Sure thing. Right after you repeal the Sixteenth Amendment. I personally consider that a necessary, but not necessarily sufficient condition.
12 thoughts on “Want A VAT?”
Comments are closed.
Sure thing. Right after you repeal the Sixteenth Amendment. I personally consider that a necessary, but not necessarily sufficient condition.
Comments are closed.
A note from someone already subjected to VAT; this tax is extremely expensive to administer. There is some cost to government for new admin staff, but the main cost is borne by business – in that accounting for the tax in and out costs admin money. Especially if some goods are exempt, because then you have to keep separate records for taxable and non-taxable goods. For a small retail shop, for example, this may well mean investing in a more complex till than might otherwise be the case.
Of course, leftists never mind too much imposing extra costs on business!
The VAT is the worst of all worlds. It requires a large and expensive bureaucracy to administer the graft and payoffs, er, special regulations for bribes, er, favored campaign contributions on different industries. You don’t honestly think that they’re going to charge the same percentage on every industry, do you? If so, how naive!
In addition to the complexity of the current tax code, the VAT is a stealth tax. All the consumers see is that the price of everything goes up. They’ve been conditioned to blame the “greedy corporations” for the price increases when it was the “greedy politicians” that are to blame.
Ore in the ground is worth less than ore ready to be shipped, so a VAT can be levied. Ore is worth less than the processed metal so a VAT can be levied. Raw metal is worth less than metal parts so a VAT can be levied. A collection of parts is worth less (normally) than the assembled product so a VAT can be levied. Imagine something as complex as a car and how many times a VAT can be levied on all of the different parts as they go from raw materials to finished product.
Over here we call that, “creating or saving jobs.”
It’s a heck of a lot simpler and more transparent to add a national sales tax instead of a VAT.
Which is why they’re not calling for one. They don’t want voters to be able to see how much in taxes they’re actually paying.
I like the idea of a national sales tax as a replacement for the income tax, but I’ve lost any faith in the ability of any government to manage it; even the FAIR tax gives bureaucrats enormous leverage in setting the rebates. I’ve come to the opinion that a 1-sheet no-deductions/no-exemptions flat income tax is probably the best way to go. It’s not my favorite choice; I’d like to provide incentives for things like charity that I want to encourage, but my respect for the government has gotten to the point where I don’t want them to have any authority over handing out incentives or perks over anything, because they will just find a way to abuse that in return for bribes or favors.
None of these schemes address this root cause, do they?
The real killer part of VAT is that it’s a hidden tax. The majority of US citizens are conditioned now to think about their income tax as getting something back from the government due to withholding. They think corporate taxes actually tax corporations, not consumers. VAT would be the ultimate hidden tax.
Big D, I can only speak for myself, but I do not need the “incentive” to give charitably. I take advantage of it because it is there, but I would not give less if it wasn’t. I cannot give a cite, but I remember reading once that it used to be that more was given to charity before it became a tax write off.
Big D,
“Setting the size of Rebates” is a truly minuscule amount of power compared with the current tax code. Particularly if you just locked it to “The amount of taxes paid by a person receiving a Poverty Line income.” (Of course, then we’d have people monkeying with the poverty line – but we already have that.)
But if you go ‘strict sales tax’ you end up with incessant liberal whining about the supposed injustice, etc. Washington State has a sales tax and no income tax (as of today, they’re trying hard to get an income tax – for the fourth time. Luckily our this requires a state constitution change or another judge or two.)
But “setting the size of the rebates” isn’t something you need armies of bureaucrats to enunciate, impose, calculate, study, collect and distribute. Even if you were pushing the rebates up and up – the rebates come back to everyone. And they require raising the tax rates on everyone. If they set a crazy rebate – $10,000 per person! Then the tax rate to raise that revenue would be… higher. And everyone would see the tax: “Soda: $2.00, Tax: $0.40”
But before anything along these lines is attempted nationally, it would be interesting to see implemented somewhere on a local level. It would seem like an easy sale for anywhere with a significant tourism – because it would end up as a de facto tax on tourists. They aren’t “residents of the city” and would thus receive no rebate.
@Rand: “Sure thing. Right after you repeal the Sixteenth Amendment.”
Yeah right, as if THAT’s going to happen. This is just an excuse for the Dems to slice off another chunk of GDP.
I’m just waiting for Chris G. and Jim to say this is for people who aren’t paying “their fair share.”
I’m just waiting for Chris G. and Jim to say this is for people who aren’t paying “their fair share.”
Since the VAT would apply to the cost of everything made in America, those not paying their fair share would be the 47% not paying any income taxes.
I’d go for the Fair Tax coupled with repeal of the 16th. A VAT, even with repeal, still embeds taxes not readily visible to the consumer. With the Fair Tax every penny levied is right up front where you can see it and be amazed.
The fair tax has visibility… no politician wants that.