One of my standing google alerts took me to an article on Florida taxes. On the comments pages, some people were proposing the FairTax as a good alternative to the current federal income tax. I ended up posting several comments in response to their statements, and thought I'd cross-post my comments here.
This Alabama professor states that the poor will pay more taxes while receiving little in return? I wouldn't call food stamps, subsidized housing, Medicaid, etc... little in return. Work 2-3 jobs if you have to in order to get by. I hate that people have to do that, but we can't afford to take care of people that sit on their butts. The best way to get on your feet is to get off of your rear end.
Check the statistics, and you'll find that relatively few get food stamps or housing subsidies, and the waits are long for public housing. Meanwhile, their kids do without during vital years, and marriages and relationships founder under the pressures of too low wages, too little work available, lack of health insurance.
The poor are not at fault; few of us could manage any better under the circumstances they must live with.
We have structured our economy to create poverty. The same process that enriches some of us on huge "capital" gains on land -- which none of us created but all of us need -- impoverish many more. And then they must turn around and pay sales taxes and wage taxes, as well as rent to their landlord.
We won't end poverty until we correct what we tax and what we don't tax. SOH is evil, and should be abolished. So should taxes on buildings. Just tax the land value. Florida and every other state has plenty of it. And collect the royalties on our natural resources -- electromagnetic spectrum, oil, gas, minerals. We're still collecting at 1872 rates! Dumb and dumber!
When will we ever learn?
How CHRISTIAN is amendment 1????
You have millionaires paying less in property tax on their Isleworth mansion than a single mother pays in Parramore!
And that millionaire can now buy that mother's home in Parramore and pay less in property taxes than she was paying!
IT IS PAST TIME TO ABOLISH AMENDMENT 1 AND ABOLISH SAVE OUR HOMES
Hear! Hear! Save Our Homes has helped drive the price of housing skyhigh while attempting to starve the local governments.
Better to convince your neighbors which services should not longer be offered. Hospitals? Libraries? Ambulances? Courts? Police? Firefighters? Public Health? Keeping roads paved? Inspected bridges? Which of these would you prefer to do without?
The property tax -- actually part of the property, the portion that falls on land value -- is the most just and logical tax yet devised. The fellow who gains the most from public investment in services pays the most. Our fellows who are occupying the choicest bits of land -- waterfront where that is prized, or great views, or access to public transportation (whatever the market values)-- pay the most, and those of us who have known all along that all we could afford was a modest lot in a modest location, no longer subsidize the rich fellow who owns the valuable and faster-to-appreciate property. Economic justice.
SOH forces the less-well-located to subsidize the well-off. Don't try to fix it; it can't be fixed. Simply end it.
Fair tax people. Then everyone pays, illegals, drug dealers, everyone.
Get taxed on what you spend, not what you earn.
http://www.fairtax.org/
The FairTax costs the poor, big time, and gives a very kind and generous gift to those who are the best off. Check out the front page of wealthandwant for a link to the problems with the FairTax.
Intelligent people would not want their children or grandchildren to have to live in a society where public spending is funded with a sales tax.
And the reality is that the tax rate would have to be in the range of 60%, on virtually everything you buy. Do you think GMAC is going to finance your $20,000 car with a $32,000 loan? Do you think Countrywide is going to finance your brand new $250,000 home with a $400,000 mortgage? I rather doubt it. And where do you think the demand for milk, eggs, bread is going to go with a 60% sales tax? And the jobs that are involved with producing, distributing and retailing those products? And do you really want your local Burger King or grocery store to be responsible for collecting the taxes and turning in 99% of them (they get to keep some)? Every corner store and ebay seller will have to be policed to make sure they are collecting and remitting the 60% tax, in full. The structure it would take to do that and enforce it would dwarf the IRS.
Think ahead.
Wouldn't a tax on land value be both much more just and more more simple, as well as efficient (no deadweight loss -- even Milton Friedman approved it, though he wasn't enthusiastic about taxes). The mechanism already exists to collect the tax, and if every town were required to put all their land valuations, by property online, the assessments would become pretty good in short order.
