically and that the % of taxes assessed would increase thus generating more cash flow from efficiency gains alone. That's where I stand.
Baldwin: Regarding #36. Amen.
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| 38 | FRICK
ID: 3410101718
Sun, Apr 10, 2005, 08:35
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So if people under the proverty line have to file, how does this help reduce the number of jobs at the IRS. Yes, less people have to file, but more businesses have to file and auditing Sales Tax returns is a lot more time consuming that auditing individual returns.
I wasn't referring to Churches as non-profits, but organizations like Soup Kitchens, Battered Women's Shelters, those types of Non-profits.
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| 39 | Cosmo's Cod Piece
ID: 11314719
Sun, Apr 10, 2005, 10:05
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Number of Americans Living In Poverty
"The percentage of the U.S. population living in poverty rose to 12.5 percent from 12.1 percent"
2005 IRS Budget - PDF Format
Frick: Drastically less overall individual returns (by 87.5%) coupled with a consistent 100% quarterly filing of all returns would demolish the need for the IRS as we know it.
All businesses have to file now as it is, even if they post a loss. Consolidating the sales tax form with the use tax form would make this that much easier.
Take into account the overwhelming less amount of returns, the huge reduction in processing time by phasing in 100% electronic filing, and the IRS would be greatly reduced.
Since the forms would be consolidated, the same auditor or audit team could handle the sales and use tax audit.
From work experience at a prior employer, I have been thru several state sales tax audits from more than a handful states. Believe me, the brunt of the work is done on the corporate side of the audit.
The auditors come in, ask a ton of questions, and the burden of proof lies with the business. My team was the one pulling the ten hour days just xeroxing mounds of sales documents and copying Vertex sales tax reports that were randomly selected by the auditors while they sat in our conference room, drank coffee and surfed the internet.
We'd be getting rid of a hugely unpopular form of government, save a ton of money in government spending, and increase governmental income via increased compliance and payment.
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| 40 | Cosmo's Cod Piece
ID: 11314719
Sun, Apr 10, 2005, 10:18
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Frick: I neglected to answer your inteligent question about non-profits, my bad.
I'm not sure what I'd do, but I have some ideas though:
1) Handle them the same way as the poor are in my idea. Use an actuarial table at year end to issue them a rebate.
2) Issue a certificate number they can use at the point of sale to exempt from this tax. They would give this number to whomever they're buying from and its that entities responbility to record that sale and report that number to justify why no tax was collected.
What would yo do?
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| 41 | Perm Dude
Dude
ID: 030792616
Sun, Apr 10, 2005, 14:47
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CCP #37: The problem with taxes isn't in their flow rates. It's that they go to a government far bigger than it needs to be. And that, I believe, is something on which we both agree.
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| 42 | biliruben
ID: 531202411
Sun, Apr 10, 2005, 14:59
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So what do you propose to cut, PD, that would have meaningful affects on the the budget total?
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| 43 | Perm Dude
Dude
ID: 030792616
Sun, Apr 10, 2005, 15:05
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bili, I've posted about this elsewhere that not only are there large areas to cut (farm bill, etc) but the means to fund programs in the first place needs to be changed by doing such things as re-instituting the PAYGO system.
We've talked about the budget in several places, and my link in #62 spells it out, including a very good analysis by Paul Weinstein for the nitty gritty details.
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| 44 | biliruben
ID: 531202411
Sun, Apr 10, 2005, 15:12
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62?
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| 45 | Perm Dude
Dude
ID: 030792616
Sun, Apr 10, 2005, 15:14
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Sorry , forgot to link to the thread in question.
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| 46 | Baldwin
ID: 2833106
Sun, Apr 10, 2005, 17:21
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I certainly agree with reinstituting PAYGO. Can you find us the exact way and rational for ending it? How did that die such a quiet death that even I didn't hear about it at the time? And I obviously try and keep up to speed, and I've always loved PAYGO. I can't point to the line in the contract with america that showed agreement with it off the top of my head but its in agreement with it's spirit. Plenty of republicans voted for it in the first place. I don't get how a republican run congress killed it, yet that must be so.
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| 47 | Cosmo's Cod Piece
ID: 11314719
Sun, Apr 10, 2005, 18:40
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HERE HERE!!! regarding PAYGO. Anything to lessen the size and cost of government.
Baldwin: What happened with it was probably 9/11, the War On Terror, and the Iraq War. No proof behind that, just a thought.
