Equality?

[denuseri]

The only issues I have with flat tax, is the institution of a coorperation with limited liability will be the sole prime benefactors, while all the rest of us who are not super rich will have our taxes nearly trippled to fill the void. So long as faceless corperations are being treated with all of the perks of "personhood" with none of the responsabilities, any such endeavor will do far more harm than good.

If each company was owned by individuals who are fully liable then and only then would I support a fair tax em all you want position. Though I am sure that has its own drawbacks.

As for a full on redistribution of wealth...smh..we havent ever even got close to that in the United States. In fact no one anywhere really has short of a few handfuls of hippie communes and the Hutterites.

Additionally I seriously doubt "global" corpperations of american origin or otherwise will ever allow the politicians that they own lock stock and barrel in several countires to take away their sacred profit margins.

Nor do I believe will the extremely wealthy individuals that are out there support any such endeavor, for they gain nothing by it.

Even the full blown "communist" countries failed to fully redistribute the wealth nor control its redistribution in any kind of productive manner in anything more than "theory" and that was the basis for their very rise to power on the ignorant massess proverbial backs.

Sadely...it is greed..imho...that ultimately rules the day when all is said and done.

[Canyon]

Good point steelish, however that could be addressed. A fair tax is the only way to completely tax everything. The flat tax completely misses the underground ecomony, but with a fair tax, if a drug dealer, for instance, wants to eat, he pays the tax. Admittidly we would probably need some type of export tariff to get any tax value from exported items, but, if every comercial transaction is taxed, everyone pays for what they buy.

denuseri, corporations don't pay taxes anyway, that is just a myth. they raise the price of their goods and we, the comnsumers pay the tax they are charged. A fair tax is more honest, especially if you don't allow the tax to be hidden in the price of the goods. The income tax withholding was genius on the part of the government, as, even though you see numbers on your pay stub, it is not real to you, as you never actually have the money. In a fair tax, you could buy 40 dollars worth of goods, and be charged 56 dollars, which would make the tax very real. If it is that real, you have a stake in how it is spent, and by limiting your purchases, you could effectively limit a government that spends unwisely.

It should be set so that at an average year, the government breaks even. This would motivate government to save for a rainy day in good years, or have to make cuts in bad years.

Let me add one last thing to this. The theory that everything the government requires, the government should pay for, (vehicle registration, jury duty, etc...). this would remove the hidden taxes they sneak in on you.

[DuncanONeil]

"The flat tax and the FairTax share some important similarities. They are both flat-rate taxes that are neutral with respect to savings and investment. The flat tax, however, retains the invasive income tax administration apparatus and can easily revert to a graduated, convoluted mess, as it has many times over many years.

Very few people really understand the flat tax. Its authors will tell you it is a consumption tax that uses the income tax system for implementation. Only an academic or government bureaucrat would dream up a consumption tax that needs the invasive income tax apparatus for its application, when one can simply have a retail sales tax and reduce the bureaucracy by 90 percent or more! In addition, a large part of the burden of the flat tax -- the business tax -- will remain hidden from people in the retail price of goods and services.

In contrast, the FairTax is simple, easy to understand, and visible. It cannot be converted into an income tax."

The only issues I have with flat tax, is the institution of a coorperation with limited liability will be the sole prime benefactors, while all the rest of us who are not super rich will have our taxes nearly trippled to fill the void. So long as faceless corperations are being treated with all of the perks of "personhood" with none of the responsabilities, any such endeavor will do far more harm than good.

If each company was owned by individuals who are fully liable then and only then would I support a fair tax em all you want position. Though I am sure that has its own drawbacks.

As for a full on redistribution of wealth...smh..we havent ever even got close to that in the United States. In fact no one anywhere really has short of a few handfuls of hippie communes and the Hutterites.

Additionally I seriously doubt "global" corpperations of american origin or otherwise will ever allow the politicians that they own lock stock and barrel in several countires to take away their sacred profit margins.

Nor do I believe will the extremely wealthy individuals that are out there support any such endeavor, for they gain nothing by it.

Even the full blown "communist" countries failed to fully redistribute the wealth nor control its redistribution in any kind of productive manner in anything more than "theory" and that was the basis for their very rise to power on the ignorant massess proverbial backs.

Sadely...it is greed..imho...that ultimately rules the day when all is said and done.