National Sales Tax

January 23rd, 2007 by muraw1dj
One of Gravel's campaign goals is to "Repeal the income tax and closing down the IRS replacing it with a Fair Tax (with a pre-bate for necessities) that will reverse the flight of jobs and capital abroad while balancing the budget".  Another goal is to institute a national sales tax, which would of course end up being a flat-rate tax, I was wondering how a regressive tax (yes it is regressive in the sense that people of lower incomes have a propensity to save less and spend more of their relative income on consumer goods, even when adjusted by exclusions on food or whatever the government would decide to exclude.)  I'd like to have it explained to me how this would benifit the disfortunate of our country??  The notion of a pre-bate for necessities is in desperate need of an explanation, for me to seriously consider backing this candidate.  Based on my personal speculation, it sounds like the new "Fair Tax" proposed by Mr. Gravel will effectively be wash after the regressive sales tax will be faced by our underpriveledged working class families, it'd effectively giving them money that would later be taken away in a different form of taxes...  Any thoughts anyone???
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Comments

income tax = wage tax

Submitted on May 17th, 2007 by aaron.j.davis
While I think a retail sales tax on new products has compliance and non-compliance issues, to say the current income tax is progressive is not accurate.  Inheritance is income to ones heirs and is not taxed under this system so who's kidding who?  Capital gains and dividends are income and they get the lowest tax rates.  Business owners run a lot of their personal consumption through their business expenses and call it promotions, travel and entertainment.  I would tax all transactions, (at a 3-5% rate) give a PRE-bate to everyone for poverty level consumption, and make anyone who thinks they're entitled to a RE-bate bear the burden of proof to prove it's not consumption (ie, cost of production, investment, or charity).  No free lunch.

Fair Tax

Submitted on February 5th, 2007 by jg51
The fair tax is the way of the future!

Corporations and Businesses Pay No Taxes!!

Submitted on January 27th, 2007 by carter

They collect taxes and pass it on to the government. In other words, when we buy a corporate product, the taxes are already figured into the price of the product. The company or corporation then passes that money onto the government and calls it 'taxes'. It is total bullshit. We need a new tax code. The Fair Tax is not a fool proof idea, but we need a serious debate in our country about taxes and I hope Gravel brings it.

Reply to muraw1dj

Submitted on January 26th, 2007 by alex

The Fair Tax is not regressive. Those that consume more, pay more. The poor consume less, the wealthy will pay more taxes. Our present tax code is regressive, has damaged the economy, cost us jobs, etc. Those earning less than $97,000 pay a larger portion of their income in taxes than those who earn over $97,000. Because $97k is the cap on Social Security and Medicare.

This goes back to the Reagan administration. He tripled FICA and cut taxes, shifting the burden from the wealthy to ordinary Americans and the poor; tax payers who make less than $97k a year.

Right now, the poor, have two options 1) receive welfare 2) or become homeless. With the Fair Tax there is a prebate, that provides a cash flow to pay for their essentials; food, lodging, clothing, medicine. Prebates are calculated on the cost of essentials at the poverty level, times the sales tax rate, divided into 12 equal monthly payments. This is sent to taxpayers who register annually. It will only vary on the number of people in the household. For example, for a family of three, if the essentials amount to $16,000, and the sales tax rate is 20%, then multiply 16,000 by 20% (16k x .20 = 3,200) over twelve months would equal $266.00 dollars paid per month to that family.    

I'd say you are right about the 'wash' after the sales tax. The underprivileged are effectively reimbursed. One of the ideas of the Fair Tax is that it is more fair to the poor than our current tax system. Gravel's point is to make the prebate even more progressive by making the rebate based on the cost of essentials for the average American than at the poverty level.

Creating a fair tax

Submitted on January 24th, 2007 by Donald Grbac

A clue about the fairness of the IRS can be seen in the movie America: Freedon to Fascism by Aaron Russo (www.freedomtofascism.com/). It turns out our income tax money is not being used for our country's infrastructure or to help the people. It is being used to power the war machine and to pay the interest on the National Dept. It is not even constitutional! The rules for it has been an annual irritant for tax payers.

I am not sure how well I support the National Sales Tax idea, but I do think it could be done as a much more fair tax than what we have now.

At any rate, I support Mike Gravel for President as a way to reestablish the principles of democracy through the National Initiative. Any legislation that follows can be debated for its value. And there will be far more political debate by everyone once the National Initiative is in place.

DON

Only democracy will save us!

You are right

Submitted on May 17th, 2007 by emm
While I think that the Fair Tax is a great solution, it only solves part of the problem. We need to take back control over how our money is spent. I would rather give teachers a raise, improve health care for anyone who needs it and provide child care assistance for the poor than give more tax breaks to the rich, or fund a private war.

I think that's a major

Submitted on February 4th, 2007 by SouthernBelle82
I think that's a major problem as to where the money is going to. And with the current Iraq occupation I wonder where all this money is going since the troops aren't getting the help they need like their armor and proper vehicles and whatnot. So where does this money go?? I also think there shouldn't be an extra tax on food items. I think it's Georgia where they don't have sales tax on food and it should be things like that we need everyday like food and gas. While I'm still not too sure about everything with this idea I think it's a debate we should have as a country and to look at the Constitution.

Mistake

Submitted on May 18th, 2007 by Elliswonder

I think this will be a mistake. You are paying your income tax today. How much of that goes to the farmers that grow the wheat/buckwheat for the flour ? How much goes to the dairy producers for butter, and the milk ? And all those poultry farmers for their eggs ? And these are just the obvious things off the top of my head. These are everyday goods that you ARE paying a tax for TODAY. You just forgot about it.

The 'People of Lower Incomes', Like Most of Us Are

Submitted on January 24th, 2007 by Cubbie Girl

will be making a hell of a lot more if we can take home all of our paycheck rather than give a third of it to the IRS. The way I see it is that the people who purchase lots of new things (the wealthy) will pay more than the 'lower income' people who do not. Our current tax system does not work, the corporations and rich pay nothing while the middle class and poor get screwed. We should abolish the IRS and try something new.