Fairtax familiar around here?

so are the people here familiar with the fairtax act? look up fairtax.org and discuss.

yes have heard it before and it certainly makes more sense than the current tax system in most countries that basicly punishes achievement. Your earn more and you get screwed more for very little back.

This way it keeps everyone happy, if you are a "filthy burgeois capitalist" and spend like one, you will pay more taxes and vice versa.

Does anyone seriously think this isn't a terrible idea?

care to explain your opposed viewpoint? or is it an argument to weak to stand behind, hence the sage?

Simply put, the FairTax replaces the way we're currently taxed - based on our annual income - with a tax on goods and services. The FairTax is a voluntary “consumption" tax: the more you buy, the more you pay in taxes, the less you buy, the less you pay in taxes.
It's simple.

Everyone pays their fair share of taxes, and with the FairTax rebate, spending up to the poverty level is tax free. The Federal government is fully funded, including Social Security and Medicare, and you don't need an expert to determine your Federal taxes.
It's simple.

I think people should pay to use the government's services. Businesses would bear the brunt, since they have a duty to society to keep everything in order. This would involve socialism, but only enough to prevent poverty. Tax on income would depend only on where you live, if you own property you have to give the government a sum of money and the sum of money is not dependant on your income, if you pay rent you pay no tax. People vote for the political party that spends efficiently on essential services and solving problems. People who pay rent, but no tax get a universal vote when they are 18.

>>4
This is exctly the kind of people we need more of!

I don't get it. What's the difference between being taxed before or after buying something? Isn't it commutative?

One thing it will be good at doing is causing people to hoard their money. That's the lifeblood of the economy they're squirreling away (thus preventing from flowing), which will either murder the economy or result in inflation.

>>8

No it will have the opposite effect, people will have more to spend and would not mind spending it and being taxed on things they actually want.

My taxes average 30K per year, that is my money taken by the government. If I got that back sure I would spend it, hey I could use a nice widescreen TV, I wouldn't mind paying the taxes on it at least I get something for the money. Right now I see nothing back from the government for what I pay. I have never lived on government income and don't ever intend too, my property services I pay for via property taxes anyway, healthcare I hardly use and I would get better service if I could get private healthcare anyway. (I live in Canada BTW)

So this is a good approach, maybe not perfect but anything is better than the current system of punishment for success. Now the people who don't pay any taxes are clamouring for universal childcare, guess whose tax dollars are going to pay for that. I already ahve childcare; my wife stays home with our young son till he is old enough, I'd rather he grow up a good and cared for child than having a few thousand extra every year to spend on vacaitons or whatnot.

Seems everyone has lost the concept of living within their means.

>>6
okay, let me point out that enough socialism it prevent poverty is enough to cripple an economy. do you know how many people would just take advantage of that and decide never to work, and thus never create wealth again? paying for everyone's nescessities is like handing out social security, only you don't even have to earn it. if there's no incentive to work, who will?

>>9
seconded. saved money doesn't dissappear, it'll be spent eventually. and who the heck spends LESS when they start getting MORE to spend?

and on top of that, a consumption tax would bring more stable income than and income tax. say Mcdonalds spontainiously banrupts and all the employees lose work.

the income tax revenue would be gone until those workers find new jobs, whereas a consumption tax would probably stay pretty level, because people still want hamburgers, they just eat elsewhere.

and no matter what issue you come up with, the current tax system will always lose to the fairtax. even is there IS a serious kink or two, (which TMK have yet to be foud) it can't be so serius as to be worse than out current tax system which sends jobs overseas, destroys incentive, and creates massive waste in money paid to pay a tax bill.

What I honestly think is that our tax system is fine- we just spend the money in the wrong places and there are those who don't give their fare share.

The philosophy behind "punishment for success" is fucking stupid especially for corporations or any wealthy person who makes money from the common wealth. Success in American isn't something a person just wakes up decides to become. If people pay you for services and goods, you should be giving up more tax money to make sure those people (fellow AMERICANS) are still in a good situation to by from you.

I'm down for FairTax if it'll work. But the abuses of that system by the wealthy are risky. There's are people who make money finding loopholes.

>>10
So why don't people just commit a crime and live a wonderful life in jail without ever having to work? What people need is a cold shower each morning and enough potatoes, carrots and water to remain alive. Everyone who finds themselves living in a homeless shelter, being fed only the minimum requirements to stay alive, no alcohol, no smokes, not even a cup of cofffee each morning or television, wants to work so they can earn some luxuries. However not everyone who finds themselves sleeping on the streets having to beg for food without access to a cold shower has the opportunity to get work.

In fact socialism up to the point where need turns into want will help homeless people unfuck themselves and find jobs. Since your are obsessed with capitalism to the point where you become illogical, I assume you are a conservative and oppose mass immigration. Mass immigration is supported by the need for cheap labour, importing young adults eager to work to a country does wonders for the economy. If homeless people were turned into workers, then there would be less of a need for mass immigration. So you should support the buying of some water, cheap shelter (plastic sheets draped over some scaffolding or an abandonned warehouse) and food for the homeless.

>>10
Sorry, I didn't make a certain point clear enough.

You are a fucking idiot.

However you should only thank me for being so humble since I only need to hear you admit you are wrong as a form of apology.

K go.

>>11
then you can't be too terribly familiar with all the problems caused by the current tax system.

first of all, taxes on corporations. a big nasty trick. if you think those taxes are lightening your burden you're sorely mistaken. those taxes are just added to the cost of good YOU buy, taken from wages either by paycuts, layoffs, or other cuts in cost that pass the cost to thier suppliers who are also employers, who make paycuts or layoffs to deal with the costs.

or it's taken from profits, which in the hands of a competent buisness, are used so the buisness can become more productive.

