Curtis CCR wrote:
DSK wrote in message ...

"John Gaquin" wrote...

I disagree here, Doc. I prefer to see a national consumption tax of about
10%, coupled with total repeal of any income tax.

That doesn't seem like it's going to bring in anywhere near the same
revenue. Unless you are also going to chop off at least half of the
current gov't expenditures, this is just a pie-in-the-sky dream.

One problem I have with having the Feds put on a consumption tax or an
ad-valorum tax or whatever is that it is a serious brake on the economy.
The web of VAT is choking the European economies, we should observe and
learn and do better.



NOYB wrote:
.... I was promoting a flat tax that
phases out at a certain income level.

Ahem... that is a progressive tax, you darn socialist.


Depends on what he meant by "phases out at a certain income level".

I have always thought that a flat tax should start above the poverty
line. I don't know off the top of my head what annual income is the
official threshold for poverty (realistically, it isn't the same
everywhere in the country), but lets just say that everyone can make
$25,000 a year tax free. You pay the flat tax rate on money you make
after that.

It works out to look like progressive tax, but it doesn't have the
bracketing that is used that's used for politcal purposes. Everyone
pays the same rate after $25K.

One thing that has to go with a flat tax system is deductions. That
would include home mortgage interest and (to stay on topic) boat loan
===========???????????????
interest deductions. I don't have a problem with that. But many
charities and other industries that leverage tax deductions would
fight it --- even though it would probably increase the treasury by
huge somes.

Nobby, can you post *anything* you believe in that doesn't reek of
hypocrisy?

DSK

Aside from the fact that in America it has been done so for some
time, I would like to know why you think home mortgage interest
should be deductible from taxable income for a richer person, while
the interest on a mortgage on a rental property would not be
deductible for the renter, and would therefore be paid by those too
poor to afford a down payment on a home?

The bigger the mortgage, the bigger the deduction?

It seems to form a trap to keep the poor poorer while passing a tax
benefit along to the rich. Is this just an unfortunate, unconscious
conspiracy of innocent circumstances?

If you can afford a big house, why not proudly pay a fair share of
tax on it?

Or, is American home mortgage interest deductible because all rental
businesses routinely deduct mortgage interest from business income
as operating expenses, so that home mortgage interest deductions
merely put purchasers on an equal footing with renters?

How about with the proprietors of rental accommodations?

How do you feel this actually pans out?

Instead of expending tax revenue subsidizing those who can make
arrangements to "Buy" a house (in the shadow of a mortgage,) why not
subsidize every citizen's need for health care, like we do in Canada?

Now, I know there are a lot of complainers who think Canadian health
care is lousy, but as a senior canadian, I can tell you that I am
very satisfied with it, (grampy did get a new hip no one could
afford) even if it is not as good as a millionaire might get if the
only thing that mattered was cash to bribe an ambitious doctor.

I'd sleep in a hospital corridor to get a free lung transplant, if I
needed it, and I would not complain about some rich *******'s friend
getting a boob job, or a sex change in a private clinic somewhere so
long as they paid for it themselves after taxes, private room,
personal nurses and all.

It seems fair to me to expect a rich man to pay cash for a house if
he chooses to, or pay nondeductible interest on his mortgage the
same as everybody else has to, if he chooses to finance by mortgage
in Canada.

Interest on business loans or mortgages on purchased rental
investment properties, might better be only partly deductible as
business expenses, which would pass mortgage interest deduction
savings along to those poor who must rent, or those rich who choose
to rent to preserve capital for other investments.

It seems unfair to me to expect any individual to pay personal
income taxes, since everything they buy from business would be taxed
anyway, under any sales tax or VAT scheme. The more money a person
has to spend on consumer items, aside from food, rent,
transportation, medical expenses and books, the more tax they can
afford to pay, and the more tax they should honorably expect to pay.

Most tax money seems to go to pay off war debts that will never be
paid off, leftovers from ancient wars, some good, some bad, all
encouraged by arms manufacturers, and yet still the American
Executive Branch leaps into conflicts never scrutinized by the
people's representatives in congress. Congress should impeach and
imprison unjustifiable political warmongers and other national
plunderers.

Theft of property should never be considered justification for
aggressive war. Return of stolen propery might be.

I can't see any sense in the present taxation system, except from
the arms dealer's pov. Who really runs America these days, gun
runners, drug runners, or maybe the money runners?

Who should?

Should big business be taxed, or should small private citizens? Why
both? It all comes out of one pocket.

If only corporations were taxed, private proprietors and
entrepreneurs would be encouraged, and international corporate arms
trading by manufacturers would be muzzled.

Those sitting on the most enormous piles of wealth expect to
influence government for their own benefit, whether they are
corporate or private individuals, and so they should be taxed to
control their excesses.

The wealthy seem to think they have more rights than the poor, so
why should they not expect to support those governments that justly
protect them against the ire of abused customers? What is fair for
one must also be fair for the other.

Corporations are artificial immoral psychotic profit structures,
robots, unfairly competing with morally constrained private humans
under modern taxation schemes. They cannot fail to enslave every
living human being without adequate democratic controls, simply
because of monetary and taxation policies.

Corporations can not vote, they can only bribe voters to purchase
votes, or buy public relations to fool voters. Their actions need to
be scrutinized very closely, to protect citizen's freedoms. We must
not allow ourselves to be distracted from real issues by whatever
subterfuge attempted by those with the wherewithal to attempt such.

It seems politics is everybody's responsibility.

The leaders of corporations are responsible beyond corporate legal
protections in the case of criminal actions by corporations under
the control of corporate board room criminal conspiracy gangs.

No harm, no foul seems to be this week's telling logic, so whatever
happened to habeus corpus and how can "the crown" imprison and
prosecute those against whom no person complains for cause of damage?

How is it possible that honorable combatant prisoners of war, even
impoverished mercenaries (like US volunteer troops are) captured by
invading military forces while dutifully defending their regimes be
treated as common criminals, and then be denied the right to an
accused criminal's defense? Is it logical to blame those conscripted
-by whatever financial press gang tactics whatever, slaves after
all- for their defeated tyrannical dictator's motivations?

Since when is it possible that the nature of a governmental
complaint against a single human being be so serious that even the
nature of the charges and the evidence against him be kept secret
indefinitely, even to the point that even the mere identity of the
'disappeared' be a national security secret not entrustable to a
lawyer? Unless it is that the individual can incriminate some
politically protected individuals? Unless the nature of their
perceptions of 'the truth' are so imflammable as to endanger an
entire country's existance? Would it be 'more merciful' to simply
kill such a prisoner rather than have him die eventually, gagged in
jail? Unjustified imprisonment, with or without overt torture is the
same thing as, or even worse than state sanctioned murder.

How corrupt does that make a government what needs to resort to such
tyranny in the name of defending justice and freedom "for the
people?" Are American people better entitled to human rights than
any other enslaved people?

Democratic equality is everyone's right, even for those escaping
tyrrany wherever it be.

Surely America was greater than this. If it does not regain it's
former principles it deserves to wither in agony enslaved by greed.

Forgive interest debts. Jubilee is our only hope.

Tax robots, not people!

Terry K