National Sales Tax Again (Fed Chairman)

Link to the NYT.
www.nytimes.com...

Here we go again. now it's a "consumption" tax, the same as National Sales Tax.
Don't these people get it or do they just believe that they have to turn this country into Kingdoms and Surfs. Taxing on the goods you buy just means that you throw all of the burden to the Middle to lower income classes due to the fact that upper income people save most of their earnings and don't spend it. They spend a smaller portion of their earnings making this a huge reduction in percentage of taxes they pay. What ends up happening is that you will have to tax all goods at 15 to 20% above what the local taxes are collected. Currently a worker at a big box store making 25,000 might roughly pay 7 to 9% of income in fed taxes can finance a car for 5 years at low or no interest and pay about 4% taxes in some states, which is 13% of his money is taxed. Under the Nat-Sales Tax that would be from 15 to 20% for the same auto.
Progressive taxation has a way of balancing the load since most money mogals don't really pay 33 to 38% in taxes since they have the extra money to reinvest and put into tax free pensions.

If they really want to do something, work in a plan to simplify the tax code.

Alabama cajun - I have heard that argument before and it is bull#.
Currently the minimum federal income tax is what 15%
Lets do the math
you makes 30,000 a year you pay either
15% x 30,000 = 4500
or
you pay 20% of what you spend, now unless you spend more than 22,000 a year, or more than 73% of your entire yearly salary you still comeout ahead with a sales tax.
So what if the rich are paying less, if you are also paying less what do you care?

edited for afterword,

If you do spend more than 735 of your yearly income then you need to learn financial disclplne, for anyone out there who says they do I ask, how many Tv's do you have? DVD or VCR's, how many cars? How many items have you spent money on that are luxuries?


[edit on 4-3-2005 by mwm1331]

Ya know, if a rich person buys a yacht for $1,000,000, I have no problem with them paying an extra $200,000 or so for it. If that is a hardship, then maybe they should be looking at a smaller yacht.

Under a true consumption tax, the rich will pay sooooo much more than the middle class, or will if they want all the goodies that commonly go with being rich. Who cares about the percentage?

Typicly that 30K earner is spending at 109% of his earnings. Most of that spending is taxed. And at that level if this is a a couple with a kid in school, then they probably pay little more than $500 a year in income taxes which is roughly 1.6%, not 15 (you did not figure actual, you looked at the scale). Under the surf tax he pays more. mwm1331 I realize you directed most of your statement at me but I'm not saying this for myself, I may actually fair better with your tax. I'm more concerned about the 40% ot the population working in the big box stores trying to get by.
I had 3 TVs but I gave one away to someone who needed a set.

We already pay consumption taxes.
Phone, (All kinds of fees are on this one).
Cable.
Utilities.
Fuel
Alcohol
Cigarettes
Luxury Items above 40K (or was this repealed?)

We pay 4 to 10% sales tax on most these also, no big deal on most of these. Fuel is going to hurt the most (Sorry SUV drivers), shippers are going to hit the ceiling with all the rigs that ship food from Cal to Fla, alone will cause inflation that will shut down the economy.
Note I don't have a problem with people buying yachts, it'e the CEOs that may 100's of times what their wage earners are making.

"Kingdoms and Surfs"