"but that's all a cost of doing buisness" you might be thinking. yeah, and it costs too much. between the property and income taxes, and all the cost of crunching the numbers to figure out how much money goes to uncle sam, it costs a heck of a lot less to just build your factory in europe and ship your goods over.
oand you can just imagine how things measure up selling american good overseas, what with hefty embedded tax costs AND shipping.

second, income tax, keep in mind this only applies to legitimate earned incomes. meaning illegal immigrants and criminals don't have to pay.

and then the gift tax, death tax, proprty tax, and all your other commie taxes. which essentially are a claim by the government that everything belongs to the government, the citicens don't have a right to it, it just so happens that the govenment is being nice and letting you have it. doesn't sound very american to me.

hell, it was UNCONSITUTIONAL to have a tax on income for that reason,

>I'm down for FairTax if it'll work. But the abuses of that system by the wealthy are risky. There's are people who make money finding loopholes.

you make me LOL, that happens like crazy with our current plan,  companies have all kinds of lobbyists to negotioate tax breaks from the government. let's see what happens when there are no buisness taxes to give breaks FROM.

let's not forget that illegitimate incomes don't have an advantage under the fairtax. so there's already THAT much tax evasion eliminated. and it eliminates evastion from those that ask to be paid in cash and don't report the income, because the fairtax taxes a more visible point of money flow.

some people imagine buisness owners being able to claim luxuries as buisness expenses, but i haven't heard of a good way to beat the system that way. it's not like you'd be able to flash a buisness card at wal-mart and walk out with a 23% discount on a HDTV.

it takes two to evade the planned fairtax, one buying, and one selling, if we place the legal responsibility on BOTH, then we can expect sellers to pay attention who's buying the tax-free buisness orders. i don't think they want to risk legal consequenses to save the other guy money.

No it will have the opposite effect, people will have more to spend and would not mind spending it and being taxed on things they actually want.

I'm afraid I still don't get it. Here are three issues I'd like someone to explain:
* The mathematics is commutative
* However, you're also eliminating the tax brackets
* This results in middle and lower classes bearing more of the tax burden

I explain the above reasoning as thus:
Say you earn $30,000 and are taxed 25%. So you receive $22,500 to spend however you want. Now let's try the other approach instead, and you're only taxed 25% when you buy something: now you receive the lump $30,000, but still can only buy $22,500 worth of goods. That's identical; it's commutative.

...except that you're apparently eliminating the tax brackets. This only benefits the rich, since they can hoard their money and invest it. The mathamatics follows below.

This is detrimental to the (shrinking) middle and (growing) poor classes, who don't have as much luxury. I say this for the following reason: if the government currently taxes the rich at a higher rate, and you remove the tax brackets, to earn the same tax revenue the overall tax rate will need to be higher. You cannot make something from nothing, so if the rich do not pay it, the poorer classes will.

Why do the rich pay less? Since they have more money, a lower percentage needs to be spent on essential (and even luxury) items. This leaves them with a larger percentage of potential excess income they can invest. The effect of investing is a growth in the money, which reduces the apparent tax rate.

Imagine:
* I have $2,000,000 dollars a year.
* I need $100,000 to live nicely.
* This leaves me with $1,900,000 dollars to use.
* If I spend it all on goods right now, I can acquire $1,900,000 * (1 - 25% tax) = $1,425,000 worth of goods
* If I invest instead, and it grows by 25% over a number of years, I now have $2,375,000 lying around, just for that year.
* If I now spend that $2,375,000, I can buy $1,781,250 worth of goods. I'm effectively taxed at 6.25%.

Someone will no doubt quickly point out that the government still gets more taxes. There's just one problem: the increased income generated from investment into stocks comes from stocks rising. Why do they rise? Because consumers, which consist of the majority (poor and middle classes) are buying. So it appears the system is closed, and the government is making a net loss.

Final conclusion: it's all in your head, unless you're stinking rich.

So, I don't get it. What did I miss?

>>11

"If people pay you for services and goods, you should be giving up more tax money to make sure those people (fellow AMERICANS) are still in a good situation to by from you. "

I don't follow your logic here, if you pay me for goods or services then that is what you get in return, it is not my responsibility to make sure you can afford them? Then I should go to my local Ferrari dealership and ask him to pay for the 150K extra that I can't afford to pay for the car?

And you are right success doesn't occur overnight, so why punsish someone when they are actually succesful? There is nothing fair about taxing those earning more, it only happens because the government can get away with it, and besides obviously they can't tax those earning less what would be the point.

>>12 just because someone is a conservative don't assume we are anti-immigration I am an immigrant and very conservative. (I am not >>10 BTW)

>>12
>So why don't people just commit a crime and live a wonderful life in jail without ever having to work?
some people do just that, but your suggestion of the government providing all nesscessities is even worse because you don't even have to make the effort to find the right crime that will keep you behind bars for a while for a while before you have to do it again. and since you'd only have to work for luxuries, there's that much less incentive, and you'll get that many more half-assed workers who know they don't need the job and really show it with thier performance. your average person would probably only work enough so they couls get some of the stuff they want, so that they have plenty of time to enjoyment.

and there'd be that much more income tax, those that strive to climb the ladder would be doing so while fighting the costs of paying for the collective mass of those who would be pleased enough just to have the basics, and those that are only for limited luxuries, and maybe work a little bit at Mcdonalds on the weekends.

and, are you inderectly contradicting yourself here?

first you speak of the homeless who are unable to get jobs, THEN you speak of how mass immigartion is a benefit as it brings in more workers. is there no connection between the size of the work force and how available jobs are? does it register in your brain that the guy on the street who can't afford a shower would be even WORSE off when employers have the cheap labor of these young adults to choose from?

okay middle point first, the poor person who can't get a job.
first, let's not suffer under the delusion that poverty is a disease that swoops from the sky and randomly attacks, or the paranoid conspiracy that the govenment singles out people to make poor.

i'm not going to say that there's no way someone can become poor through no fault of thier own, but those people are no doubt few and far between amid those who spent more than should have, or became totally dependent on someone else who decided to dump the moocher or otherwise stopped paying thier way for them, or for whatever other reason ended up with self-inflicted poverty.

On top of that, i'm sure we'd all like the option of cutting off funds we send to a nonprofit if say, it was found most of the money was being embezzled, rather than going to the cause, but turning off the tap on a government program for such a purpose isn't so easy, as the giving is done FOR you, and before you even get your money if it's with an income tax.

while i'm not saying that maybe quite a few of them would do better given a second chance, doing so should be optional, not funded by tax dollars, but paid for by nonprofits that work from donations. people should have a choice, and not invariably be playing for the poor choices of others.

second, i don't see any signs of america hurting for employees, if there's unemployment at all, then the workwers outnumber the jobs. mass immigartion may be a benefit if america as a whole were understaffed rather than underemployed, but only counting them as workers, it's more of something there isn't a shortage of to begin with.

