my idea for Tax Reform

[Thoth]

Like so many others, moving to a fair tax might not be a bad idea. Taxing consumption rather than income makes more sense IMO.

I had heard there was some debate whether the rate should be 23 or 31%. I say make it 27% with a few caveats...

There would be no tax on food. I am debating whether there should be no tax on homes and slightly higer property taxes or a scale (10, 15, 20%) depending on price. If you can afford a luxury such as a fancy car, 2nd home, boats, etc... then you get levied 33%.

Of course, it'd be collected at the state level and the IRS could go away.

While we are at it, the Depts of Education & Homeland Security can disappear as well.

It might even encourage saving or at least some restraint........yeah right!

Your thoughts are welcome.

 

[Denny Crane]

My thoughts are to tax people a flat ~25% consumption tax and to rebate $6,000 per man/woman/child to everyone. Cut the size of govt. by 1/3 and eliminate a bunch of worthless war on poverty programs.

The flat tax is regressive - people making $10K/year paying $2500 is a huge burden, while people making $1M paying $250,000 still leaves them $750,000 in spendable income. The rebate is progressive - the $6K per person is $24K to a family of 4; if they make $10K in earnings, the $24K is HUGE, but to a person making $1M, the $6K is a drop in the bucket.

It's fair, and everyone is treated equally. The $24K type rebates are more than sufficient to keep people from being poor and it will enable everyone to have a roof over their heads.

 

[Shapecity]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (blackadder @ Jan 24 2008, 12:36 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Like so many others, moving to a fair tax might not be a bad idea. Taxing consumption rather than income makes more sense IMO.

I had heard there was some debate whether the rate should be 23 or 31%. I say make it 27% with a few caveats...

There would be no tax on food. I am debating whether there should be no tax on homes and slightly higer property taxes or a scale (10, 15, 20%) depending on price. If you can afford a luxury such as a fancy car, 2nd home, boats, etc... then you get levied 33%.

Of course, it'd be collected at the state level and the IRS could go away.

While we are at it, the Depts of Education & Homeland Security can disappear as well.

It might even encourage saving or at least some restraint........yeah right!

Your thoughts are welcome.</div>

Agreed 1000%

I've always felt income tax is criminal especially when we don't have a real say in how our tax money is being spent.

 

[ghoti]

My biggest problem with the tax system (and there are so many) is withholding.

It is so mind-blowingly wrong and nobody seems to even care about it.

If we did nothing but get rid of that, it would be a tremendous first step.

Tax reform won't happen until people demand to know what the big check they just wrote is paying for.

 

[Thoth]

I have heard of a tax where you get a refund & pay a flat rate. This seems more equitable. Some tax reform does need to take place

What ever happened to Steve Forbes & his 16% flat tax and taxation begins at $18,000 (?)

There was a book called the 2% solution where all gov't

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Miller_(journalist)

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearc...82893&itm=1

 

[Thoth]

Here is another idea for the government to save $. No more toll free numbers to reach government agencies orno postage needed to send stuff back.

Further, the post office gets revenue and maybe prevents the cost of stamps going up so much & frequently. The telecoms get an additional revenue stream.

 

[Shapecity]

Blackladder you should read about Norway's tax system and how they make a lot of money off oil companies.

Norway has a tax regime that allows it to capture nearly eightly percent of these windfall profits when oil and gas prices are high. Not only that, Norway invests all their oil and gas revenue outside the country, touching only four per cent of the interest to balance the country's budget.

The result: a 250-billion dollar petroleum fund that is earning more in interest alone than Alberta's total savings from oil and gas development since the early 1980s.

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/trailsend/norwayorourway.html

They are currently ranked #4 richest countries per capita

http://www.aneki.com/richest.html

 

[Denny Crane]

Norway is going to be in real trouble when their oil reserves run out. They are the poster child for how social democracies are supposed to work, but all you have to do is look elsewhere at nations with decent sized populations and no massive oil reserves to nationalize - it doesn't work that great

 

[Shapecity]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane @ Jan 30 2008, 12:59 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Norway is going to be in real trouble when their oil reserves run out. They are the poster child for how social democracies are supposed to work, but all you have to do is look elsewhere at nations with decent sized populations and no massive oil reserves to nationalize - it doesn't work that great

</div>

I've never been to Norway I can't say whether they rely on a lot oil or not.

