Fair tax, Flat Tax.9-9-9 Show me your tax plan and I’ll show you mine. Nowadays if you run for President it’s the trendy thing to have a plan to redo our tax collection system. Is that REALLY needed? Probably not, but — as someone who takes 3 months to fill out 14 pages of my Schedule D-1 alone let me take a shot at it. Eliminate or cut capital gains? HELL YES. Actually they ought to be indexed somehow. My parents bought a house in 1966 and s old it in 2000. They payed 20k and sold for 140K. Based on inflation they made……NOTHING! Based on the tax code they made 120K on the sale. Now houses that people buy and hold for a long time are the most egregious example of this type of figuring and the government has wisely exempted people who lived in the property. However, if you buy houses and rent them out you face those taxes without any exeption. Are there ways for clever people to wangle around that?? Probably, but the poor slob who just rents out one property doesn’t know them and why should anybody have to pay taxes on gains that don’t exist???
The FAIR TAX is a pathetic joke. You taxes seniors as they earned the money…now TAX THEM AS THEY SPEND IT! They are not ALL senile, guys. We ain’t gonna pay. Moreover — it’s supposed to be simple? I can ask questions that will complicate it till my fingers fall off. You going to tax me 35% when I go to Sears and get a 400 dollar suit for my kid’s wedding. I added that about the wedding because I never paid 400 for a suit. Anyway, that adds 140 dollars to it. NOW it’s a 540 dollar suit and I can’t afford it. I get the 300 dollar suit I usually buy. Even THAT costs me 405 now bacause I have to pay the 105 bucks sales tax. Now, the guys on TV? They love this tax because THEY buy their suits in Paris and London so their 12,000 dollar suit will pay NO sales tax. Some poor shnook buys a house for 140K. You gonna add 49K to it?? My, my no Home sales are sacred, keep the economy going and DAMN! that 49K is a bit obvious, especially since people FINANCE their homes and no bank is going to finance a home for a third more than it’s worth. Well, as the get rich quick guys say on channell 99 at night —- just find someone willing to sell a 150K home for 100…. What’s the prob?
Trust me, I can go on and on. The best part of it being so simple is where they are going to sene — you ready? EVERYBODY IN AMERICA A CHECK for the money they are going to spend on sales taxes for necessities of life –NEXT MONTH. Yeah. Now, everybody gets a check. Your 16 year old working at the Higgly Piggly Chicken Shack? The guy mowing lawns? Oh yeah. whatever.
Thing is… Saying you will close down the IRS gets a big applause response. You know, mailing out those checks and collection the sales tax and all…. that will be done by fairies. You see them?? Out their on the lawn singing 9-9-9 oh wait… it’s 12-12-12… 15-15-15…….. Whatever. RELAX… The black guy with the nice smile says that won’t happen. The law will require a 2/3 vote of congress… HAHAHAHAHAHAH……..Yes, this guy is running for PRESIDENT and doesn’t know that no law can restrict a future congress except a Constitutionall Amendment. You going to pass one just to pass 9-9-9. News Flash. It takes YEARS and YEARS. How about that “Balanced Budget Amendment” ? If we pass THAT won’t it stop them from raising rates because they won’t be able to increase spending??
Are you new around here? You pass a BBA and here’s how it will work. Congress will pass whatever they want and………THE COURT WILL ADJUST THE TAX RATE. That ri-i-i-i-ight. It’s in the constitution now. Congress spends but the taxes must equal that amount. If you don’t think a court would do that just check history. They have done it in multiple states and NOW you just gave them taxing power over the whole country. DON’T DO IT. People writing constitutional amendments want to sound elegant. Like Jefferson. They don’t want to have multiple lines limiting the power of this person or that… just “The Congress shall not spend more than the taxes collected.” Maybe something shorter. More general. Watch out for that. Laws SHOULD drone on and on a bit. Otherwise you end up with situations like the gun laws in Texas. “It shall be a felony etc etc etc to carry a firearm within 1000 feet of a school” Hey, at least they thought about exempting cops. Problem is they didn’t say LOADED gun or Assembled gun or except locked in a portasafe unassembled in the freaking trunk with no ammunition. Just Gun. Once you were on your property, the judges decided, the 2nd amendment covered you but you had no way to get it there if, like me, that thousand feet of a school completely surrounded your property. Oooops. It also went past the 4 lane busy street BEHIND MY HOUSE, meaning that about 4000 people a day broke that law just driving by a school they never saw. Didn’t matter. Somebody took a compass — you know with the sticky end and a pencil and drew circless around all the schools. Hell you couldn’t go ANYWHERE in Dallas Texas. You were pretty much always within 1000 feet of a church or a school.
But I digress. Taxes. Yes, saying close down the IRS is a great applause line, but it isn’t the way to gol. The answer is the flat tax. Yeah most of those pigs at IRS get to keep their jobs, but they get simpler. The jobs, not the pigs. First, a basic big exemption. So much for existing plus x for each dependant. For a family of 5 this might be 24K. Then, we tax the rest. All of it. No silly exemptions. If the rest is less than 30K you pay 5 percent. 30 to 100K 15 percent. over 100K 25 percent. for most people this will be a BIG TAX CUT. Did I mention no more SS tax?? How do we figure your SS benefit?? From how much taxes you pay just like we do now except we forget the charade about having a separate tax. It was ALWAYS paid out of the general fund. The day SS started President Roosevelt gave some old lady a check. Hows THAT for a Ponzi Scheme?
Look, I am NOT running for President and so forgive me on the exact amounts. It’s the concept that matters. Big exemption. Three simple rates. Unless you make less than the exemption EVERYBODY PAYS SOMETHING. Seriously before the “earned income credit” I didn’t mind paying a couple hundred bucks a year even though I was a fry cook. I LIVED IN AMERICA. That is something wonderful. People from all over risk their lives to get here. It’s certainly worth paying for.