>>15
"* This results in middle and lower classes bearing more of the tax burden"

no, that's what's happening now. the working class pays income tax, and embedded taxes on goods, the rich have special interest deductions, and workarounds lightening thier tax load.

and are you working under the assumption that the rich will suddenly stop living like they're rich? your averge person will spend more money if they have more money.

you're missing it because you're looking in the other direction. you're trying to calculate income tax percentage from a consumption tax.

take a step back and instead of figuring how much of the income is spent on taxes, figure out how much is spent.

the rich a a whole will no doubt be spending more on luxuries, and thus still paying more taxes. the fairtax hits you harder the more you spend, not harder the more you earn.

the working class pays income tax, and embedded taxes on goods, the rich have special interest deductions, and workarounds lightening thier tax load.

Ah, that's a valid point. So why not eliminate deductions instead then?

the fairtax hits you harder the more you spend, not harder the more you earn.

Yes, I am aware of that. This makes me think it'll only benefit the rich, because the middle and lower classes are already barely savings anything. For them it's money in = money out; thus commutativity.

Until someone can explain away the equations I've provided, I'm not convinced.

>>16

How was that illogical? If people can't buy your goods because of something YOUR corporation did that results in people having less money, then your business goes to shit.

I just don't like the idea that success somehow entitles you not to give back to your country and the consumers who build your company and help you make your money. The notion that an American corporation can just fuck up the American economy via lobby politics and fuck off to another country when we slip into another great depression irks me.

The rich need to kept in check, especially when they are the ones most involved in government and the one most able to make their influence on the world at large felt- by disenfranchising others.

>>17
"some people do just that, but your suggestion of the government providing all nesscessities is even worse because you don't even have to make the effort to find the right crime that will keep you behind bars for a while for a while before you have to do it again."
Surely that's a good thing. If someone is being given very rudimentary boring food and shelter, then they won't need to go out and shoplift or assault someone to get into jail to get food and shelter. What's more is they will be given the opportunity to get a job. You are forgetting that homeless people are usually homeless because they don't know what to do to get a better life. They are not particularly bright or social and it hardly costs anything to tell them what to do. Show up here at this time, you will be given a trolley full of lceaning equipment and a hoover and if you clean this bulding within 2 hours you will get $15. Much better than loiterring around in a homeless shelter for 2 hours and earning nothing.

"and since you'd only have to work for luxuries, there's that much less incentive, and you'll get that many more half-assed workers who know they don't need the job and really show it with thier performance. your average person would probably only work enough so they couls get some of the stuff they want, so that they have plenty of time to enjoyment."
Wrong, once they get a job they stop getting given carrots and potatoes. Not much of a loss, unless you're into boiled carrots and potatoes, in which case it doesn't really cost much. When I meant basics I meant basics. That would be their life, eat carrots and potatoes, have a cold shower in the morning, maybe a few cups of water. Once a day someone would come along and tell you of the jobs on offer and tell you you'll be fired and won't get paid unless you do it properly, you'd be so bored by sitting around all day and so bored with the food you would do the job properly. The people who have jobs and who can't afford their own accomodation (and have to live with filthy hobos, providing an incentive to get out of there and if they like it there, they probably pay for their rudimentary accomodation through indirect tax anyway) will be eating beef burgers and chop suey, whilst the unemployed will be eating more boiled carrots and potatoes. Much better than having all of them lying on the streets begging.

"and there'd be that much more income tax, those that strive to climb the ladder would be doing so while fighting the costs of paying for the collective mass of those who would be pleased enough just to have the basics, and those that are only for limited luxuries, and maybe work a little bit at Mcdonalds on the weekends."
Wrong, the benefit of turning homeless bums into workers will pay for itself. Not all homeless people are crazy fucks and drug addicts, but there are a lot out there who are not crazy and only need a leg up to spend the rest of their life working for a living. This leg up can only be the smallest of fractions of overall tax since an out door shower, scaffolding coverred with plastic and 3 months worth of carrots and potatoes (estimated time it takes for a homeless person in the shelter to start working) costs around $90, $40 for carrots, $40 for potatoes and $10 for miscellaneous, or $20 dollars if you want to go to the extreme. Assuming the worst for my argument, this person will be earning at least $10 a day for the rest of his life of which at least 10% will be taken in tax. So a dollar a day goes back into the system compared to 0 dollars if the person remained homeless and unemployed. So unless the person dies in 100 days, he/she will be paying back their debt to society aswell as making the fruit farmers of the US very happy.

"first you speak of the homeless who are unable to get jobs, THEN you speak of how mass immigartion is a benefit as it brings in more workers. is there no connection between the size of the work force and how available jobs are? does it register in your brain that the guy on the street who can't afford a shower would be even WORSE off when employers have the cheap labor of these young adults to choose from?"
That was my argument, well done. Though I fail to see why you think I disagreed with my own argument. Perhaps you think I am a liberal.

"while i'm not saying that maybe quite a few of them would do better given a second chance, doing so should be optional, not funded by tax dollars, but paid for by nonprofits that work from donations. people should have a choice, and not invariably be playing for the poor choices of others."

I believe that if such programs do cause a problem, that political parties should strive to find a balance so the net monetary benefit of the "get the homeless into jobs" schemes is the highest it can be. This is my idea, of giving them the barest cheapest essentials possible so they can at least apply for a job and not look like a dirty hobo whilst they do it. I think that they should be given cod liver oil and a few more services to get a job other than 1 job centre worker who comes each day with a list of jobs and gives a brief prep talk, but my idea of the bare essentials, living like a medieval peasant, is good for starters.

I agree with everything else. I also believe immigration should be tightenned so there are more unskilled jobs for homeless unemployed americans.

>>18
The assumption that the rich will change their spending habits is not that illogical. They already find loopholes in the current system to save money. What makes you think they wouldn't do the same in any other tax system? That is to say, they may still spend like the rich, but would do so in a way that would circumvent taxing. In the current system, at least the rich people have to pay accountants and lawyers to find the tricks and there's money that trickle down. In a fairtax system that might not be the case.

