Has anyone seen this? sounds like a crap idea to me...
no more income tax?
by doogie 12 Replies latest jw friends
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kls
No Doogie i have not seen it but if it to good to be true it probably isn't.
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doogie
wait...now it's back. what the heck?...man, i really am dumb...
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Elsewhere
People have been tossing around the idea for a long time, and I love it! It would make taxes fare across the board and encourage investment and savings. People will have a simple choice, keep their money in profitable investments, or blow about 17% of their hard earned money on taxes... that's a no-brainer choice. Also, not having to report the details of your personal finances would GREATLY increase privacy... as we all know Al Capone could only be brought down by the IRS.
A down side, of course, is that the government would loose one of it's most powerful tools in preventing crime and catching criminals. It is very difficult to hide the financial paper trail of organized crime, which is how the IRS catches a lot of criminals.
Come to think of it... if this happened, I would likely be out of a job as I work for a company that handles tax returns!
On second thought... it's a BAD idea... BAD BAD BAD!!!!! This is the work of the devil!!!
(Maybe that is why all of the financial people are opposed to the idea )
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kls
There is is Doogie it's back. I agree with Elsewhere , if you have ever been self-employed the taxes will kill you as they do us and if you have ever delt with the IRS you would know they need to go.
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Farkel
: Has anyone seen this? sounds like a crap idea to me...
Why do you say that? This idea has been proposed before, and the only "credible" argument against it has been that it would put about 200,000 IRS workers out of work, and would damage the 60 billion dollar tax-accounting/litigation industry. Too bad. Income tax is and always had been a bad idea. Not even the IRS itself can understand the myriad of regulations and laws it is supposed to encorce. How is the common citizen able to understand them, then?
Here is why a National Sales tax is superior:
1) It need not be regressive as claimed. Merely exempt life's necessities like food, clothing and shelter from the tax. Poor people will not be punished that way.
2) The infrastructure to enforce sales taxation is already in place in all but the two or three states which don't have a sales tax.
3) The cost for businesses to collect the tax would be minimal, since they already collect, account for and pay state sales taxes. The modest increase in accounting for a National Sales tax could be accommodated by a very minor increase in the cost of goods sold.
4) There is NO taxpayer paperwork, no forms to fill out, no accountants to pay, no penalties and interest to pay, no IRS harrassment and no grief every year on April 15th. All that time wasted on filling out forms and keeping track of receipts and disbursements could be spent on something productive.
5) The tax is PAID at the point of purchase. That's it! It's done!
6) Why should someone who works extra hard to earn extra money be penalized for doing so? This is the case with the current income tax.
7) Why should the sacrifice and discipline required to save money also be taxed AFTER the money was earned and taxed? Why should savings be taxed at all? The money that is put into savings was already taxed when it was earned.
8) People that buy stuff are taxed only for what they buy. People who save or invest put money into savings institutions that can loan out four or five times that much money, thus providing for investment and job-creating capital.
9) Only 42 cents of each dollar the IRS collects goes into the US treasury. The rest is in the overhead necessary for the IRS to collect that money. This does not include the overhead of accountants and tax lawyers private citizens and Corporations use. Therefore, a National Sales tax would require less than HALF the tax money now collected and still provide the same net revenues that are now being collected.
10) Perhaps most importantly, the so-called "income" tax is illegal and un-Constitutional, but not for the reasons you might think. The Constitution only provides for the US Government and States to enact two types of taxes: indirect taxes and direct taxes.
Indirect taxes are taxes on an activity, not a thing. Cigarette and alcohol taxes for example are not on the products themselves, but the manufacturing activity of the product. Indirect taxes must be evenly distributed. For example, if the US Government taxes every quart of whisky produced at the rate of 1 dollar, then no whisky producer can be taxed for more or less than 1 dollar per quart. This wisely prevents governments from taxing one liquor distiller more or less than others.
Direct taxes are on taxes on things, not activities. Property taxes on rental real estate is a good example. But the direct tax must be evenly apportioned among the states. This means the US Government must FIRST decide HOW MUCH total money it needs from a direct tax. Say they need one hundred million dollars. Fine. The Constitution mandates that such a tax MUST be evenly apportioned among the states according to population. If one State has say, 15% of the total US population, that State cannot be forced to pay more than 15% of the TOTAL amount of tax being sought.
So, is the so-called "income" tax a tax on an activity or a thing? If you think the tax is on "income" (cash is a "thing"), you are wrong. Why? Because it would be un-Constitutional. The US Government does not distribute the tax burden currently collected from taxpayers according to population among the states, does it? Even the IRS cannot claim that tax is a tax on income. Is it the tax on the EARNING of income, then? No. Because earning is an activity, and the Constitution says that indirect taxes must be evenly distributed. If the Government wants to tax people say, 1 dollar for every hour worked in the earning of income, then EVERYONE must ONLY be taxed 1 dollar for that activity.
Don't believe me? Ask the IRS, just what thing or activity is being taxed in the so-called "income" tax. They can't or won't tell you.
There is a lot more to this, but I've presented why I think a National Sales tax would be far superior to the current "income" tax.
Farkel -
Atilla
I'm not sure what it all means but does this mean the WT can start to charge for the literature again?
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JeffT
All of the illegal immigrants everybody is complaining about would be making their contribution to the federal tax system. At least some of the money from dope dealers would also make its way into the taxes collected (no they won't start collecting tax on drug money - but it will get taxed when they spend it in the regular economy). I think it would be a good system. The Federal Income tax didn't come into being until about 1919 or so. We got along nicely before that.
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ballistic
We pay both types of tax in the UK, our high taxes here are required to pay for the welfare state and things like free medical care for everyone. I will say however, that any talk of new taxes replacing other taxes is probably a smoke screen to stop leaks about government think tanks investigating new ideas for increased revenue generation. A few well placed press releases about "replacing taxes" covers 1000s of insider stories on "new taxes".