On Tue, 09 Nov 2004 07:45:19 -0500, DSK wrote:

thunder wrote:
Ah yes, the not a tax increase tax increase. ;-)

Yep, another variation on a common theme. Bear in mind though, gov't
debt drives up inflation which has the same effect as a tax increase.

... Actually, it's my
understanding Bush wants to study a potential complete tax system
overhaul, perhaps a flat or national sales tax.

Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:

YAY!!!!

??? A national sales tax would be a disaster. The ad valorum tax
structure is one of the things that are killing the European economy
(although it's not bad for *us* because it makes the U.S. more competitive).

A flat rate income tax sounds great until you look at it in any detail,
when you realize that it would have to be be around 28% in order to not
have a tremendous shortfall. Also, the morality sucks... it is
effectively a penalty on the less wealthy.

Yeah, but think of the possibilities!! You can have a tax on a tax on
a tax like we have here in Connecticut - effectively triple taxes!!!!

YAY!!!!

Later,

Tom

A flat rate income tax sounds great until you look at it in any detail,
when you realize that it would have to be be around 28% in order to not
have a tremendous shortfall. Also, the morality sucks... it is
effectively a penalty on the less wealthy.


Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
Yeah, but think of the possibilities!! You can have a tax on a tax on
a tax like we have here in Connecticut - effectively triple taxes!!!!

YAY!!!!

You're a strange dude.

Personally, I like Dave Barry's tax proposal... give all IRS agents
inexpensive small caliber handguns, and send them out in the streets to
"collect taxes" directly from the citizens pockets.

DSK

On Tue, 09 Nov 2004 08:02:32 -0500, DSK wrote:

A flat rate income tax sounds great until you look at it in any detail,
when you realize that it would have to be be around 28% in order to not
have a tremendous shortfall. Also, the morality sucks... it is
effectively a penalty on the less wealthy.


Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
Yeah, but think of the possibilities!! You can have a tax on a tax on
a tax like we have here in Connecticut - effectively triple taxes!!!!

YAY!!!!

You're a strange dude.

Thank you for noticing.

As long as any government looks at taxes as "revenue", it ceases to be
government and becomes a corporation. The system we have now is just
as regressive - people just don't know it.

I was serious about that tax on a tax on a tax thing. We have it here
in Connecticut on several high volume items. We also have an
interesting little known aspect to the sales tax. If you purchase an
item, as a gift for example, and it goes beyond thirty days before
that item is returned unused, you can't reclaim the sales tax even if
you have a receipt for the item. It's considered a "use" tax.

I'd rather have a straight flat tax system of some sort to prevent
this kind of nonsense.

Personally, I like Dave Barry's tax proposal... give all IRS agents
inexpensive small caliber handguns, and send them out in the streets to
"collect taxes" directly from the citizens pockets.

Hey - it worked for the Sheriff of Nottingham - until that *******
Robin Hood screwed everything up.

Later,

Tom

On Tue, 09 Nov 2004 13:12:56 +0000, Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:


I'd rather have a straight flat tax system of some sort to prevent this
kind of nonsense.

I'm all for a simplified tax system, but I wonder how long even a flat tax
system would stay simple. A loophole here, and a loophole there, and we
once again have a mess. However, I would agree a flat tax would be
preferable to a sales tax (at least I think that's your preference).

national sales tax.

National sales tax.
Pretty sad.

If you're poor, 100% of whatever you earn will be taxed- at the 25 or 30%
usually floated as the proposed number for such a tax.

Most of the working poor we call the "middle class" these days is up to its
butt in consumer debt as well- how many of us know several families who
transferred consumer credit card debt into 30-year bonds secured against their
home (!) in the last year or two? No break for these people at the 25 or 30
percent tax rate, either. Most are paying less tax now.

Who comes out on top? The well off, the wealthy, and the shockingly rich. A
family earning $1mm a year, but spending only a thousand a day on consumption
(spending money at that rate would be almost a full time job) will have about
1/3 of its income taxed at that 25 percent rate- or will pay roughly about 8%
of its income in taxes.

A $10mm a year family, spending $100,000 a month on consumption, would pay a
whalloping 3% of its income in taxes.