>>22
Uh, I think under such a system it'd probably cost a whole lot more to find loopholes for every little situation.

>>22 what plan are you looking at? the fairtax works at the retail level and is applied on all goods and services. retailers and sevrice providers collect it. buisness transactions are untaxed, and that's proably pretty dang easy to keep seperate from luxury buys. sellers that provide industrial supplies or sell goods to retailers would sell without tax. you wouldn't just fash a buisness card a wal-mart and get that HDTV without playing tax.

workarounds for goods may cost you more than you save. say, buying a pallet of those HDTV's from your buisness without tax. but if you could do that, you'd probably be able to just give one to yourself out of your usual buisness, as i doubt a supplier would sell a crate of electronics to say, a dry cleaner, lest they be caught as part of a tax evasion scheme. it takes two to evade the fairtax, and the seller would probably face risk of percecution fot the tax evasion, in addition to not benefiting directly with the deal.

and you'de have to be seriously tricky to evade the fairtax on services. say you want to have your car painted and waxed, to avoid playing fairtax, you'd probably have to take your car overseas, or at least to mexico or canada, and having it done there would probably cost more than you'd save by avoiding the fairtax on it.

>>21
well, your homless-to-working program sounds nice, so far, how fleshed you do you have this idea? i'd reccommend some kind of deterrent against those who would just freeload off the system. but then again, if I were making such a program, i'd probably do a sort of blind interview, to find out if a potential program participant would actually be willing to work, in any case i may be interested in supporting sucha program as a independent nonprofit. why should it be the govenment that does charitable work? that way you're more likely to get helpers dedicated to the cause, rather than govenment emplyees who could care less. and while being a private charity may not give it such a solid floor as a government funded program which has a preset govenment budget, govenment funding has a ceiling, whereas a private can get as much money as people are willing to give.

but then again, i belive anything that CAN be done with a private organization, profit or non-profit, SHOULD be. i'm not too fond of the lack of accountability of government funding.

just look at the school system, america is #25 in the world, our shools are getting owned by countrites who don't even spend a TENTH of what we do per child. i blame that on the lack of accountability. public schools don't have to run a tight ship, govenment money will always be rolling in. each member only has to work hard enough not to get fired.

here's a neat idea, have the govenment pay for education, but not RUNNING it. here's somebody's system as i heard it: each child is worth a determined amount of money. and a school gets that much money for each child enrolled in thier school. that's as far as the govenment gets involved. the schools operate as private buisnesses, competing for the government money. the teachers and shools strive to make the best of that money, as the better the job they do, the more children will be enrolled in thier school. if a school does a mediocre job, it will bust as parents, who now choose what school thier child goes to, choose better schools. (rather than being ordered to send them to whatewver school the government chooses.) freedom of choice, now THAT'S what i want to see from america.

segwaying back to the fairtax, aside from the waste from the complexity, and the ease of tax evasion that even the flat tax would allow, i really like the fairtax as it's a system that seems more in tune with the ideas the USA was founded upon. rather than this tax system, which quite frankly, is turning commie, what with income, property, death, and hell, GIFT taxes? i'm not a fan of those taxes as they kind of reflect the attitude that the govenment owns everything of value, and they you're only borrowing from it. i prefer the fairtax because it gives you the freedom to decide for yourself how to spend every cent your money, and making paying taxes as easy as spending on the things you want anyway.

>>24
If you were say a family run restaurant biz. You buy food to prepare dishes. You also eat some of that food. You have just success fully avoided paying taxes (on living expenses) that a non-biz person would have to pay. Granted you could do that with the current system, but with fair tax there's no income tax to boot. This is just one example of how businesses can cheat the system. And this is just the "middle class" folks. Do you not see a problem here?

You can flash your sam's card right now and get HDTVs without tax. Fair tax won't prevent that.

Basically with fair tax businesses and the rich people that run them win.

>>25
I don't like property, death, and gift taxes either. Heck, who likes taxes at all. I also a agree a simple system would be nice, but as someone has probably already mentioned standards of living are going go way down. The rich/poor divide is going to increase. Is this a bad thing? Probably, I hadn't thought about it much.

Necessities like cars (yes they are necessary at times) are going to be alot harder for your average person to buy. Buying used/old fuel inefficient cars is not an answer. Not everyone lives in a metro area with public transportation and walking is not always an option. Your average person loses.

The US automotive businesses which are already in the shitter are going to suffer from even less sales. This industry loses.

US economy slows down. The whole world loses.

>>26 okay, you've made something of a point. sam's club is a grey area would it be a tax-free retailer? I wouldn't think so, it's less of an inter-corparational distributor, more of a bulk retail store. and you can freely give yourself goods from your own buisness (which, isn't really tax evasion, since you're not actually SELLING it.) you might TRY to say, buy tax-free electronics claiming it as a buisness burchace from anart store, but the seller may decline if it's soo small an order, or if it's blatantly unrelated to your company, as ideally, BOTH parties would be liable for the tax evasion.

oh, and you example isn't such a good one, as you pointed it out as tax evasion on living expenses, but the plan specifically has the prabate so you DON'T have to pay taxes in nesscessities.
and it also doubles as a benefit if you grow your own food, or provide another nessesity yourself.

and the tax is levied on goods AND services, i guess it'd be tax evasion then, whenever a mechaninc works on his own car, the way a electronics store owner could take home a dvd player.

because in either case, the buisness owner fails to send the $0 portion of the money gained from giving himself perks from his own buisness.

and even if you counted that as tax evasion, it wouldn't add to the amount of evasion the current system has, what with evading taxes being as easy as
1. getting income without a paper trail.
2. not claiming that income.

>>27
okay, what the heck are YOU talking about? care to explain the link between taxes aaand, ANYTHING else you were talking about in that post?

>>28
Higher taxes on "luxury goods" means decrease in the sale of said goods. Decreases in sales means slow economy. Slow economy is bad. Is that clear enough?

