REPUBLICAN DEBATE SEPT 05, 2007 (Full Poll)

[JollyRoger]

The IRS does little involving the black market. Their juristiction is more along the lines of lower-upper class people who cannot afford a conniving accountant.

Actually, most of IRS enforcement is at the high end as that where the cheating opportunities are located and where it makes it worth the agents time to recovery the lost revenue. Under the fairtax, the retailers and the black marketers would be where the potential cheating would go on. Again, unless ou want to start with rookies, the new enforcement agency would be staffed with ex-IRS.

 

[JohnRM]

Which one has a 30% sales tax?

First of all, no one that I know of was talking about 30 percent. I've heard about 23 percent from advocates. The report from the Bush Administration noted a thirty percent requirement, but that is for the massive spending programs that they seem to be disposed towards. Regardless, many European nations have national sales tax rates in the twenties.

EDIT: Norway, Denmark, and Sweden have VAT rates of 25 percent.

EDIT(2):
Austria, 20 percent
Belgium, 21 percent
Finland, 22 percent
France, 19.6 percent
Germany, 19 percent
Ireland, 21 percent
Greece, 19 percent
Italy, 20 percent
Netherlands, 19 percent
Poland, 22 percent
Portugal, 21 percent
United Kingdom, 17.5 percent

 

[JollyRoger]

First of all, no one that I know of was talking about 30 percent. I've heard about 23 percent from advocates. The report from the Bush Administration noted a thirty percent requirement, but that is for the massive spending programs that they seem to be disposed towards. Regardless, many European nations have national sales tax rates in the twenties.

The advocates are misleading you with the 23% number. The tax on a $100 item would be $30. That's 30% in my book.

EDIT: Norway, Denmark, and Sweden have VAT rates of 25 percent.

The colection mechanism under VAT is at an intermediate level, not the retail level, so it wouldn't cause as much of a black market problem as a tax collected at the retail level.

 

[Godwynn]

What about those who live on the border with Canada? I think they would just cross the border and buy their things.

 

[JollyRoger]

What about those who live on the border with Canada? I think they would just cross the border and buy their things.

Going to have to build another border wall.

 

[Ecofarm]

If you are willing to go to Canada to buy stuff, why don't you just move to Mexico?


Seriously, because prices would adjust to current purchasing power. There would be no real rise in prices. When you conider how much money goes into legislating, regulating, and enforcing individual level taxation, you see the market equalibrium created by the 23%. When a business does not have to pay taxes 7 times on one item (sales, income, retail, death tax, capital gaines tax, property tax, etc), prices will decrease.

 

[JohnRM]

What about those who live on the border with Canada? I think they would just cross the border and buy their things.

Well, to be perfectly fair, I didn't say that the Fair Tax was a better alternative, only that it would not require the IRS.

 

[skadistic]

What about those who live on the border with Canada? I think they would just cross the border and buy their things.

You'd have to have agents at ports of entry to check every SUV that came through. I know I'd be crossing into Canada if I lived close. I go to Delaware as it is now for really big time spending.

 

[Godwynn]

If you are willing to go to Canada to buy stuff, why don't you just move to Mexico?

Why the hell would I move to Mexico to go to Canada?

Seriously, because prices would adjust to current purchasing power. There would be no real rise in prices. When you conider how much money goes into legislating, regulating, and enforcing individual level taxation, you see the market equalibrium created by the 23%.

No, it doesn't work between states. I fail to see how it would magically work between nations.

 

[Ecofarm]

I fail to see how it would magically work between nations.

Not magical, "invisible" (hand).

Maybe I can't explain why it works between nations, but it does - better than our income tax works (something about working between nations because illegal immigrants and tourists would be paying 23% sales tax).

Now the question is: who in the debate supported it and who rejected it completely? I can't remember (must be that 0% sales tax I paid recently). *Runs to check door for IRS agent*

 

[Godwynn]

Not magical, "invisible" (hand).

Maybe I can't explain why it works between nations, but it does - better than our income tax works (something about working between nations because illegal immigrants and tourists would be paying 23% sales tax).

You are missing something here. There would be no rise in prices because individual income taxes have no affect on retail prices. However the sales tax would greatly increase, so those that are able to avoid the sales tax, will by going to Canada.

 

[Ecofarm]

23% on gas might limit that some. Let's be realistic... A convoy of bargain shoppers filling the highways to buy Canadian bacon? C'mon.

I wish I could defend the fairtax better. All I can say is, there will be no inter-nation bargain shopping resulting from the fairtax.

Ask Neil Boortz and/or the congressman who wrote the book/bill. Or read the book, I hear it is thousands of pages less than 'Introduction to the Tax Code(s)'. Which brings me to a point: the fairtax puts a ton of tax attorneys, acountants, and government officials out of work; it also removes one of the largest tools of power wielded by the federal government and the elected officials who preside over that power; only the people would ever support the fairtax - that's why we waste our breath discussing it. Do you have ANY idea of the lobbiest power against this bill?

 

[Godwynn]

23% on gas might limit that some. Let's be realistic... A convoy of bargain shoppers filling the highways to buy Canadian bacon? C'mon.

I wish I could defend the fairtax better. All I can say is, there will be no inter-nation bargain shopping resulting from the fairtax.

How do you explain the interstate bargain shopping?

No, it wouldn't just be Canadian Bacon, it would be any major purchase, or a weekly shopping trip.

 

[skadistic]

23% on gas might limit that some. Let's be realistic... A convoy of bargain shoppers filling the highways to buy Canadian bacon? C'mon.

.

Gas would have to have the already 40% (depending on state/region/city) tax taken off of it.

 

[Ecofarm]

Our products would be cheaper due to less waste by federal beauracracy. Further, the US would become an international tax haven.

C'mon now, if "international tax haven" doesn't get your conservative whistle wet, I dunno what will.

 

[Godwynn]

Our products would be cheaper due to less waste by federal beauracracy. Further, the US would become an international tax haven.

You are just cutting out the IRS? I doubt that would lower taxes by even 1%.

 

[Ecofarm]

Not just the IRS.

The book was published as a companion to the Fair Tax Act of 2005, which was a bill in the 109th United States Congress for changing tax laws to replace the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and all federal income taxes (including AMT), payroll taxes (including Social Security and Medicare taxes), corporate taxes, capital gains taxes, gift taxes, and estate taxes with a national retail sales tax, to be levied once at the point of purchase on all new goods and services. The proposal also calls for a monthly tax rebate to households of citizens and legal resident aliens, to "untax" purchases up to the poverty level.[3]

 

[Enkidu Warrior]

All I can say is, there will be no inter-nation bargain shopping resulting from the fairtax.

The UK has a 17.5% rate of VAT and people go to France to buy certain items in large quantities (chiefly alcohol and tabacco, which are taxed much more heavily in the UK). There will be cross border tax avoidance, it's just a matter of how much.

All of which is just a minor logistical flaw in what is a fundamentally flawed proposal. The wealth gap in the US is already disgusting, it's absurd to suggest abandoning progressive taxation - it will just make the situation worse.

 

[Godwynn]

Not just the IRS.

I'm with you there. I like the FairTax in theory, but the people living near the Canadian border will be able to get around it.

Also, the poorer American families spend more of their disposable income, making it regressive in all but name.

 

[Ecofarm]

The wealth gap in the US is already disgusting, it's absurd to suggest abandoning progressive taxation - it will just make the situation worse.

Marx has reared his ugly head. "Progressive taxes" are immoral.