Let's see he If you sweep the floor at WalMart, you will wind up spending
everything you earn and pay 30% of your income to the government in a tax. If
you *own* WalMart, you can't possibly figure out how to spend all the money
coming in
and your tax bill will drop to a couple of percent of your income.

No wonder the right wing likes this idea.
The economics are right out of those two fine traditions, feudalism and
sharecropping.

Funny thing is, most of those red states are filled with itsy bitsy towns and
farms where people do pretty well to make it to the middle class. The red
states get screwed the worst.......the gazillionaires living in California, the
NE and the Pacific NW, in the "blue states", benefit the most from a tax that
targets what you put into the marketplace, rather than taxing what you extract
from it.

You think we've got an "underground" economy now? Just wait until they roll out
a 25-30% national sales tax. Of course it willbe the rich, paying the tiniest
percentage in tax, who will go to the most exotic and extraordinary lengths to
pay even less. :-)

On Tue, 09 Nov 2004 08:35:10 -0500, thunder
wrote:

On Tue, 09 Nov 2004 13:12:56 +0000, Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:


I'd rather have a straight flat tax system of some sort to prevent this
kind of nonsense.

I'm all for a simplified tax system, but I wonder how long even a flat tax
system would stay simple. A loophole here, and a loophole there, and we
once again have a mess. However, I would agree a flat tax would be
preferable to a sales tax (at least I think that's your preference).

I am not a fiscal Puritan in that I despise all taxes. I'm willing to
pay my fair share into the common wealth of the nation. And I believe
that my share should be the same as people who are less well off and
those more well off - I worked hard for my money, ruined my overall
health doing it and I want to keep it. For that, I'm willing to pay,
right off the top - no excuses, 15% of what I make every year even
though I'm retired.

What I object to is the whole issue of using the term "revenue" rather
than what it is - taxes. Puts the entire concept into a whole new
light.

What I object to are sweet heart deals with the State that allows a
company like Verizon to give a 10% discount to State workers on top of
any promotional discounts - real citizens of the state, who pay the
freakin' bills - aren't given that privilege.

What I object to is the State DMV staffing a local office on a
Saturday, for three months in a row, with people who can't speak, or
have an extremely low grasp of, English thus justifying closing the
office because of lack of business. (That is not a joke)

I object to "fees" that aren't designated to the subject for which
they are issued - hunting and fishing licenses being a good example.

I object to hiring tax accountants and lawyers to keep the government
from raping me at the end of the year just because I worked hard to
obtain what I have and I want to keep it.

I object to long winded rants about stuff. :)

I don't know what the answer is, but we need to solve it quickly or
we're just going to keep shooting ourselves in the foot.

Later,

Tom

On 09 Nov 2004 17:00:02 GMT, (Gould 0738) wrote:

national sales tax.

National sales tax.
Pretty sad.

If you're poor, 100% of whatever you earn will be taxed- at the 25 or 30%
usually floated as the proposed number for such a tax.

Most of the working poor we call the "middle class" these days is up to its
butt in consumer debt as well- how many of us know several families who
transferred consumer credit card debt into 30-year bonds secured against their
home (!) in the last year or two? No break for these people at the 25 or 30
percent tax rate, either. Most are paying less tax now.

Who comes out on top? The well off, the wealthy, and the shockingly rich. A
family earning $1mm a year, but spending only a thousand a day on consumption
(spending money at that rate would be almost a full time job) will have about
1/3 of its income taxed at that 25 percent rate- or will pay roughly about 8%
of its income in taxes.

A $10mm a year family, spending $100,000 a month on consumption, would pay a
whalloping 3% of its income in taxes.

Let's see he If you sweep the floor at WalMart, you will wind up spending
everything you earn and pay 30% of your income to the government in a tax. If
you *own* WalMart, you can't possibly figure out how to spend all the money
coming in
and your tax bill will drop to a couple of percent of your income.

No wonder the right wing likes this idea.
The economics are right out of those two fine traditions, feudalism and
sharecropping.

