The Use Of The Word "fisherman" Is Now Deemed To Be Sexist

[Al Agnew]

"Us little guys" c'mon, are you saying the guys driving the beemers and walking around in Italian suits and their trophy wives in Mercede's SUVs who make the mall a second home are spending less on clothing and food and other items than yourself. . The things these people buy cost more money and therefore generate more revenue.

I guess you could make and argument for culmlative purchases of an ecomnomic subsegment, but I still have a hard time believing these people are outspent.

At some point, however, the rich guy is probably spending less of his money on taxable items, as a percentage of his total income, than the average guy. Just a little example...what's a yacht cost? Maybe $500,000? But the guy that buys it is bringing in $10 million a year, so he's spending 5% of his yearly income on the yacht. Meanwhile, Joe Blow is making $50,000 a year, and decides to buy a bass boat on credit because he loves to bass fish so much. $20,000 boat. 40% of his yearly income. If they are both paying a total of 20% sales tax, Joe has to fork over 8% of his yearly income to pay the taxes on the boat. Mr. Rockefeller pays 1% of his yearly income.

Point is, when we're talking about the really rich, it's probably pretty hard for them to spend enough on taxable items to end up paying the same percentage of their income in sales taxes as the average guy will buying one new boat, or a "new" (used) car that he really needs.

I love the idea of a national sales tax, but don't pretend it will impact the rich the same way it impacts the poor.

[Feathers and Fins]

Ok lets try this Al. Mr Rich income is irrelevant as is Joe Average as the tax is designed to hit everyone equally across the board not based off their ( income ) So what if someone is richer than me or you or anyone they still are paying the same taxes I am you are and the rest of the country.

Sure people will always be envious of the wealthy big deal get over it is how I have always felt. If you want to have more money EARN IT! This would not have anything to do with income because lets be realistic here Joe Average cant afford Mr Riches yacht anyway. But now Joe Rich will not be able to use said Yacht as a tax write off or his parties he holds on it as a write off or anything else as He has to pay the sales taxes on everything.

[Mitch f]

No one tax system will fix all of our financial problems. There will always be rich and poor and that will never change. I'm for making it simpler for sure. People's attitudes need to change with regards to a realistic lifestyle, that includes me. We wake up everyday in paradise and sometimes forget it. I was talking with a young kid fresh out if Junior college today at a factory where I was consulting. He just landed a new job making probably 30K a year and wanted to immediately go out and buy an new Audi A4 turbo. The kids these days are going to be in debt up to their eyeballs before they ever get started. Then there's the food stamp crowd with iPhones and $100 tennis shoes. We as a country are just living well beyond our means and pumping in 85 billion a month is not setting the right example.

[Guest Brian B.]

I can't believe how much class warfare mentality I continue to hear and read- for the most part un-checked as well.

After the last four years we have just gone through it boggles the mind to still read it.

Ahh yes, the evil wealthy.

I have worked for the wealthy, I have worked for folks that don't have their crap together and are struggling financially- guess who's checks bounced come friday?

We MUST stop the whiney "the evil rich" mentality- my gosh. It doesn't matter how subtle the delivery is, the underlying "occupy" BS bleeds. Right on through.

We are well on our way to all being poor together- for the sake of fairness, and sanctioned by our beloved government.

[Al Agnew]

Ah, F&F, but consider this...the guy making $50,000 is spending most of his cash on stuff he NEEDS, like clothes for the kids, gas for the car to get to work, maintenance on the house, etc. (even if you exclude food from the sales tax). He is FAR less able to take a 20% sales tax hit on all that than the guy making a million or more. So is it really fair to have the average guy pay that sales tax on his necessities and a few paltry "luxuries", which covers nearly all his income, and the rich guy pay the same sales tax on what amounts to a smaller percentage of his income spent on necessities and luxuries?

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for a national sales tax. I'm just pointing out what I think are good arguments on the other side. As Mitch said, no tax will be perfect.

Another possible reason the sales tax wouldn't be very good for the economy in the short term at least is that there is a huge industry built around figuring out the present income tax and managing money to minimize the taxes. There would be a lot of tax accountants out of work once the income tax was abolished. And quite a few IRS people, too. For that reason, and also for the reason that the politicians love to give tax breaks to whoever is donating to their campaign coffers, a national sales tax ain't gonna happen.

[Old plug]

Let me tell you something about the evil rich and class warfare Brian. You may not be old enough to remember the song made famous by Tennessee Earnie Ford. It was about mining coal and never getting out of debt to the company store. It was true it was not just a story. My father like all his brothers went down into the mines at the ripe old age of 6. He never got a darn penny in wages. They lived far out in IL and there was not Wally World are anything else around to go shop in. You had to buy what you needed and rent your living quarters from the coal Co. They over charged for everything. When John L Lewis came along the coal companies did not deal with it in a civilized manner. They brought in thugs ,baseball bats , guns and used them all. When someone would start talking about working conditions and he would not be there the next day. They would tell people he quit and left the night before. When that came up ,my uncle used to say that the grain fields of southern IL grew on the bones of miners. It was a exaggeration I'm sure but I am sure it happened as well. Then there was my mother she worked as a seamstress in St. Louis.they used to lock them in the shops in the morning and leave them out one time a day for a very short time. The rooms were crowded and either had no windows are else they were not allowed to open in the summer. Women would pass out in those darn places and the management would blame them and fire the for it. You will have to kill me before you will ever get me to accept that again.