Things and people which are dependant on the government for certain services should pay their dues. A drunkard who causes trouble should pay a fine, but also the drinks he drinks and the bar he bought the drinks from should be taxed and fined in relation to their participation in their cost to society. If a building owner doesn't buy fire extinguishers or educate the people in the building about fire safety, it should pay more tax to make up for the fact that the fire servies need more money to cope with their ineptitude.

Would everyone agree that is the basic idea, even if it is difficult to decide exactly how much certain establishments should pay?

If you did otherwise, then the economy would become lop sided, with banks paying for the crime done due to drunkards and one tenant of a building with a smoke detector and a fire extinguisher paying for the negligence of everyone else in the building.

>>30
this looks like an argument for taxing buisnesses, dispite they don't actually pay the taxes, thier customers, employees and shareholders (if applicable) do.
1.drunkard example. while some may argue some goos should have higher taxes, if that's allowed, some may argue that other items deserve to be taxed less, open that box, and the K street lobbyists will be back to needlessly complicating the tax code and adding the waste of haveuing to pay money to find out how much in taxes you owe.
oh, and this is also a case of holding companies responsible to the actions of thier consumers. if someone drinks irresponsively, the effects are thier responsibility alone. i'm not one to support removing the blame from the person at fault and throwing it at a company, or adding more blame just as an excuse for money to be collected out of greed or spite.

the fire example, if there are laws requiring fire extinguishers and emergency instruction, the violation should be fined, the result is that the tennants, or employess would get the burden of the fine, and start demading that the issue be resolved, lest they move or seek employment selsewhere.

fining a violation is one thing, it creates incentive to follow regulations. but a regular tax on any buisness has but one purpose: deception. that is, to hide tax costs in the price of goods, or lower wages or employment.

>>29
actually, the fairtax will be quite good for the economy.
first of all, the income tax will be gone. either workers will start getting more money as the taxes that were taken from them stop, or less appealing when first heard, companies will be able to cut wages and offer the same take-home pay. but this means reduced costs, which almost certainly means lower prices in any merket with competition.

buisness taxes will be gone, meaning companies costs will go down, which will do-doubt quickly translate into lower prices.

the prices you see today are inflated by taxes and shipping costs from overseas.

money will start flowing INTO america rather than out. taxes add so much to the cost of goods it's cheaper to make them overseas and ship them in. forien taxes AND the cost of importing those goods are evidently lower than the tax costs of doing it here. wages will go up as more jobs flow in, as american busnesses come back home, and other countries start making factories in america to have lower-cost goods from a country that doesn't add taxes to the cost of doing buisness.

if anything, people will have more money to buy good that are now ever-so-sligtly more expensive.

>>31

I'm finding very little fault with what you're saying. So what's stopping us from using Fairtax. I'm not saying it's not a good idea, but realistically- do you think our government is looking to change a taxing system that has thus far worked to their benefit?

Actually, while it does make sense to tax liquor based on the problems it causes, normal people also pay for police ETC... to protect THEM from the drunkards. 

>>32
That's right.  It would take a massive restructuring of the government to make something like that happen.  Something which the imperial powers will not allow to happen.

>>32
First of all, please use better grammar. I can barely make out what you're saying.

The reason businesses send work overseas is for the cheap labor not taxes. Would you have minimum wage laws repealed to bring jobs home? How are your wages going to go up then? Regardless, I don't care if wages go up if standards of living go down.

>buisness taxes will be gone, meaning companies costs will go down, which will do-doubt quickly translate into lower prices.
Temporarily, sure. After big corporations use their economies of scale to crush all competition out of the way you can say bye bye to lower prices.

>>32
>>34
about the only thing REALLY slowing down (not stopping) the fairtax is pessemisim. people just think it will never happen. i've yet to see ANY logic behind that idea, because america's govenment is elected by the people. if the people demand the fairtax, congressional and presidential candidates will be forced to support the plan in order to get elected.

but most of the people i talk to just sigh under the assumption that it can never happen. and thus become part of the problem. which REALLY irks me.

the only losers in an america with the fairtax is those that make a living off the dysfunctioonal tax system we have today, special interest lobbyists, tax experts, and politicians who can only get themselves elected by using the confusion about taxes.

IRS employees will be out of a job as well, but it seems most i've been hearing from them is that they understand how badly the income tax is hurting america, and realize a change needs to happen, and soon. (especially since the AMT may soon be hitting the working class.)

>>35

First all: Fuck you. The ONLY "grammatical" mistake in my post is a period where a question mark should be- and that's due to rushed typing.

Second of all: You didn't answer my fucking question. You dickless, dipshit. Lurk more, fagstrom.

>>36

That still doesn't answer my question. What do I do? Write a congressman who's going to pretend he didn't get my letter? Vote in a senator that's going to fuck with the fairtax system to the point where all the benefits for using fairtax are void for the working class?

How far do you think our government will go to protect the status quo, is what I'm asking you.

You dickless, dipshit.

What is that supposed to mean? It sounds like Pidgin.

Oh, wait... Tarzan. Yeah, that's it.

>>39

It means that; in addition to having no dick...you also like to spend your free time submersing yourself in pools of feces. Now that we've cleared that up- would you care to elaborate further on the likelihood of our government adopting a system that completely destroys the status quo?

Or would prefer I come back later and tore your 3rd grade intelliect apart with insults that are more intricate and work against your ideals on subconscious levels? Then you can spell check them, bask in the perfect sentence structure and proceed with an inferior response.

Your choice.

Hi, >>40, it's >>39. Did you miss me?

Anyway, I have a little secret to tell you. I've never told anyone else, so don't let the world know, okay? ...I'm not >>35.

Surprising, isn't it?

PS. You really need to brush up on your flaming.

>>41

I understand the concept of World4chan, you fuckwit. I don't care what number you are.

And: HAHAHAHA! "Flaming"? The only thing flaming around here is the horde of AIDS compacted into your asshole by your boyfriend's dick.

This isn't an AOL chatroom, nobody says "flaming" anymore.

>>42 is anti-chan.

Still a repressed fag with anger issues.

>>43

I can understand how you think calling you a cocksucker makes ME a fag. (Yet, you calling me a fag doesn't?) - But what I don't understand is what mechanism you're using to translate anger over the internet.

I can assure you, my delivery is entirely dry. I simply don't take alot of you very seriously.

