Hey Taxman - Tell Me

"Currently, state sales tax on internet sales is only collected if that company has a brick & mortar store in purchaser's state

Read more: http://www.partisanlines.com/threads/hey-taxman-tell-me.50663/page-2#ixzz2lP9zJDF2"

Just had to correct this as its untrue. California collects taxes on all Internet, catalog, or out of state purchases. Legally if I buy a t-shirt out of state I'm supposed to pay ca taxes on it. Nobody does however. I pay taxes on all eBay buys as well as all other Internet purchases and have for over a year now.

 

Maybe I am just less obsessed with something as shallow as money. Keep flapping your lips and show us all what you truly worship. Keep making personal attacks on other members because you're just another Right-wing angry little troll. That's all you got.

 

Back up about two steps, dumbass. I didn't refer to your deficit of knowledge concerning income; I was referring to your deficit of knowledge concerning taxes.

But now that you've brought up the topic of obsession with money, please tell us who proudly proclaimed on this forum that he's a 5%-er. Or who asked us what type of new car(s) he should buy. Or who posts pictures of his trips around the country. Or who keeps telling us how much money he's saving on Obamacare. It sounds like not only are you obsessed with money, but it's practically all you live for. You are a money-grubbing, elitist, Left-wing liberal nut.

 

So now, according to okc, being successful and self sustaining is being an elitist liberal? I thought you folks were preaching manning up and taking responsibility financially for oneself. Gosh you guys are confusing.

 

Sorry, Guy, you've got it all wrong. I was simply pointing out what a hypocrite Little Joe is. There's nothing wrong with making money, but just don't be a hypocrite about it.

 

Fair enough.

 

13% of $100,000,000 is likely much more than 32% of your taxable income (although I could be wrong ). The main reason Rich folks pay less taxes (percentage-wise) is because they have the resources to hire professionals to advise them how to navigate/optimize the myriad of tax regulations in their favor.

Keep in mind that these tax regulations are intended to use the Income Tax system to promote Social and Economic engineering. Using the tax code for non-revenue producing activities should be illegal (imo). I'm not saying those aren't worthwhile causes, but we need to find another way...and leave the tax code alone.

For instance, if there is an effort to promote urban revitalization in run down inter-city neighborhoods...via "Enterprise Zones" (a favorite program of Democrats ), investors are offered a tax incentive to encourage investment in those risky areas. If a rich investor, such as Mitt Romney, "does his part" by making these risky investments, he's vilified for "not doing his part".

That's why I call Democrats "disingenuous"; they talk out of both sides of their mouths to promote their agenda "du jour"...knowing full well they're not telling the truth..."because the end justifies the means".

 

Whatever happened to the Democratic Party?

 

Don't listen to me; listen to Milton Friedman...

 

I did the math for you.
Showed how much annual revenue all the states combined generate through their sales tax codes. (243 billion dollars).
Calculated the average sales tax rate for all the states (4.7%)
Showed you that the FAIR TAX would have to generate 10 times the annual revenue all the states combined currently generate through Sales Tax to replace all the revenue generated through INCOME TAX.
Showed you that if the FAIR TAX followed and taxed what is generally taxed by the states in their sales tax codes the FAIR TAX rate would have to be in the neighborhood of 47% not the proposed 23%. And this doesn’t take into account that the majority of states tax the sales of used goods and the FAIR TAX promises to only tax new goods.
Showed you in order to accomplish the 23% proposed rate the FAIR TAX would have to expanded and tax twice the amount of goods and services generally taxed by the states.
Showed you capturing the tax lost through internet/mail order sales produces less than 4% of the expansion required.
Showed you taxing new real estate construction provided minimal expansion.
Showed you taxing business to business sales provided no expansion. Unless of course the Fair Tax is planning on taxing business purchases of items for resale or raw materials purchased by manufacturers for the production of finished goods. BUT IF THIS IS THE CASE – THE FAIR TAX IS A VALUE ADDED TAX - NOT A SALES TAX.
I am of the opinion that the proposed 23% FAIR TAX RATE is a pipe dream.
As I said before - The only retail goods and services generally not taxed by the states are Lawyer Fees, Accounting Services, Engineering Fees, Tuition, Medical Services, Sales to Gov’t entities, Sales to Non-Profits and the Sale of Girl Scout Cookies.

 

I don't know what else I can say, either...The Fair Tax is not a VAT and it's revenue neutral at 23% (according to the economists that designed it and other economists that have evaluated it since).

CSPAN showed a session of the Senate Finance Committee about a year or two ago. They had 20-30 of the nation's leading economists of both Left and Right leanings. Everyone one of them testified (under oath) that the Fair Tax would be the best tax alternative if it could be passed. I was looking for the video a while back in the CSPAN archives, but couldn't find it.

I don't doubt your numbers, but don't know enough about the entire issue to properly evaluate your conclusion. Fair Tax advocates talk about the high cost of compliance (individual and corporate) that would be saved by the Fair Tax. It could be their 23% computation includes external factors such as that.

I would think that if the advertised numbers weren't close to correct, someone trained in the field might offer a counterpoint. I was really surprised how much agreement there was amoung economists on the Fair Tax during the Senate Fiinance Committee testimony. I was even more surprised that they unanimously preferred it to a Flat Tax over a Flat Tax.