Pardon my ignorance, but PAYGO may have predated my uber-interest in politics. Does it apply to national defense?
PD: "It's that they go to a government far bigger than it needs to be. And that, I believe, is something on which we both agree."
What would you do to reform the IRS? I don't think there's an argument that it does need reform, just what type of reform it needs is debatable.
I'm honestly interested in what type of tax code changes, if any, you'd want to see happen.
There's a ton of things to look at to downsize the government. I've given thought to partial-privatization of highways if you'd like to discuss that. It would probably apply more to state government, but it would be less government nonetheless.
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| 48 | Perm Dude
Dude
ID: 030792616
Sun, Apr 10, 2005, 18:44
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The IRS just follows the tax law. While there are some things I would change, a smaller government would mean a smaller IRS.
My larger point is that we need not change the tax code to make government work so much as change the way government works. The problem, in other words, is not that the wrong people are paying taxes, but that taxes are too high.
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| 49 | Perm Dude
Dude
ID: 030792616
Sun, Apr 10, 2005, 18:48
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BTW I don't mean to duck the question, only that I think this is the wrong question. There are lots I would do to the tax code (eliminate the tax break for businesses moving jobs overseas, reduce the tax breaks drug companies get for R&D if they do not give the government huge breaks on drugs the federal government buys, tax amnesty for both business and individuals for people who owe back taxes but cannot afford to pay it along with penalties, etc.). But the problem by far is that the government is too big.
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| 50 | Cosmo's Cod Piece
ID: 11314719
Sun, Apr 10, 2005, 19:42
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Just so I understand your position in this discussion and future ones, I don't want to put words in your mouth so if I get this wrong let me know.
You're OK with the tax system "as is", you'd just like to close some loopholes. You're not really for a wholesale change such as a flat tax or consumption tax?
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| 51 | Stuck in the 60s
Dude
ID: 274132811
Sun, Apr 10, 2005, 19:52
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What I like about a national sales tax is that tourists and other visitors would be paying, too. That would increase the money the government gets. Eliminating the IRS and most collection mechanisms would create more money be getting rid of a huge expense.
Why would this not be a good idea?
Don
P.S. Let's just eliminate the deductions and be done with it.
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| 52 | Baldwin
ID: 2833106
Sun, Apr 10, 2005, 19:56
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Do we send more tourests than we receive? And do our tourests spend more than the incoming spend? If so a national sales tax is a net negative in that regard.
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| 53 | Perm Dude
Dude
ID: 030792616
Sun, Apr 10, 2005, 21:17
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CCP: I believe (as Greenspan does) that a wholesale change to a national tax scheme based on consumption would be a disaster.
I believe that we need to change the way the government funds and plans programs. It's not about taxes, it's about spending. I don't care if we don't change a thing with taxes so long as we stop this runaway wasteful spending.
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| 54 | Cosmo's Cod Piece
ID: 11314719
Sun, Apr 10, 2005, 21:18
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60's does bring up a good point.
Being that I put America first, I could really care less about the following scenario, but that doesn't mean its not worth looking at....
Wouldn't foreign countries look at a national sales tax as some sort of tariff? I'm sure the France-type places that hate our guts would just love to spin it that way just so they can follow thru on some trade war.
Baldwin: Given the weakening dollar, I would imagine we keep more tourists in-house nowadays than before especially directly compared to Europe where the Euro constantly hovers around 30% higher than the dollar.
I have no figures and I googled and could find none, but I think its conceivable we could gain from this.
Back to those ever so Desperate Housewives...
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| 55 | Perm Dude
Dude
ID: 030792616
Sun, Apr 10, 2005, 21:20
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Foreign countries could not look at a national sales tax as a tariff (not the least reason is that many countries, including most of Europe, already have a VAT or sales tax scheme so they wouldn't claims ours would be any different).
Tariffs are taxes on imports.
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| 56 | Cosmo's Cod Piece
ID: 11314719
Mon, Apr 11, 2005, 06:22
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PD: With the anti-American spin machine, it wouldn't surprise me if somebody considered a tourist as an import if we implemented this.
Anyway...thanks for the tip on why foreign countries wouldn't have a problem with that.
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| 57 | Perm Dude
Dude
ID: 030792616
Mon, Apr 11, 2005, 10:30
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Yeah, when you got wackos like Ward Churchill getting airtime you know someone is going to spin this the wrong way, particularly since the move to a national sales tax is coming largely from conservative circles.
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