Resistance, Secession, Sovereignty and State's Rights

[IsailedawayfromFR]

You will be when you git up there and fix that mess.

I do not know why you believe I plan on moving.

That is just an incorrect statement.

Perhaps you have another meaning?

[bigheadfred]

@IsailedawayfromFR

I am only teasing you. I live in Idaho. My wife has some relatives in Twin Falls. I have a bunch just down the road. I'll have her FB some of them and get their drift on what is happening there. How does that sound?

[IsailedawayfromFR]

@IsailedawayfromFR

I am only teasing you. I live in Idaho. My wife has some relatives in Twin Falls. I have a bunch just down the road. I'll have her FB some of them and get their drift on what is happening there. How does that sound?

Understood.  I was beginning to think you thought all Texans should be leaving for your state.

I was born a Texan but left for 24 years and worked overseas and both coasts.  Once we got back to Texas, that was it.  My farm would be difficult to move to Idaho.  Even if I could move it, I'd have to do it myself, as my wife would not make the journey.

[bigheadfred]

@Smokin Joe

I read today that 29 states have made application for an Article V convention. Is that an update or old news?

[Smokin Joe]

@Smokin Joe

I read today that 29 states have made application for an Article V convention. Is that an update or old news?

@bigheadfred  I don't know, Fred. I haven't been following that closely. Eight States so far as of July, but that was a while ago.

[geronl]

And the best way to accomplish that is to break their rice bowl!

I was told FairTax was revenue neutral. It was also still progressive.

That prebate idea is R-worded

[Smokin Joe]

I was told FairTax was revenue neutral. It was also still progressive.

That prebate idea is R-worded

I prefer a flat tax. The prebate is the biggest reason.

[Crazieman]

I prefer a flat tax. The prebate is the biggest reason.

Remove the prebate and I'm all for the Fair Tax.  Gung ho, push it until I die.

[Bigun]

I was told FairTax was revenue neutral. It was also still progressive.

That prebate idea is R-worded

The Fairtax IS revenue neutral as any replacement tax idea is required by law to be.  But there won't be anything left in Washington for the occupants fo K street to do under the fairtax since the income tax will be gone!

The prebate is there to make it progressive and to give it a chance of being passed! It would be impossible to pass without it!

[Bigun]

I prefer a flat tax. The prebate is the biggest reason.

We have had a flat rate income tax several times since 1913. It always morphs back into the monster that it currently is because the cottage industry in Washington is defining that one little word "income".  Once the fairtax is passed into law that all ends and the thoroughly corrupt IRS, which is an absolute requirement for any form of income tax,  is HISTORY!

Our founders universally endorsed excises on good as as the only proper form of taxation for our republic several times most prominently in Federalist 21 from which the quote below is taken:

"It is a signal advantage of taxes on articles of consumption that they contain in their own nature a security against excess. They prescribe their own limit, which cannot be exceeded without defeating the end proposed - that is, an extension of the revenue.
 
When applied to this object, the saying is as just as it is witty that, "in political arithmetic, two and two do not always make four." If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so great as when they are confined within proper and moderate bounds. This forms a complete barrier against any material oppression of the citizens by taxes of this class, and is itself a natural limitation of the power of imposing them."

That is also in perfect accord with what Adam Smith had to say in his Wealth of Nations about taxation:

“The tax which each individual is bound to pay ought to be certain, and not arbitrary. The time of payment, the manner of payment, the quantity to be paid, ought all to be clear and plain to the contributor, and to every other person, so that the tax payer is not put in the power of the tax gatherer.”

And then there is this:

“Maybe we ought to see that every person who gets a tax return receives a copy of the Communist Manifesto with it so he can see what's happening to him.”

T. Coleman Andrews, Commissioner of IRS, May 25, 1956 in U.S. News & World Report.

Here is what Mr. Andrews was talking about when he said that:

The following is directly quoted from “The Communist Manifesto"  by Karl Marx  chapter II. “Proletarians and Communists” page 7. (The section which instructs Fellow Travelers as to how they should go about taking over developed nations.)

Read it then ask yourself the question which follows.

“The proletariat will use its political supremacy top wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class; and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible. Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionizing the mode of production. These measures will of course be different in different countries. Nevertheless in the most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.
   
1.   Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
   
2.   A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
   
3.   Abolition of all right of inheritance.
   
4.   Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
   
5.   Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
   
6.   Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
   
7.   Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
   
8.   Equal liability of all to labor. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
   
9.   Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.
   
10.   Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c., &c.
   
When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organize itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class. In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.”

 The question is:

Why on earth would the country holding itself up to the world as the CHIEF opponents of Communism want anything at all to do with the very tax system that Communism endorses?

[Smokin Joe]

If you want a consumption tax, effectively a Federal Sales Tax, then do that. Eliminate any tax on food, medical care, medicine and medical supplies, energy and motor fuels (which already have an excise tax), residences, water and sewer services, and sanitation (garbage collection).
The only opportunities for fraud in such a system would be limited.