 

I did some checking. According to the US Census, last years estimated retail sales were 4.7 trillion dollars. This did not include new houses, which I had to extrapolate with 386,000 new houses averaging at around 250,000 a pop, or a total of 96.5 billion which would only bump retail up to 4.8 trillion in retail. Using the 243 billion in reported sale tax revenue estimate it does come out to a 5% average which is damn close to the 4.7%, so I think we are on the same track. The only method I could arrive at the 23% tax to match current revenues would be to base it on the GDP at 14 trillion discounting a sizable proportion (aprox. 40%) due to government activity. (That parts a guess) The only way I can see this working is if the Fair Tax were a traditional VAT taxing all levels of production and including taxation on second hand goods aka all sales. Here's the link to the data.......

http://www.census.gov/retail/

I still do believe that this will be a more equitable form of taxation and better for the country as a whole. The true damage is in the exemption and game playing encouraged by our current system. I do buy into the philosophy that encourages investment and savings while taxing consumption at a flat rate for everyone. The killer of any financial system is corruption, legal or otherwise, and that, we should provide no hiding place or quarter.

Yak, just saw your posting, an trying to get more information from you side, will do more research, love a good discussion.

 

The main criticism I've heard of the replacement of Income Tax with the Fair Tax is that there's no way to ensure the Rich pay their fair share. After all, how much would a Rich person have to spend to equal the tax they pay now? My answer would be, "Who knows and who cares?" As the tax base expands, people at all levels of society will be able to choose how much they pay in tax by how much they spend.

Money is really nothing more than a "battery". You save energy in money and release that energy as you spend. There's really only four (4) things anyone can do with money...

1. Save it (loses value due to FED money supply policies)
2. Spend it (taxes collected)
3. Invest it (fuels the country's economic engine)
4. Give it away (charitable giving)

Anything the Rich does with their money, other than spend it, helps the economy/society and everyone benefits. We need to disabuse ourselves of the idea that there's a "free ride" in America "if we can only tax the Rich enough". That's simply untrue and, ultimately, harms everyone in all strati of the economy.

Part of the perception that the Rich won't pay "their fair share" may be that folks think the Rich actually pay the highest income tax rate now. As our Liberal friends point out, Mitt Romney pays at a 13% rate. Milton Friedman (in the video above) points out (in 1978), the top tax rate was 70%, but nobody actually paid that rate due to deductions.

Dr. Friedman goes on to say that much more revenue would be actually collected with a 25% flat tax...and be revenue neutral at 16%. Under the current tax system, families in the $80,000 to $160,000 range don't have the tax planning resources of a Mitt Romney and really take it on the chin.

Bottom line...the Federal Income Tax is used more for social/economic engineering and law enforcement than revenue collection. What does "managing behavior" have to do with revenue collection...and a free society? I'm not saying that some of these initiatives aren't worthy, but there must be a more equitable way to implement these policies than bastardizing our revenue collection system?

 

I'm going through the CSPAN archives again to find the Senate Finance Committee video I referenced in a previous post. I'm currently watching a presentation by the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), a progressive advocacy group.

http://c-spanvideo.org/program/USTaxS

Around minutes 20-22, they specifically say, "...the progressive income tax is not about revenue collection, but about creating economic equality".

That pretty much sums up my objection to the Progressive Federal Income Tax. No matter whether through hard work, dumb luck, or birth...you'll always have some level of economic inequality...that's life. The Government can (and should) guarantee equal opportunity and class mobility; they can't (and shouldn't) guarantee equal outcome.

 

So your point is that Romney makes more money so he pays more than I do in taxes so his percentage is irrelevant? The main reason the wealthy pay a smaller percentage of taxes and why many of them pay none is that they have gamed the tax code which resembles Swiss cheese. Tell me why we have tax deductions for private jets? Tell me why we give tax deductions to ship jobs overseas. Were these necessary loopholes or did someone just payoff some politician? We have a tax code of favoritism or legalized bribery. We have a revolving door that insures corporations reward "good little public servants" with fat jobs once they leave office. We have governors handing out millions of tax dollars to companies that move to their state and then extort more just before they let another state give them another sweet tax break to move again. And we wonder why we have to borrow from China. The underlying problem is the money influence in politics. Until we the people become the priority instead of the people handing over fists full of cash, fighting over who spends what on which program is just a fool's argument not worth having. We can start by shortening elections and publicly financing them. Then we may begin to see someone working for us for a change.

 

Farmer...I found a 2006 debate on the Fair Tax between Neal Boortz, author of "The Fair Tax" book and Michael Graetz, Yale University Law Professor and former Deputy Secretary of the Treasury for Tax Policy.

Dr. Graetz says he supports a consumption tax, but takes issues with some of the provisions of the Fair Tax. I wasn't aware, for instance, that HR-25 "The Fair Tax Act of 2013" had provisions for imputed tax on interest rates paid in excess of the Federal standard. It makes sense, but I wasn't aware of it. I have to read HR-25 to "know what's in it". Btw, HR-25 had 73 Co-Sponsors...all Republican.

Dr. Graetz, also makes the point that Government workers, based on current law, would be taxed twice on payroll tax items (e.g. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid). If true, that is obviously wrong and would have to be addressed. Overall, you may find the discussion interesting and it may address some of the questions you've brought up.

http://c-spanvideo.org/program/TaxDeb

 

HR-25: The Fair Tax Act of 2013: Summary...
Full text here: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr25#overview

 

That Fair tax sure would work out well for the wealthy. Do they pay you to push it?

 

I push anything that's good for America!

 

If widening the gap between the rich and the poor makes a better America, you're one hell of a patriot. On the other hand, maybe it just makes us into the next banana republic.