I do not have anything against a person wealth. I live in a area full of wealthy people. My neighbor is a millionaire several times over. We are good friends. but I am nowhere close to being anything that can be called wealth. I saved all my working life to wind up living on this lake. If a wealthy person has EARNED his wealth thru hard work and honesty he is be admired. But if he cheat people, uses them are causes hardships to other for his own personal gain he is no better than the person who sticks up a service station with a gun. In both cases they cause damage to our society. I am not sure what one deserves the longest prison time.

[Feathers and Fins]

Al, you keep going back to what is arguably a class warfare example by comparing Rich with Poor. So I pulled my taxes from last year and my receipts (everything I paid for last year)

I am going to use fictitious numbers as I do not want my worth put on the internet but this will be an honest comparison and using rounded numbers.

April 15^th taxes $26,000.00

Sales taxes throughout the year 14,400.00

Total in taxes 40,400.00

Or 30% of combined family income

Under a flat sales tax that amount would have only been 28,800.00 saving me 11,600.00 last year. Now granted that is before write offs on the April 15^th but even after that the amounts would still have saved me 8,000.00 a year!

Granted I have no kids at home but even with kids there is still a real savings to the American People. Financial responsibility it the job of the family and no one else, so if they are buying coke at 2.69 a 2 liter they should stop that and buy the Sams club Coke at 1.10 a 2 liter bottle. It is not about who has how much money but making a simple tax law that is applied equally to all people WHICH IS in line with the Constitution

Section 8 - Powers of Congress

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

Notice the word UNIFORM which means in the time of the writing of the constitution ( equally ) currently basing taxes off income is not equal nor is the deduction system. A flat tax imposes an equal tax on all people regardless of wealth, age, race, religion etc. Some may argue that it will harm the government or programs when almost all research has shown it would increase revenue as ALL people pay.

There could still be deductions such as using a vehicle for work or tools for work or school supplies but those can be wrote in to a tax code. At the end of the year the citizen can submit for reimbursement for those items (and have them clearly defined as to the items and use) and the citizen can get a refund off his/her taxes for those limited items.

[jpb2187]

The problem with all of this is people are trying to legislate fairness, in a world that is not fair. I figured you old timers would have realized that by now.

Ah, F&F, but consider this...the guy making $50,000 is spending most of his cash on stuff he NEEDS, like clothes for the kids, gas for the car to get to work, maintenance on the house, etc. (even if you exclude food from the sales tax). He is FAR less able to take a 20% sales tax hit on all that than the guy making a million or more. So is it really fair to have the average guy pay that sales tax on his necessities and a few paltry "luxuries", which covers nearly all his income, and the rich guy pay the same sales tax on what amounts to a smaller percentage of his income spent on necessities and luxuries?

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for a national sales tax. I'm just pointing out what I think are good arguments on the other side. As Mitch said, no tax will be perfect.

Another possible reason the sales tax wouldn't be very good for the economy in the short term at least is that there is a huge industry built around figuring out the present income tax and managing money to minimize the taxes. There would be a lot of tax accountants out of work once the income tax was abolished. And quite a few IRS people, too. For that reason, and also for the reason that the politicians love to give tax breaks to whoever is donating to their campaign coffers, a national sales tax ain't gonna happen.

[Al Agnew]

The thing that's wrong with your math is, if you replace the sales tax you now pay with a federal sales tax, where does the state and municipalities get THEIR tax money? Everything I've read has said that, in order to have anything close to the amount of revenue the government needs to replace the income tax, a sales tax would have to be at least 12-15%. That's just the money that goes to the feds. If you then retain the state and municipal sales taxes, it comes up to more than 20%. If the state has to raise its sales tax because you're also abolishing the state income taxes, which are, according to you, just as unconstitutional as the federal tax, you adding up to some real money.

This isn't class warfare on my part. I don't mind saying that I make enough money that I'd be considered "rich" by many. I'd love, personally, to have a flat INCOME tax (or a national sales tax) because it would almost certainly mean that I'd be paying less in taxes than I do now. But I'm being fair in noting that there will be winners and losers in any such proposal, and the winners will be the people with higher incomes, the losers the people with lower incomes. The only question is exactly where the cut-off point would be where if you make this much, you're a winner, but if you make just a little less, you become a loser.

By the way...once you start making all these exceptions and adjustments and refunds that you're talking about in order to make sure that Joe Average doesn't end up paying the sales tax on necessities, you've now created a huge amount of bureaucracy to replace the huge amount of bureaucracy we already have with the IRS. Not to mention, Joe Average now has to keep really good records of his spending throughout the year and hire an accountant to make sure he gets his refunds and credits. One of the things I like about a flat income tax WITH NO DEDUCTIONS is that it would make the whole tax thing so much simpler, with less bureaucracy and less paperwork on my part.

[exiledguide]

I have tried to keep up with the fair tax and flat tax proposal and after reading every one of them even a flat tax of 15% would increase my tax load quite a bit. I believe people who think these are good ideas haven't checked what their tax will be.

My Wife and I have income from pension and social security are over age 70 and used standard deductions and our federal income tax was just under $4,000 but under a 15% flat tax it would be $10,500 an increase of SIX THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED dollars. I'm not a financial wizard but I was able to retire at age 56 and live, I believe, a rather comfortable lifestyle. It might also be noted that someone who makes less and who now pays a very small amount or no federal income tax would have to pay 15% on there income but for a couple making a million dollars, there tax would be lowered by over $170,000.00.

It kind of sounds like the flat tax supporters are in a "hate people who work for a living"

mode.