Not to mention the benefits to the environment, because it would tend to reduce urban sprawl, and to our health, because many more of us could afford to live in walkable cities, if that were appealing to us. And housing prices would be reduced, so fewer of us would be working primarily to pay the mortgage which paid off the previous owner who didn't create the land value anyway.
Think about it .. and ask your elected representatives to do the same.
It's a proposed 23% tax on bought goods not 60%.<quoted text>
The FairTax costs the poor, big time, and gives a very kind and generous gift to those who are the best off. Check out the front page of wealthandwant for a link to the problems with the FairTax.
Intelligent people would not want their children or grandchildren to have to live in a society where public spending is funded with a sales tax.
And the reality is that the tax rate would have to be in the range of 60%, on virtually everything you buy. Do you think GMAC is going to finance your $20,000 car with a $32,000 loan? Do you think Countrywide is going to finance your brand new $250,000 home with a $400,000 mortgage? I rather doubt it. And where do you think the demand for milk, eggs, bread is going to go with a 60% sales tax? And the jobs that are involved with producing, distributing and retailing those products? And do you really want your local Burger King or grocery store to be responsible for collecting the taxes and turning in 99% of them (they get to keep some)? Every corner store and ebay seller will have to be policed to make sure they are collecting and remitting the 60% tax, in full. The structure it would take to do that and enforce it would dwarf the IRS.
Think ahead.
Wouldn't a tax on land value be both much more just and more more simple, as well as efficient (no deadweight loss -- even Milton Friedman approved it, though he wasn't enthusiastic about taxes). The mechanism already exists to collect the tax, and if every town were required to put all their land valuations, by property online, the assessments would become pretty good in short order.
Not to mention the benefits to the environment, because it would tend to reduce urban sprawl, and to our health, because many more of us could afford to live in walkable cities, if that were appealing to us. And housing prices would be reduced, so fewer of us would be working primarily to pay the mortgage which paid off the previous owner who didn't create the land value anyway.
Think about it .. and ask your elected representatives to do the same.
http://www.fairtax.org/site/News2...
The $1300.00 in taxes currently taken from my bi-weekly check would then be all mine. I can control what I spend, I cannot at this point control what the government currently takes from me.
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And as for taxing necessities:
"The prebate makes the FairTax progressive.
To ensure no American pays tax on necessities, the FairTax Plan provides a prepaid, monthly rebate (prebate) for every registered household to cover the consumption tax spent on necessities up to the federal poverty level. This, along with several other features, is how the FairTax completely untaxes the poor, lowers the tax burden on most, while making the overall rate progressive. However, the FairTax is progressive based on lifestyle/spending choices, rather than simply punishing those taxpayers who are successful. Do you see how much freer life is with the FairTax instead of the income tax?"
http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer...
And if you think that anywhere in America except in a handful of rural counties, you could live adequately on the Federal Poverty Level --$21,300 for a family of four people!-- and that the "prebate" on that amount -- would be sufficient in Florida, or New York, or California, or Massachusetts, or Maryland -- or in any of the metropolitan areas where the vast majority of Americans live, I have a gorgeous bridge that I can sell you for a very fine price!
Untaxing the poor! Hah! The ones who are "untaxed" by the FairTax are the top 1%. I saw a table -- could have been in the article by Gale I mentioned above -- that showed, by state, how various fractile groups would make out -- top 1%, next 9%, next 15%, next 25%, bottom 50%. Guess what? The big winners -- and I mean BIG!-- were the top 1%. Their average tax liability dropped by figures in the 6-digits under the FairTax. And whose rose? The bottom 90%.
Which group are you in? Which group are your children, your nieces and nephews, your grandchildren in? Does it matter to you that the vast majority of us would suffer under this? Or is it like the blue painkiller: it works for you, and that's all that matters.(I'm not persuaded that you would be as big a beneficiary as you think you would be, but of course you might be one of the 10% or so who would benefit hugely. Just don't try to tell the rest of us that we're all 10%-ers, and that our children, grandchildren and all are too. Where income or wealth dollars are concerned, it is Lake Wobegon in reverse -- more than 75% of us are below average. Lose sight of that at your own peril.)
Freer life under the FairTax? I don't think so. Not for the bottom 90% of us.
If you are looking for a freer life, land value taxation is going to get you and all the rest of us a lot further. Check it out.
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