Why should I?

Excuses, excuses. You're obsessed with buggery, penises, and shit. A large number of posts you've made since you arrived on /newpol/ have some gay innuendo or insult in them.

As for dry, >>37 is you, right? How very dry.

>>45

Maybe you just take all of internet business a bit more seriously than I do. "Buggery", penises, incest- all of this shouldn't translate over as "obsessive" at your age. Especially when you *just* called me a fag. Would it be safe for me to assume that you're obessesed with "anti-chan" or "niggers" or "liberals"? Come on there guy, get over yourself. You are on 4chan.

Maybe if you actually socialized with colorful, open, energetic people like myself (or like, socialized at all)- most of what I say wouldn't even show up on your radar. But nope: You're out there in the trenches man- looking for the profane and more importantly calling people out on it- because it makes you look soooo clean by comparison.

Hahaha. What a looong defence.

>>47

defense*

Failure comes naturally to you, doesn't it?

>>40
Err, so why do you believe that there's this conspiracy to keep the "status quo" intact?  If anything it's just a bunch of incompetent politicians progressing slowly in a stupid direction. 

Someone (or a group of people) with an idea in mind and charisma sufficient to sway the voters could easily destroy the "status quo" in our system.  All it takes is time. 

Anyway, what, if anything, do you support?  All out war on the government?  Good luck in waco, bud. 

>>46
I don't know, it just seems unneccsary in intelligent debate to call your opponent dickless or shit-eating.  Would you like me to call you a nigger who doesn't know anything?  A porch monkey?  Antique farm equipment?

>>50
And it shows how emotionally seriously you're taking the debate too. 

>>35
If they could do it under those circumstances, does it not stand to reason that they could do it now?  Why not? 

>>52
Honestly, I don't believe that corporations are out to enslave mankind.  I mean, that goes against their business model...

>>50

You've obviously done so in the past, why change?

>>49

Huh? Who's talking about a conspiracy? Is your scope for thought really that narrow? Do you remember the sixites at all? Have you at least *read* about the sixites?

>>51

Exactly. *I* don't take people seriously when they point out one PUNCTUATION MISTAKE and claim they couldn't read the entire post.

>>54
#1 Yet again you assign identity to a poster incorrectly.

#2  What? 

#3  You still feel the need to fling your feces around.  Getting into it with cretins who point out stuff like that doesn't exactly make you look like the Duke of Wellington. 

>>54
What I meant in >>49 is that politicians aren't people who try to hold on to power no matter what.  What happens is that they get into power by giving people what they think they want, and the people in turn little by little give them more power to do that. 

>>55

1. Have I? Or do you just not want to own up to some of the comments you may have made?

2. I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to >>49. Sackface.

3. Don't you get it? I don't care how it makes me look to a bunch of guys who freely spew "nigger nigger, porch monkey, liberal, conversative, kike, faggot!"

LOL, you know what? Fuck it: You win. It doesn't even matter.

>>56

Again, you need to google 1960, to understand what I mean. Our government isn't just a bunch of ragtag politians. It's a culture of a certain group of people. (Aristocrats)

Just answer my question.

for those of you wondering what you can do to help get the fairtax passed, you can find details at fairtax.org. essentially they have a petition, and contact information of the people you'd talk to, and either get to support the fairtax, or replace with someone who will.

i'm thinking it may help to put some pressure on state govenments, to adopt a micro version of the fairtax. if any do so, they'll probably thrive and set the precedent for.

more on the probablility of it passing. the current mess of rules ws made by poiliticians who like to use confusion to make themselves look good. seeing fairtax support that isn't shaken by deceptive, or outright dishonest counter-arguments, they'd probably take the hint and see there's no point in supporting the tricky income tax if the voters won't fall for it. though we'd probably do better to replace him if he doesn't take to it.

let me repeat that it's all up to the people of america to choose this change and force it through. some politician won't do it for us. we have to get our elected officials to support it or replace them with someone who will.

Cool your jets 32, this is 35 and the message was directed at 31. Sorry for the mishap, lol.

Furthermore, I know this is 4chan and all, but didn't you think the response made no sense? Why didn't you question whether or not it was addressed to you? It didn't answer your question at all and you could have just ignored it. Instead you launched a barrage of ad hominim attacks. 43 might right about you and anger issues.

>>52
They are doing it now, slowly. I'm just saying fairtax accelerates the problem.
>>53
I don't think it's their intent to enslave mankind either, but their business model is one that is supposed to increase value for shareholders. When there's no more competitors the most obvious way to increase value is to increase prices. Then it would be an objective of corporations to get rid of competition.

>>60
It would be easier to just form a trust with your competitor, and then cooperate.  But they dont' do that now do they?

The reason?  Oh, I dunno, law.

>>61
Have you seen what's happened to SBC and AT&T recently?

>>60
aside from the govenment periodically splitting up monopolies,

the fairtax will probably be better for competition. larger companies have already implemented tax workarounds, know the deductions, and have special interest lobbyists lined up to get more. newer, and smaller buisnesses will have an easier time competing when thier smaller workforce(maybe even one person!) doesn't have to choose between taking a hefty cunk of time out of doing actual work, or making the best of taxes. main effect on competition when the fairtax passes will probably be elimination of a major advantage for larger companies who make the tax code work for them (well, as much as it can, considering the costs it adds)

>>48
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=defence

You're an illiterate, anti-chan.

so, here's what i see now, there's no reason NOT to supprt the fairtax. there's no good argument against it.

the fairtax is made to be an antidote to the current tax system which is like a poison to america.

arguing against the antidote is arguing FOR the poison.

this plan was made by economists and researchers, who spent years desighning a better way for the government to collect taxes.

people aren't pertfect, and so they can't make a perfect system, but the fairtax seems to be as close as we can get, and better yet, it's right in-line with american idealisim, so what better plan to run america on?

>>65
I still haven't heard a good rebuttal to >>15 or >>19.

Until I do, this sounds like wankery.

