New Tax - If you plan on selling your home then Gov't wants a little now too!

That is exactly what the bill in question allows. As I believe I have already mentioned several times.

 

Down in Tampa for work and tonight's news talked about Property Taxes getting so high that folks are actually moving out of Florida because of it. Looks like this is kind of a self correcting issue.

 

It is his way of saying there is no such thing as a good tax.

 

They don't have an income tax in Florida. Somebody has to pay the bills.

 

Pirate thinks all taxes are evil. His candidate for Pres. refers to taxation as "confiscating the fruits of your labor."

 

cut spending early and often

 

An incompetent government has left on us the edge of bankruptcy monetarily, physically, and morally and when you are faced with such challenges you must cut the head of the snake off. Certainly do not need to give them a potential new revenue stream.

 

Personally, I'm in favor of scrapping the current tax code. Let's replace it with a national sales tax. The sales tax will be high (something like 20%), but you will only pay taxes on what you consume, illegal aliens are subject to the same taxes, drug money is taxable when items are purchased, and there is no more IRS.

That should really get this debate heated up.

 

i know i am joining the debate a little late but...in addition to other groups
the league of municipalities supports the legislation at allowing voters within their county decide upon the 1% transfer fee
http://www.nclm.org/A1 Center Page News/landtransfertaxworkingwell.htm
Legislation to give all North Carolina counties authority to levy a land transfer tax is meeting resistance, but six counties have levied the tax for years, using the proceeds primarily for capital projects. This legislative session, efforts to extend land transfer authority to all 100 counties, a measure supported by the League and the N.C. Association of County Commissioners, is meeting opposition, especially from the N.C. Association of realtors® (NCAR).

 

Water is wet....

 

Not always. But then, as an intellectual, you should know that.

 

One, two, three, four...
Hrmm!
One, two, (one, two, three, four!)

Let me tell you how it will be;
There's one for you, nineteen for me.
'Cause I’m the taxman,
Yeah, I’m the taxman.

Should five per cent appear too small,
Be thankful I don't take it all.
'Cause I’m the taxman,
Yeah, I’m the taxman.

(if you drive a car, car - I’ll tax the street;
(if you try to sit, sit - I’ll tax your seat;
(if you get too cold, cold - I’ll tax the heat;
(if you take a walk, walk - I'll tax your feet.

Taxman!

'Cause I’m the taxman,
Yeah, I’m the taxman.

Don't ask me what I want it for, (ah-ah, mister Wilson)
If you don't want to pay some more. (ah-ah, mister heath)
'Cause I’m the taxman,
Yeah, I’m the taxman.

Now my advice for those who die, (taxman)
Declare the pennies on your eyes. (taxman)
'Cause I’m the taxman,
Yeah, I’m the taxman.

And you're working for no one but me.

Taxman!

 

see the holy grail for more answers http://www.fairtax.org

barter is handled and so is food.

 

Supposedly, the business purchases would be untaxed, which removes a chunk of income and adds a huge loophole. The business buys vehicles for the use of the employees/owners which can be used however they wish with no taxes. Every small business owner will buy all the products through the business and pay no taxes. That will offset the need for all of the small businesses to ramp up their accounting to handle the additional tax payments and the associated paperwork involved.

 

it is too logical for the current government to understand and implement. What would the partisan supporters have to do all day?

 

guess you should read the website and book where they counter all of these "critics"

 

I have read the web site and the "counter" is like most theoretical proposals in that it sounds good until you really look close at the practical application.

 

Here's a recent analysis of the Fair Tax by FactCheck.org.

The proponents of the plan present it as a 23% sales tax, but that is misleading to say the least. They are talking about 23% of the price including the sales tax. What does that mean? If you buy something for $100 with a 7% state sales tax, you would expect to pay $107, right? So if you buy something for $100 with a 23% "inclusive" tax, would you expect it to cost $123? Would you be surprised if it cost $130 instead? Expect to be surprised. 23% of $130 is $29.90 The actual tax rate, calculated in the way we normally calculate sales tax, would be more like 30%. And there is some question about whether the rate would have to be even higher to bring in the same amount of revenue as the current tax system.

This tax would be applied to all "consumption" - cars, houses, food, clothing, medical bills, legal fees, gasoline (in addition to the gas tax we already pay), rent, etc. According to FactCheck's analysis, taxpayers with incomes between $15,000 and $200,000 would actually pay a larger share of the total taxes than they do now. Taxpayers with incomes above $200,000 would pay a smaller share of the total than under the current system.

 

And here is a recent rebuttal to the FactCheck.org piece (5/31/07):

Measuring the income tax in a tax-exclusive basis would result in completely different rates of the income tax. For instance, that a middle-income taxpayer in the 25 percent income tax bracket today would be in a tax-exclusive tax bracket of 48.5 percent because they would need to earn $148.50 to have $100 to spend after income and payroll taxes. In fact, this taxpayer’s total tax-exclusive rate is 67.5 percent because we should consider employer payroll taxes. According to the President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform’s final report, “Economists have found, however, that the burden of the employer’s portion of the payroll tax is largely passed on to employees in the form of lower wages” (page 29).

