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 Posted: Sat May 14, 2005 7:29 pm
I understand taxation is never a happy subject, and that in particular the income tax is often viewed with disgust by some libertarians (myself included). However a while back in a discussion with Wendigo, he made some comments about flat taxes which I felt a duty to refute. In doing research on the subject to make myself knowledgeable I discovered that the flat tax (especially as proposed by Hall and Rabushka) certainly seems far preferable to our current method of graduated tax brackets. I was curious what the thoughts of some of my fellow libertarians on the matter were. For reference here is the thread in which I had the discussion with Wendigo. For convenience sake on those who are not interested in reading the whole thread to find some of the sources I quoted, here is the most important one. The website url seems to have changed from the first time I linked to it in fact, so following the link in the post actually won't take you there anyway, funny thing. Oh well.
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Posted: Sun May 15, 2005 9:10 pm
I'm actualy quite intersting in hearing the arguement for flat tax... i've heard many arguements for a consumption tax...much like the famed FairTax plan...
I'm reading your arguement now..it's a quite intersting alternative.
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Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2005 5:53 pm
fairtax though, would provide rebates, allowing anyone to be tax free up to... i forget how much... but would eliminate taxes for anyone spending under such an amount each year. i see a problem with self employed ppl who under the current system get deductions for business expenses. do they get rebates too? how do you predict what they spend?
i was always keen to a land property tax, similar to how the state of Texas does it. the higher the tax on land, the less you feel inclined to have a bunch of unused land just sitting there. it encourages ppl to sell their land to someone who will farm/build/do something profitable on it.
then again, most of my ideas on taxes are half baked. i like to throw up my hands and shout that if we ran a government like Jefferson, we wouldnt need to tax individuals at all.
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Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2005 8:04 pm
Well, the problem I have with the flat tax is that it hits the lowest income brackets hardest, then the middle class next, and all for a drop of about 5% for the top 1% of Americans. That would severely limit the consumer end of the economy, and would likely result in an economic collapse.
Simply put, there is no way to decrease the taxes for one bracket without raising them someplace else - this is because the government is addicted to spending like a porn star to crack.
Now, I'm sure you're all aware about the questionable series of events that led to the federal income tax being added to the constitution - Well, the FairTax plan would certainly make that moot, IF we found a way to change the systems without causing severe economic fluctuations.
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Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2005 9:03 pm
Tanasha Well, the problem I have with the flat tax is that it hits the lowest income brackets hardest, then the middle class next, and all for a drop of about 5% for the top 1% of Americans. That would severely limit the consumer end of the economy, and would likely result in an economic collapse. Simply put, there is no way to decrease the taxes for one bracket without raising them someplace else - this is because the government is addicted to spending like a porn star to crack. Now, I'm sure you're all aware about the questionable series of events that led to the federal income tax being added to the constitution - Well, the FairTax plan would certainly make that moot, IF we found a way to change the systems without causing severe economic fluctuations. Your right about the government spending too much. They spend too much money and that money needs to come from someplace. If they didn't spend nearly as much taxes would drop.
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Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2005 11:08 pm
VashZero5 Tanasha Well, the problem I have with the flat tax is that it hits the lowest income brackets hardest, then the middle class next, and all for a drop of about 5% for the top 1% of Americans. That would severely limit the consumer end of the economy, and would likely result in an economic collapse. Simply put, there is no way to decrease the taxes for one bracket without raising them someplace else - this is because the government is addicted to spending like a porn star to crack. Now, I'm sure you're all aware about the questionable series of events that led to the federal income tax being added to the constitution - Well, the FairTax plan would certainly make that moot, IF we found a way to change the systems without causing severe economic fluctuations. Your right about the government spending too much. They spend too much money and that money needs to come from someplace. If they didn't spend nearly as much taxes would drop. No, if they didn't spend as much they would see that they have all this unused cash lying around and pork it.
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Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2005 4:25 am
Personally I think the FairTax plan is by far superior. Besides, from what I understand our current tax code started out as a flat tax and look at it now . . .
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Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2005 1:02 pm
Tanasha VashZero5 Tanasha Well, the problem I have with the flat tax is that it hits the lowest income brackets hardest, then the middle class next, and all for a drop of about 5% for the top 1% of Americans. That would severely limit the consumer end of the economy, and would likely result in an economic collapse. Simply put, there is no way to decrease the taxes for one bracket without raising them someplace else - this is because the government is addicted to spending like a porn star to crack. Now, I'm sure you're all aware about the questionable series of events that led to the federal income tax being added to the constitution - Well, the FairTax plan would certainly make that moot, IF we found a way to change the systems without causing severe economic fluctuations. Your right about the government spending too much. They spend too much money and that money needs to come from someplace. If they didn't spend nearly as much taxes would drop. No, if they didn't spend as much they would see that they have all this unused cash lying around and pork it. True, haha they'll pork it and call themselves great heros.
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Reply