Issuance of a check or payment on the basis of an average cost of something does nothing much for people with a severe medical condition who would otherwise pay more taxes. It does nothing for people who live in colder climates (or hotter ones) who will pay more taxes for energy just to keep comfortable (or alive in the more severe colder climates). They will pay a disparate burden on top of the already higher expenses, and the prebate won't offset that.

What a prebate does do, is open the door to fraud. It also continues to employ an army of people, if for no other reason than to keep track of address changes, something the 330,000,000 plus people in the US do on an average of every 5 years. If you don't have to 'refund' any money because you didn't tax it in the first place, you can eliminate legions of Federal jobs and save the taxpayer a grundle.

There will always be some people who spend more on their primary residence, their food, etc. than others. They'll eat lobster rather than oatmeal. So be it. Lobster fisherman need to make a living, too. They'll live in bigger and fancier houses, but they will spend more on the taxable trimmings and furnishings in those houses and pay more taxes that way. They won't be sitting around on old fruit crates on a bare subfloor.

If you really, really want it to be fair, just don't tax the necessities in the first place.

If the meaning of "income" hadn't been twisted to include the currency exchanged with a worker for skills or labor, (that is an exchange, value for value, not "income"), the tax system wouldn't be the mess it is anyway.

[Bigun]

If you want a consumption tax, effectively a Federal Sales Tax, then do that. Eliminate any tax on food, medical care, medicine and medical supplies, energy and motor fuels (which already have an excise tax), residences, water and sewer services, and sanitation (garbage collection).
The only opportunities for fraud in such a system would be limited.

Who gets to decide what your necessities are?  Under the fairtax that would be YOU!  The fairtax is the ONLY proposal out there that completely untaxes the poor and allows them the opportunity to grab hold to that first rung on the ladder of success!

Issuance of a check or payment on the basis of an average cost of something does nothing much for people with a severe medical condition who would otherwise pay more taxes. It does nothing for people who live in colder climates (or hotter ones) who will pay more taxes for energy just to keep comfortable (or alive in the more severe colder climates). They will pay a disparate burden on top of the already higher expenses, and the prebate won't offset that.

  But that is NOT what the fairtax prebate does in any shape, form or fashion!  The fairtax simply untaxes ALL of one's spending up to the poverty level!  That's it!

What a prebate does do, is open the door to fraud. It also continues to employ an army of people, if for no other reason than to keep track of address changes, something the 330,000,000 plus people in the US do on an average of every 5 years. If you don't have to 'refund' any money because you didn't tax it in the first place, you can eliminate legions of Federal jobs and save the taxpayer a grundle.

Baloney! 100% USDA choice!  I suggest that you read the bill and learn how it ACTUALLY works. 

There will always be some people who spend more on their primary residence, their food, etc. than others. They'll eat lobster rather than oatmeal. So be it. Lobster fisherman need to make a living, too. They'll live in bigger and fancier houses, but they will spend more on the taxable trimmings and furnishings in those houses and pay more taxes that way. They won't be sitting around on old fruit crates on a bare subfloor.

If you really, really want it to be fair, just don't tax the necessities in the first place.

If the meaning of "income" hadn't been twisted to include the currency exchanged with a worker for skills or labor, (that is an exchange, value for value, not "income"), the tax system wouldn't be the mess it is anyway.

Once again, WHO decides what my necessities are? 

https://fairtax.org/about/how-fairtax-works

[Bigun]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7b7YrxMjsa0&feature=youtu.be

[Bigun]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTOOw7u_lsI&feature=youtu.be

[JustPassinThru]

FairTax is an interesting concept.  And totally workable - as far as that goes.

The PROBLEM is, we ALREADY HAVE an Income Tax.  The Income Tax MUST be abolished, WITH CERTAINTY, before a FairTax-like system is set up - else we'll wind up with TWO taxes, and the FairTax will quickly become a VAT.  MOAR taxes.

A flat tax with a high personal exemption, would be done without this concern; without reworking Point-of-Sale tax structures; done by a simple Congressional vote.

IF.  IF the Career Politicians were removed.  IF the K Street Lobbying Army were made irrelevant.

The only realistic way we'll get a Flat Tax, is if we first have an Article V Convention that forces TERM LIMITS on Congress and returns the Senate to the States.

[Bigun]

FairTax is an interesting concept.  And totally workable - as far as that goes.

The PROBLEM is, we ALREADY HAVE an Income Tax.  The Income Tax MUST be abolished, WITH CERTAINTY, before a FairTax-like system is set up - else we'll wind up with TWO taxes, and the FairTax will quickly become a VAT.  MOAR taxes.

A flat tax with a high personal exemption, would be done without this concern; without reworking Point-of-Sale tax structures; done by a simple Congressional vote.

IF.  IF the Career Politicians were removed.  IF the K Street Lobbying Army were made irrelevant.