>>15
let's look at this again, i need to swat it DOWN.
i belive you miss the point that the taxed consumption income is OPTIONAL.

it's all down to how much luxuries to buy. the poor can tighten thier belts so thet they're playing the same income tax rate as someone rich will. here's your math:

Imagine:
* I have $2,000,000 dollars a year.
* I need $100,000 to live nicely.
* This leaves me with $1,900,000 dollars to use.
* If I spend it all on goods right now, I can acquire $1,900,000 * (1 - 25% tax) = $1,425,000 worth of goods
* If I invest instead, and it grows by 25% over a number of years, I now have $2,375,000 lying around, just for that year.
* If I now spend that $2,375,000, I can buy $1,781,250 worth of goods. I'm effectively taxed at 6.25%.

this points out that saving and earning interest is a good idea.
necessities atre untaxed by the prebate, so it's up to the individual to decide how much in luxuries they will buy.

meaning: the poor won't be hit harder by the fairtax, it's thier bad spending habits that are hurting them.

next apparently unadressed point. . .

well then that's thier own fault, not the fault of the fairtax.

the fairtax untaxes spending up to the poverty level via the prebate, unlike now where there are taxes imbedded in all you buy, even nescessities.

if this is a second post by >>15, you only pointed out that saving is a good idea.

if people spend all the money they have, when they COULD be saving some of it, it's thier fault, not the fault of the fairtax.

>>1  Sounds like Reganomics. Trickle-Down thoery only made the rich richer.

>>68  Your an idiot. There are only so many houses and new cars a person can buy. After that it's just wealth hording, followed by a stock market crash. The machine needs a constant back and forth of money or it will sieze up.

>>15  Your smart, now figure 30 thousand a year income in expenses and luxuries for the "fair"tax proposal.

>if people spend all the money they have, when they COULD be saving some of it, it's thier fault, not the fault of the fairtax.

Or we could have a progressive income tax, and it will be no one's fault, dumbass.

>>69
looks like we got a communist class warlord here!
seems to me in your eyes anything that's good for the rich is automatically bad for the poor.

your bash of my post at 68 seems to be nothing more than a "saving money is bad!" statement. with a bit of economic paranoia thrown in. you speak of wealth hoarding as if saved money negates all other cash flow, resulting in disaster. as it is now, money is flowing out of the united states, earing interest overseas.

think of this, where do banks get interest money to pay people with savings accounts? essentialy, the deal is, banks let other people borrow your money, and give you a cut of the interest as loans are paid back. so interest-earning bank accounts ARE money flow! only under the current system, people are sending that cash overseas to avoid capital gains taxes, and making that cash flow work for other countries.

think not? then explain how else the bank can pay YOU to keep your money locked safely away in thier secure building.

and how do you define fairness? i see fairness as equal treatment of all parties. thus the fairtax is fair because everone pays the same way, the govenment gets a cut of all thier luxury spending.

and a progressive tax is thusly UNFAIR, because it penalizes you more the more you earn. how would you like to be paid LESS for overtime, and the guy who only works an hour or two on the weekdays to get paid more? that's the way a progressive income tax works, if you work harder to earn more, you get less buck for your bang as higher precentages of siezure of your money penalize the extra effort.

>>71
Tell that to Japan. One reason why their economy is so solidly fucked is that a lot of the money is tied up in savings. In Japanese banks.

Also, most banks I've seen expect you to pay them, they don't pay you. Even though that money is usually being put to use elsewhere, if you have enough money what you get back is below the inflation rate. GJ.

>only under the current system, people are sending that cash overseas to avoid capital gains taxes, and making that cash flow work for other countries.
Can you explain this in more detail. It sounds like strawman tactics to me.

Here's an idea. Rich/high income people tend to be smarter. They tend to think of more ways to save their money. As a result they're the ones that tend to evade/avoid taxes. So punish them. The poor people barely have money to be taxed. They're not squirreling away money to foreign countries. They're keeping the money here. So now you propose a "fair" tax to punish them? Under fair tax poor people get less bang for their buck. That doesn't sound like equal treatment of all parties.

>>60

Hey, there dumb-dumb. Go back to your post and look who you quoted. Thanks for playing, dummy!

>>64

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=defense

I'm a what, now?

That's what I thought.

>>74
A complete idiot? They're both right. zOMG!

Amazing, I know...

>>73 yeah, the rich are so evil, how DARE they have the intelligence to earn more money and save that money! anyone who makes good financial decisions is the scum of the earth!
about the only thing the rich do that you mentioned that's actually a vice is using workarounds to reduce thier tax burden, and shifts the burden to the poorer working class.

which is just another reason to switch to the fairtax! that tax evasion will be a LOT harder to pull off, as first of all we don't have the individual filing that we may as well say is working on the honor code, allowing them to earn hidden untaxed income. the tax will be collected as they spend that wealth on thier luxurious lifestyle.

let me let you in on something, the rich don't avoid taxes just for the fun of it, or to specifically hurt the poor, to them it's just a way to save money. fairtax evasion would be considerably more difficult, or even cost more money than it saves. for example, say you were rich and wanted to get your stretch limo painted, but didn't want to pay the fairtax on it. you'd have to ship it out of country to avoid the tax, would the time and money spent doing so cost less than the fairtax potion? or you'd have to dig for someone who will risk legal action just to lower prices for thier customers, whith no direct benefit to themselves.

your argument is compries ENTIRELY of spite and class warfare. which is how we got this horrid income tax system that just doesn't work.

consider this: your argument is that the rich will pay a smaller percent of thier income in taxes. and is thus worse than the current system which REALLY crushes the working class. a chunk of thier income is automatically seized from what they earn, and they're paying about the same prices they'd pay under the fairtax, only they don't get a prebate to compensate for the embedded taxes on thier nesscessities. whereas the rich get thier income from souces that don't automatically ship the cash to uncle sam, and need only to hide those earnings to avoid paying taxes on it.

you know, it's really funny, because you're arguing backwards. the fairtax would crush tax evasion, and the rich would finally be paying thier share via thier luxury spending.

your argument is compries ENTIRELY of spite and class warfare.

Why do you think there's class warfare? Why do you think you can live the life you do today? If it wasn't for class warfare we'd still all be serfs, you damn fool.

And no, rich is not equal to goody good (you are from the US). Few people get rich by playing the rules; most get rich by being lucky amoral assholes. If you think otherwise, you're a naive kid who has never been in the workforce.