 

[Thoth]

I have read about Norway & have to agree w/ Denny about what happens when the oil runs out?

I am not a big fan of Nationalized oil companies. Perhaps countries like Saudi Arabia & Venezuela with nationalized oil companies <u>may</u> be part of the whole supply/demand thing.

Not to mention, I have issues..... with socialism I mean state run companies. But, that could be cause I have a real libertarian/laissez-faire streak.

 

[Denny Crane]

$250B sounds like a lot, but it really isn't when you think about it. It'll disappear like our Social Security fund once their oil runs out and they're not collecting those 80% windfall profit taxes.

Realize $250B is all they've been able to accrue to date, for all the years they've had their program in place.

If you look at Germany and France, who are social democracies without the oil reserves to fund everything, they have 10% unemployment and slower (than the USA) GDP growth.

 

[Thoth]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane)</div><div class='quotemain'>If you look at Germany and France, who are social democracies without the oil reserves to fund everything, they have 10% unemployment and slower (than the USA) GDP growth.</div>

Yeah. But, they get 6 weeks off a year and only work 35 hours a week.

 

[Thoth]

Here is the article I mentioned in post #10

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>(NOCs) owned or controlled by the governments of oil-rich countries, which manage over 90% of the world's oil... Of the 20 biggest oil firms, in terms of reserves of oil and gas, 16 are NOCs. Saudi Aramco, the biggest, has more than ten times the reserves that Exxon does.</div>

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Few of the princes, politicians and strongmen who wield ultimate authority over these firms can resist the urge to meddle. At best, that leads to the sort of inefficiencies found at most state-owned firms: overstaffing, underinvestment and so on. At worst, the business of pumping and selling oil is entirely subsumed by politics</div>

 

[Thoth]

I was somewhat sarcastic in my quip bout social democracies but after doing some research

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>According to sociologist Stanislav Andreski, fascist economics "foreshadowed most of the fundamental features of the economic system of Western European countries today: the radical extension of government control over the economy without a wholesale expropriation of the capitalists but with a good dose of nationalisation, price control, incomes policy, managed currency, massive state investment, attempts at overall planning (less effectual than the Fascist because of the weakness of authority)." Politics professor Stephen Haseler credits fascism with providing a model of economic planning for social democracy</div>

The rest of this subsection troubles me as well

 

[Denny Crane]

All roads lead to FDR. He had great influence over the US economy, obviously, but also drew up the blueprints for modern Europe.

Pre-WWII, he admired the Nazis and other Fascists. FDR's policies weren't turning around the US economy, but in a worldwide depression era, the Nazis (in particular) built an economic and military powerhouse by 1939.

 

[Thoth]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane @ Jan 31 2008, 11:45 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>All roads lead to FDR. He had great influence over the US economy, obviously, but also drew up the blueprints for modern Europe.

Pre-WWII, he admired the Nazis and other Fascists. FDR's policies weren't turning around the US economy, but in a worldwide depression era, the Nazis (in particular) built an economic and military powerhouse by 1939.</div>

Don't let Glenn Beck (the chucklehead on Headline Newse you say that, it might push him over the edge. It seems that FDR's policies are his recent rant on whats wrong w/ America.

In retrospect, Bring up FDR all you want.

 

[Denny Crane]

Who's Glenn Beck? (yeah, I know who he is, but never watch him).

I just happen to see historical significance in these things. They don't happen overnight.

 

[Thoth]

I'll watch Beck if I am really bored & there is nothing else on. He's like a watered down Lou Dobbs for the American Idol crowd.

All-in-All, GB is still better than Hannity

 

[Denny Crane]

Hannity is nuts. I can't stand the guy. He's as bad as Olberman.

 

[Thoth]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane @ Feb 1 2008, 08:24 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Hannity is nuts. I can't stand the guy. He's as bad as Olberman.</div>

Whoa! KO has a sense of humor and is capable of independent thought. Hannity is devoid of personality & has noting to talk about until Dick Cheney or Rupert Murdoch faxes SH his opinion.

Olbermann rules and thats the bottom line cause bA said so!

 

[Denny Crane]

Olberman is funny, but beyond that is a hate spewing political commentator without much merit to what he posits.