Somehow, income tax proponents never get around to mentioning that the tax-exclusive tax rate on middle-income taxpayers today is over twice the FairTax 30 percent tax-exclusive tax rate.

Since the FairTax is a replacement for income and payroll taxes, and they are both measured, reported, and quoted on a tax-inclusive basis, it is appropriate to use the 23 percent tax-inclusive rate when referencing the rate. To do otherwise as FactCheck.org seeks would actually be misleading. In other words, apples should be compared to apples, not to oranges, and the tax-inclusive rate of the income and payroll taxes today should be compared to the tax-inclusive rate of the FairTax tomorrow.

To quote the tax panel’s final report, “Although tax-exclusive and tax-inclusive rates are both valid ways of thinking about tax rates, the easiest way to compare the retail sales tax rate to the state sales taxes paid by most Americans is to consider the tax-exclusive rate. On the other hand, it is appropriate to compare the retail sales tax rate with current income tax rates by utilizing the tax-inclusive rate” (page 208). We don’t disagree. That is why we refer to the rate in the appropriate tax-inclusive manner.

Rebuttal to this is also on the same website: http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer?pagename=news_myths_factcheck

(C) [The FairTax] will collect more money from those earning between $15,000 and $200,000 per year and less from those earning more than $200,000 per year.

This sentence is false. And FactCheck.org's own document shows their statement to be false.

FactCheck.org’s statement is based on a U.S. Treasury Department analysis (Figure 9.4 of which is shown) of a plan which is not the FairTax. The chart and the Treasury study depict an alternative retail sales tax plan invented by the Treasury Department that had a different tax base than the FairTax. In fact, the chart depicts a “plan” that does not repeal payroll taxes, which are 41 percent of personal income taxes, and leaves out more than $771 billion in regressive taxes that fall mostly on the poor and middle-income wage earners.[2] Although the chart label refers only to federal income taxes paid, this point is not made in the discussion of the results, thus almost begging for the reader to wrongly infer that the distributional picture portrays the FairTax.

According to the Brookings Institution’s Tax Policy Center, the payroll tax is very regressive with respect to current income, and in 2006 most Americans paid more payroll taxes than income taxes. “Among households with wage earners, 86 percent have higher payroll taxes than income taxes, including almost all of those with incomes less than $40,000 and 94 percent of those with incomes less than $100,000.”

The chart below shows that for those with incomes less than $23,700, their payroll taxes were over 5 times their income taxes. For those with incomes between $23,700 and $42,305, their payroll taxes were 2.5 times their income taxes. Only in the highest income group do income taxes exceed payroll taxes.

Since the payroll tax is regressive and is the largest tax paid by lower- and middle-income Americans, ignoring the fact that the FairTax repeals payroll taxes is tantamount to ignoring what the FairTax is when analyzing the FairTax.

A recent study by Dr. Laurence Kotlikoff, that does analyze the distribution of the FairTax, was conveniently ignored by FactCheck.org, although brought to their attention. That study finds that the FairTax lowers remaining average lifetime tax rates, thereby enhancing overall progressivity. This occurs because the reduction in rates is proportionately much greater at the low end of the earnings distribution than at the high end.

With respect to those earning $15,000 to $200,000 per year compared to those earning over $200,000, his results clearly demonstrate that the former experience a greater percentage tax cut than the latter. In the following table, each of the income groups between $15,000 and $200,000 has a lower lifetime tax burden under the FairTax. The two groups above $200,000 ($250,000 single and $500,000 married) also have a lower tax burden under the FairTax.

Let’s look at the middle-aged couple with two children earning $20,000 per year compared to that same couple earning $70,000 per year or $500,000 per year. In switching to the FairTax, the low-income couple’s FairTax rate is only 1.5 percent versus 11.0 percent under the current system. The middle-income couple earning $70,000 has a FairTax rate of 11.6 percent compared to 21.3 percent under the current system. The high-income couple earning $500,000 has a FairTax rate of 20.5 percent versus 35.6 percent under the current system. The low-income couple gets an 86 percent cut in their average remaining lifetime tax rate; the middle-income couple gets a cut of 46 percent, whereas the high-income couple gets a 42 percent cut.

In fact, even ignoring economic growth, lower compliance costs, better international competitiveness, higher wages, and other positive effects of the FairTax on the well-being of the American people and adopting outmoded “static” analyses of the distributional impact of the FairTax, households spending up to $50,000 annually will be better off.

 

The goal is to have it revenue-neutral; in other words, the total tax revenue would remain the same. There is some disagreement between the Treasury Dept. and the Fair Tax proponents about what tax rate it would take to do that, but I think that's something that could easily be tweaked from year to year, to produce the desired amount of revenue.

FactCheck is saying that people making over $200K would pay less than they do now, and those making under that would pay more, for the same total revenues.