Funny thing is, most of those red states are filled with itsy bitsy towns and
farms where people do pretty well to make it to the middle class. The red
states get screwed the worst.......the gazillionaires living in California, the
NE and the Pacific NW, in the "blue states", benefit the most from a tax that
targets what you put into the marketplace, rather than taxing what you extract
from it.

You think we've got an "underground" economy now? Just wait until they roll out
a 25-30% national sales tax. Of course it willbe the rich, paying the tiniest
percentage in tax, who will go to the most exotic and extraordinary lengths to
pay even less. :-)

You've painted this picture before. But it can be modified, so that
it's not so dreary looking for those who would discard the idea out of
hand.

Items such as food, clothing, medicine, and other essentials could be
tax exempt or taxed at a significantly smaller level (say the current
6%).

"Luxury" items, such as mega-yachts, private aircraft, exotic
vacations, etc could be taxed at a higher rate, which could then be
used to offset the tax rate for other consumer goods.

Dave

Gould,
What do you think of using a VAT (Value Added Tax) similar to the tax used
in most of Europe?



"Gould 0738" wrote in message
...
national sales tax.

National sales tax.
Pretty sad.

If you're poor, 100% of whatever you earn will be taxed- at the 25 or 30%
usually floated as the proposed number for such a tax.

Most of the working poor we call the "middle class" these days is up to
its
butt in consumer debt as well- how many of us know several families who
transferred consumer credit card debt into 30-year bonds secured against
their
home (!) in the last year or two? No break for these people at the 25 or
30
percent tax rate, either. Most are paying less tax now.

Who comes out on top? The well off, the wealthy, and the shockingly rich.
A
family earning $1mm a year, but spending only a thousand a day on
consumption
(spending money at that rate would be almost a full time job) will have
about
1/3 of its income taxed at that 25 percent rate- or will pay roughly about
8%
of its income in taxes.

A $10mm a year family, spending $100,000 a month on consumption, would pay
a
whalloping 3% of its income in taxes.

Let's see he If you sweep the floor at WalMart, you will wind up
spending
everything you earn and pay 30% of your income to the government in a tax.
If
you *own* WalMart, you can't possibly figure out how to spend all the
money
coming in
and your tax bill will drop to a couple of percent of your income.

No wonder the right wing likes this idea.
The economics are right out of those two fine traditions, feudalism and
sharecropping.

Funny thing is, most of those red states are filled with itsy bitsy towns
and
farms where people do pretty well to make it to the middle class. The red
states get screwed the worst.......the gazillionaires living in
California, the
NE and the Pacific NW, in the "blue states", benefit the most from a tax
that
targets what you put into the marketplace, rather than taxing what you
extract
from it.

You think we've got an "underground" economy now? Just wait until they
roll out
a 25-30% national sales tax. Of course it willbe the rich, paying the
tiniest
percentage in tax, who will go to the most exotic and extraordinary
lengths to
pay even less. :-)

Gould,
What do you think of using a VAT (Value Added Tax) similar to the tax used
in most of Europe?

Not much.

I prefer a flat tax, with no tax extracted from the first $30,000 or so of
income. For some, that would mean no tax paid on the money earned during the
first week of the year, and for others that would exempt all income. The
desperately poor should be absolutely untaxed- and maybe they will have enough
left over to save and invest and start getting slightly ahead.

For the rest of us, after the same $30,000 exemption everybody else gets, tax
income at a rate sufficient to balance the budget every year. Maybe 15, 20, or
25%. Those spendthift legislators would be more reluctant to pee away so much
money if it meant they had to immediately tell their constituents that taxes
were going up 2,3, or 4 percent to pay for the latest government program.

We would tax *all* income under the flat tax plan, with a streamlined formula
for measuring "net profit" (the source of most chicanery in the current tax
system).

On Tue, 09 Nov 2004 13:15:56 -0500, Dave Hall wrote:


Items such as food, clothing, medicine, and other essentials could be tax
exempt or taxed at a significantly smaller level (say the current 6%).

"Luxury" items, such as mega-yachts, private aircraft, exotic vacations,
etc could be taxed at a higher rate, which could then be used to offset
the tax rate for other consumer goods.

And out the window goes a simplified tax code. ;-(