Let me put it this way, anyone who gets into pissing matches with Bill O'Reilly is as much a douchebag as O'Reilly is.

 

[Dumpy]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (blackadder @ Jan 24 2008, 12:36 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Like so many others, moving to a fair tax might not be a bad idea. Taxing consumption rather than income makes more sense IMO.

I had heard there was some debate whether the rate should be 23 or 31%. I say make it 27% with a few caveats...

There would be no tax on food. I am debating whether there should be no tax on homes and slightly higer property taxes or a scale (10, 15, 20%) depending on price. If you can afford a luxury such as a fancy car, 2nd home, boats, etc... then you get levied 33%.

Of course, it'd be collected at the state level and the IRS could go away.

While we are at it, the Depts of Education & Homeland Security can disappear as well.

It might even encourage saving or at least some restraint........yeah right!

Your thoughts are welcome.</div>

If I can make one point, you can't define whetehr a house is a "luxury" based on price; there is much too much variability based on local economies.

Also, the IRS won't go away. There needs to be a centralized base of operations to collect revenue for national programs.

p.s., I liked you best in series II. I'll bet you get that a lot.

 

[Denny Crane]

FAIR tax means no deductions for home mortgage (or anything else)

 

[Dumpy]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane @ Feb 1 2008, 04:06 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>FAIR tax means no deductions for home mortgage (or anything else)</div>

technically, the deduction is for interest payments, not the mortgage itself. you also would eliminate deductions for job-related moving expenses and interest on student loan payments, charitable deductions, to name a few. There's nothing wrong with that, but I'm doubtful we could get from where we are today to that place--there would be too much upheaval on the economy. For example, home prices would immediately shift drastically downward, which would in turn hinder the economy because it would prevent people from moving to find a better job, and a large percentage of the population could no longer afford their homes because of the increase in their income tax. Keep in mind that every deduction has a strong policy reason behind him, or a strong lobbying group supporting it. They are very hard to change. It's easier just hitting the periphery: the marriage penalty, estate tax, additional taxes on predefined luxury items, etc.

 

[Denny Crane]

http://www.fairtax.org/site/News2?news_iv_...cle&id=8985

 

[MikeDC]

My preferences for tax reform would run something on the order of:

1. Drastic reductions in government spending and implicit taxation by debt. My major qualm with the tax system is it doesn't limit what the govenment spends.

130. A Head tax with a sliding rebate for poor folks.
131. A flat tax rate system (a la what Steve Forbes used to push)

132. Doing very little different
133. Doing nothing
134. Replacing the income tax with a consumption tax. Contrary to what a couple people suggested above, I don't see how this would limit spending any more than it's limited now. So until we can reliably expect spending to be limited, less tax revenues will mean less taxation via a sales tax and more via the tax on debt. What's more, amazingly enough it'll make collection and monitoring even more intractable than the IRS is. Yuck.

 

[Denny Crane]

^^^ I don't see how spending is more limited, either. If you have 25% withheld, you're spending just 75% of what you make. If you pay 25% in federal sales tax, you're still spending just 75% of what you make.

However, paying at the time you spend is a nice incentive to actually save money, and pocket the 25%. So it seems. If you save for the rainy day, you'll end up paying that 25% when the rainy day comes.

The flat rebate I suggested would take care of food for the poorer folks. Alternatively, you don't tax food and prescription drugs - the poor spend a much higher % of their income on those things, and they're truly subsistence kinds of things.

 

[Thoth]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Dumpy)</div><div class='quotemain'>Also, the IRS won't go away. There needs to be a centralized base of operations to collect revenue for national programs.</div>

Part of the fair/flat tax was too greatly reduce the federal governemnt. The 10th amendment would take precedence but as Huckabee suggested the 16th amendment would need to be repealed.

I see no reason why the costs associated with interstate commerce and national defense could not be collected by the Congressional Budget Office. Congress (specifically the House) was chartered to come up w/ the budget so why not have them collect it.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Dumpy)</div><div class='quotemain'>p.s., I liked you best in series II. I'll bet you get that a lot.</div>

Actually. You are the 1st and for the record I like me best in series 3... especially the episode w/ the Prince's Speech/Scottish Play.