>>77
>>73
>>72
>>70
so, can you do anything other than pick at a single sentance of one of my posts, disagree and sage? try downing my whole argument. oh wait, you can't. because all my other points are apparently too solid for you to even MENTION.

you're arguing that the fairtax would be bad for the poor, when it simply isn't true, because the CURRENT tax system is the one that's crushing the poor. let me quote mayself:

consider this: your argument is that the rich will pay a smaller percent of thier income in taxes. and is thus worse than the current system, which REALLY crushes the working class. a chunk of thier income is automatically seized from what they earn, and they're paying about the same prices they'd pay under the fairtax, only they don't get a prebate to compensate for the embedded taxes on thier nesscessities. whereas the rich get thier income from souces that don't automatically ship the cash to uncle sam, and need only to hide those earnings to avoid paying taxes on it.

you know, it's really funny, because you're arguing backwards. the fairtax would crush tax evasion, and the rich would finally be paying thier share via thier luxury spending.

(77)>"And no, rich is not equal to goody good (you are from the US). Few people get rich by playing the rules; most get rich by being lucky amoral assholes. If you think otherwise, you're a naive kid who has never been in the workforce."

and how much of that is because of a tax system that punishes honest achivements, and inderectly rewards criminal and overseas activity via dodging the income tax?

"Why do you think there's class warfare? Why do you think you can live the life you do today? If it wasn't for class warfare we'd still all be serfs, you damn fool."

to awnser:
spite and envy,
american free enterprize.
and true, but slavery is illegal in america, and the rich don't OWN the poor. so presently there's no real call for class warfare.

because all my other points are apparently too solid for you to even MENTION.

Show me the math. >>15 has demonstrated why it shouldn't work. Now it's your turn.

I don't care what you say, the only thing that can convince me is numbers.

>>77
Most people get rich by inheriting their parents money.

>>80
That sounds like luck to me.

here are some mubers for you then:
let's say your monthly pay is 1000, and your nesscessities run around say, 700. and you get your prebate of 161 dollars.
now let's throw in some cable for 60, internet sevice for 20 snacks for 10 and 60 dollars of impulse buys for a total of 150 in luxury spending, leaving 311 dollars saved. and your fairtax amount spent at 34.5. and for some reason you want one tax to figure out as another, so it comes out like a 3.45% income tax.

let's give you twice the money at 2000 set your poverty level at 700 again, with your 161 dollar prebate. only this time let's not be so conservative. more expensive apartment for 300 more, high end cable at about 100, super speed internet for 50, 30 of snack foods and a 70 gym membership to burn off those calories, credit card interest of 16. as part of payments on a new car of 150, some high end electronics for 200, and another 175 of other stuff you decided to charge away. leaving you only about 370 in the bank. your fairtaxed spending is 925, with 277.5 fairtax paid. if you want to imagine that as an income tax, it's a rate of about 13.875%

what's all this math point out? well, the richer example saved a little more than the one with half the money, and when we figured what the fairtax income precentage rate was, the richer, more spendy person paid a little over a 10% highert rate. even though IMO turning your fairtax spending into an income tax rate is pointless and absurd.

you can draw a number of things from this example, the most important i think is that it's not your income that determines your tax paid and how much of it makes up your total funds is ebtirely dependent upon your spending habits, not your income, so the poor don't come out disadvantaged by the tax system.

you may point out that the rich won't be so dang careless and make a point of saving more, and a lot of the poorer usually spend all they have. to that i say, well, that's thier fault, and it's probably even why they are where they are. a tax sytem shouldn't be expected to free people from thier responsibilities and keep them from the results of thier own decisions, unless it makes thier decisions FOR them. which wouldn't be a very american system.

maybe you'd like a fairtax system where all money one has saved at the end of the year becomes govenment property. that will teach those dirty saving rich!

Hay I haven't responded for a while. I'm the guy with the idea for homeless shelters that get the homeless into work and help them psychologically.

I think things like this should be run like a business integrated with the government, in fact democracies are very much like businesses in which groups compete to gain votes/sales. As a result it is only fair, logical and obviously beneficial to make tax fairer than fairtax and to not tax sales along with incomes, dividends, savings and shares. People should only pay property and services tax depending on where they live and political parties should compete to find the best balance between expense and effectiveness for a particular area and to be as effective as possible. The results would set proper guidelines for how much people and businesses owe society for the environment they are in. Perhaps elements of fairtax should be involved to tax businesses which affect the region, but are not in the region. So a beer factory in another state will have to pay a tax to export beer to a state which has a problem with drunkards.

>>83
glad you're working on your ideas, i have some disagreements however.

first of all, there's NO reson to tax a buesness other than to hide taxes away, or discourage that buisness. i don't think i need to go over again how buisnesses don't PAY anything, they just act as channels for excange.

and your opinion of fairness seems to differ from mine. first of all, property taxes. how are those fair? this adds a special burden specifically for those who own property, and i belive to be fair, you have to treat all parties the same.
a property tax to me is a spite tax, saying that if you own your own home, you shoud be penalized.

and on that note, taxing services and not goods. either one is buisness front. why should a carpenter or mechanic have his prices added to via taxation when his neighbors that sell electronics or garden supplies don't?

i've heard that question asked in reverse, when people ask why services should be taxed. if buisnesses are to act as tax collectors, WHY should one group collect and the other not, just because of a difference in the fom of what is sold?

as for export/import taxes, first let me say i'm wary of making exceptions, as that's how K street lobbyists over-complicated the current tax code. but if that's to be done, such shoud be done as an import tax collected by the place reciving. they're the ones who want to discourage it in the first place.

ｓｔｏｐ ｂｕｍｐｉｎｇ ｔｈｉｓ ｔｈｒｅａｄ．

>>85

care to at least post a REASON we shouldn't be discussing what will be the biggest shift of power from the govenment to the people since the constitution was written?

if not, quit spam saging.

>>86

Because you're the only person who thinks that.

>>87 i'm going to bump, mostly to spite you, as it's probably not far off to assume you're the same guy, who kept cherry-picking sentances from my posts in a poor attempt to disguise the fact you didn't have any good arguments against my points.

lol dramawhore