March 31, 2005
+ 27, - 16:
A national sales tax (George Will, March 31, 2005, Townhall)
The power to tax involves, as Chief Justice John Marshall said, the power to destroy. So does the power of tax reform, which is one reason why Rep. John Linder, a Georgia Republican, has a 133-page bill to replace 55,000 pages of tax rules.His bill would abolish the IRS and the many billions of tax forms it sends out and receives. He would erase the federal income tax system -- personal and corporate income taxes, the regressive payroll tax and self-employment tax, capital gains, gift and estate taxes, the alternative minimum tax and the earned income tax credit -- and replace all that with a 23 percent national sales tax on personal consumption. That would not only sensitize consumers to the cost of government with every purchase, it would destroy K Street.
``K Street'' is shorthand for Washington's lawyer-lobbyist complex. It exists to continually complicate and defend the tax code, which is a cornucopia from which the political class pours benefits on constituencies. By replacing the income tax -- Linder had better repeal the 16th Amendment, to make sure the income tax stays gone -- everyone and all businesses would pay their taxes through economic choices, and K Street's intellectual capital, which consists of knowing how to game the tax code, would be radically depreciated.
Mr. Will has put his finger on the key to this idea, that the 16th be repealed. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 31, 2005 8:29 AM
Would congresscritters willingly give up their heady privilege of laying taxes on the serfs? I think not.
A national sales tax added to the current income tax, estate tax, excise tax, etc. is a more likely sceniario for Capitol Hill. For that to be enacted, Congress would first have to ban all pitchforks in red states.
Posted by: John J. Coupal at March 31, 2005 8:42 AM23%?! That's a spicy meatball! Would Tax-Free New Hampshire be exempt? At least all of the anti-consumerist Luddite nutjobs could be told to shut the heck up for awhile.
Posted by: Governor Breck at March 31, 2005 8:49 AMThe beauty of a consumption tax is that it reaches all income from all sources. It matters not whether one is a pimp a drug-dealer or a congressman, if you spend, you will pay. Quite seriously, the present system is an integity tax., born by those too weak or to innocent to conceal their income in all its forms.
Posted by: Lou Gots at March 31, 2005 10:43 AMSo we are supposed to believe that the K Street lobbyists will just throw up their hands and surrender? As long as there is a tax, any tax, there will be people angling for ways to get out of paying it.
Posted by: Brandon at March 31, 2005 10:46 AMGots gets it right!
Posted by: Genecis at March 31, 2005 11:05 AM23% ? Why do people who suggest such rates think that people's buying habits will just stay the same? Already people have figured out ways to avoid the 4-8% sales taxes most states impose. This will just make "Black Markets" even more profitable, and end up with an enforcement bureaucracy just as intrusive as the IRS.
Don't give me that talk about how their much their larger income will make them grateful to only pay 23%. We're talking about a populace which has been conditioned to ignore payroll withholding, and think of their refund as a bonus.
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at March 31, 2005 11:33 AMWe should have a flat income tax and replace FICA with a consumption tax.
Posted by: Vince at March 31, 2005 12:02 PMI would think that with a nat'l sales tax, people who want to make a purchase will go out of their way to buy whatever it is elsewhere. Canada and Mexico are not so far to go to buy a car. When I lived in Memphis (high TN sales tax b/c no TN state income tax), I bought everything I could across the river in Arkansas.
Posted by: rds at March 31, 2005 12:14 PMEnd the tax on work and savings and there will be more work available and more savings. The cost of government will become transparant to all and overtaxing will reduce consumption to levels which starve government along the people. Taxing 'income' is self-defeating nonsense which has no rationale other than the attempt to impose economic 'justice' through coercion. It makes about as much sense as leaving the definition of 'income' at the discretion of the power wishing to tax it.
Posted by: Tom C., Stamford,Ct. at March 31, 2005 12:47 PM