Try See Dick and Jane then, b/c this doesn't ring true. I'm guessing you heard "zero sum game" on Hannity and Colmes or something, but I did not assert that. So you're saying Americans consume more than they earn on an individual basis? I can see your caveat of "taxable income," but for most people, there's not very much income that's excluded. What type of example are you referring to?
Riddle me this, I'm sure you've heard of the book "vulture in eagles clothing". I haven't read it, but know people who have. Is it true that an individual is fully fested in social security after five years? then can pay no more but of course have full benefits upon retirement. Is it true, legally, US Gov cannot force you to pay fed income taxes. of course if you don't you wither in the courts, harrased, etc... thanks in advance.
Funny story about this...I had a tax professor in law school that was laughing about the people that sell this idea at seminars. While it sounds nice and would be REALLY nice, you can guarantee THESE guys file their taxes every year, b/c there is no such argument for them to make. We then had a couple personal stories from the class where they fell for it. Hilarious to hear about their compounding penalties for gullibility.
never. i am stupid. you confused me, claiming not to advocate any tax scheme, then proceeding to advocate a specific tax scheme. then again, nobody has accused me of being too bright. notice i havent commented on your intelligence.
When I clerked for the Tax Court, the guy who wrote THE most popular book on this scam came before the court. Long story short -- He made a couple million off the book and had to pay it all back to the IRS for taxes, interests and penalties. Of course, it didn't matter because the IRS had already seized his assets and were going to sell them after he exhausted his court appeals -- WHILE HE WAS SITTING IN A JAIL CELL for criminal tax fraud. jAnd, Martin -- compare things IN CONTEXT next time.
NRST is a bad idea. Ask retailers what they think. The increase in back office costs would be astronimical.
i will try harder next time. i see you can be set off to make personal attacks easily. i will make a note of it.
I am not an expert on this NRST but I believe that the argument is that it would be very easy to implement because retailers already have it set up to levy a sales tax and all they would have to do is increment the percentage. I don't know if this is a popular idea, but I think that it would work for the retailers to pay the State and the States would be responsible for passing it on to the Feds (morally troubling but easy and cheap to implement). One of the nice things about using this model, the "sales tax pushers" should be able to pretty easily predict how much could be made via an increase of the existing sales tax (since theoretically we should know how much a state is bringing in in sales taxes). Hopefully their research pointing to 23% is accurate. That would be great. This topic has interested me for a while and I have not spent the time needed to really understand it. This thread has motivated me to take the time. Time to surf...
I'm with LSUBUD on this one. Our real estate agent is from England, I talked to her about the sales tax system they have over there, she said our system is much better here, 1 of the reasons is that you have deductions and exemptions and with sales tax you don't. How much would it cost you to buy and sell houses? LSUBUD also has some great points and makes perfect sense. I don't look at this any differently than the way Social Security was suppose to be and then the way it turned out. A nationalized health care system? This is all we need, be more like Canada and the UK were some of these systems are miserable. Look, A lot of things look and sound good in the beginning and turn out quite the opposite down the road. Be careful what You wish for because you might get it!
Thanks for the information. Because I've been involved as executor in settling a friend's estate, filing his taxes (something just seems wrong with a dead guy having to file...but that's another matter), trying to determine tax liability on his assets, etc., this was a bad "tax preparation" year. I guess I need to be more aggressive, learn more, get off my butt, and quit whining. :shock:
