BallMark]While I haven't read the whole article yet, it does sound interesting, and as I see the items you mention above, I didn't quite think of them as taxes, but as expenses for the business, which does influence the price of goods as well, interesting, thanks for pointing that out. I guess the question is on this one and I certainly don't know the answer, how do we pay for these programs if the tax is removed? Do we want to take away the safety net? My other question is....would the business take these taxes above, which provide retirement income for the workers, if they were discontinued and Social Security closed, give that money to their employees for them to invest for themselves? Would that still be an expense to pass onto the retail customer? (and of course can you trust all those people to invest like they should?
I understand what your saying here, so we need to concentrate on how we spend our tax money, but if we can't support our country's "needs" (which should be different then our "wants", I have to see the need to raise taxes somewhere, but by what percentage or amount, and on who, is a hard answer, but by this statement the consumer is going to pay anyway, could this be the basis for lumping it into a sales tax?
I can agree with you on many of these statements, (not so sure about the business not paying taxes, but if it could be shown that it would work, I wouldn't argue against it) The only thing I worry about is what happens to all the tax prep people when you don't need them for loopholes? And of course the lobbyist if they are not needed, and of course the industries that rely on them? Maybe we could get them out on our courses weedeating and such.
JK good items for discussion and thanks for the information, it is helpful as I'm willing to give other ideas a chance. Also the information would help keep the emotion out of things which makes it easy to dismiss ideas. Of course there is always one's upbringing and life's directions that influence one's thinking, and I do know when I think of the "fair tax" scenarios or even closing loop holes I think of things like how will affect me especially in health related issues. We already sacrifice a lot at times and with some of the plans being mentioned, we just hope we can maintain where we're at, but I'm willing to sacrifice more if everyone else is stepping up too.
Mel
Several of the items you mention, Mel, are addressed in the paper. Many of these business taxes (like payroll, etc), are designed to be hidden, either because the legislators didn't understand that the money was coming from consumers, or that they *did* understand it, but thought that less backlash would come from it if the tax weren't so obvious. The FSU paper talks about how consumers view obvious and non-obvious taxes differently.
I have also head some people talk about what may come of the tax preparation industry if a more standardized tax system were in place. Remember, labor for the sake of labor is not a positive. Technological advances always replace some type of labor -- computers replaced typing pools, personal computers replaced mainframe operators, cars replaced carriage drivers and horse caretakers. This frees up labor for more advanced tasks, which increase the standard of living of the society.
By the way, those who advocate a national consumption tax as the federal government's only taxation authority ("Fair" tax supporters), as opposed to those who advocate a flat income tax, would say that ALL products (medicines, health care, housing) must be treated the same for three main reasons:
1) Medicines, unprepared foods, clothing, housing, and medical care are all purchased in larger amounts by the wealthy than the poor, so exempting these items from the consumption tax would unfairly benefit the wealthy
2) These items are currently taxed via hidden taxes (business taxes, regulatory compliance cost), thus hiding their true cost. A consumption tax will be much more transparent and reveal the true product cost.
3) Exempting one product but not another from the consumption tax opens the door for lobbyists and special interest groups to gain unfair influence in Washington to try to get their products or interests the special exemption, very similar to what happens today that the Occupy folks are upset with.