The only realistic way we'll get a Flat Tax, is if we first have an Article V Convention that forces TERM LIMITS on Congress and returns the Senate to the States.

The income tax IS abolished! Done away with in it's entirety along with the IRS the instant the Fairtax becomes law!   It's part of the bill!

[JustPassinThru]

The income tax IS abolished! Done away with in it's entirety along with the IRS the instant the Fairtax becomes law!   It's part of the bill!

And that's probably why this bill isn't getting any traction.  See my comments above about a flat tax.

Term Limits, imposed by an Article V Convention, are the only way we'll have any meaningful tax reform.

FWIW, I favor a flat tax simply for its simplicity.  FairTax has complications and a lot of collection-costs forced on merchants.  And it STILL has the danger of being morphed into a VAT.

A flat tax does not have that danger.  And if Term Limits are cemented into the Constitution, K Street will be emptied forever.  No more career hustlers doing Great Deals™®© with lifelong "Public Servants."

That, IMHO, is where we need to be pouring our energy.  That, and exploration of Secession - as I've said before.

[Bigun]

And that's probably why this bill isn't getting any traction.  See my comments above about a flat tax.

Term Limits, imposed by an Article V Convention, are the only way we'll have any meaningful tax reform.

FWIW, I favor a flat tax simply for its simplicity.  FairTax has complications and a lot of collection-costs forced on merchants.  And it STILL has the danger of being morphed into a VAT.

A flat tax does not have that danger.  And if Term Limits are cemented into the Constitution, K Street will be emptied forever.  No more career hustlers doing Great Deals™®© with lifelong "Public Servants."

That, IMHO, is where we need to be pouring our energy.  That, and exploration of Secession - as I've said before.

The fairtax is a flat rate tax so you must be talking about favoring a flat rate INCOME Tax!  And because it is an income tax it doesn't solve ANYTHING!  No income tax! be they flat, round or square!

[JustPassinThru]

The fairtax is a flat rate tax so you must be talking about favoring a flat rate INCOME Tax!  And because it is an income tax it doesn't solve ANYTHING!  No income tax! be they flat, round or square!

Why not?  First there's the changeover cost.  Second there's the regressive nature of a POS tax - it taxes consumption, and someone living off retirement savings is AGAIN taxed.

A flat-rate income tax requires no such changeover - just a layoff of the hundreds of thousands of IRS drones.  It costs merchants nothing.  And the end result for those who are working is the same; and it doesn't penalize those who're at the end of their lives or otherwise living with reduced or no income.

[Sanguine]

Why not?  First there's the changeover cost.  Second there's the regressive nature of a POS tax - it taxes consumption, and someone living off retirement savings is AGAIN taxed.

A flat-rate income tax requires no such changeover - just a layoff of the hundreds of thousands of IRS drones.  It costs merchants nothing.  And the end result for those who are working is the same; and it doesn't penalize those who're at the end of their lives or otherwise living with reduced or no income.

IRS drones can enforce immigration laws.

[Smokin Joe]

Who gets to decide what your necessities are?  Under the fairtax that would be YOU!

nope. Nature, thermodynamics, physics, decide what the necessities are.

  The fairtax is the ONLY proposal out there that completely untaxes the poor and allows them the opportunity to grab hold to that first rung on the ladder of success!

Please explain how not taxing the essentials for living doesn't untax the poor?

  But that is NOT what the fairtax prebate does in any shape, form or fashion! 

The prebate ensures legions of Federal employees, just to administer it. why 'give money back' on the presumption people would spend it? 

The fairtax simply untaxes ALL of one's spending up to the poverty level!  That's it!
 Baloney! 100% USDA choice!  I suggest that you read the bill and learn how it ACTUALLY works. 

Once again, WHO decides what my necessities are? 

Why you do, up to a point, whether or not they are taxed. So who decides what the tax should be on an 'poverty level' of them?
 
Someone has to decide, after all that is what the prebate is supposed to offset the taxes on.

I can pretty much guarantee you it would be someone who lives in a place which is far warmer than where I live is in January, who might decide we don't need the extra heat to offset the subzero weather outside, so we have to pay taxes on that. It isn't a luxury. Spend the Alabama poverty level here for heat and you won't have to worry about taxes, you'll freeze to death.

Someone has to decide what is 'poverty level' for heat. Where will they live?

Maybe someone would decide someone doesn't 'need' medical care. We're already on the verge of that, but the taxes on chemotherapy drugs wouldn't be offset by the prebate, but someone else would get the money 'back'.  That's just wrong, kicking someone when they are down, and giving away resources they might really need to someone who doesn't.
If someone runs a light and t-bones your car, you're likely going to need more than the poverty level of health care, and you won't have a lot of choice in the matter. Under the 'Fair' tax, the uninsured illegal alien who hit you won't be picking up the tab, so you get to pay the tax on staying alive and any reconstructive and therapeutic medical care. Sorry, but that's just wrong. Just don't tax it.

Leave medicine out of it, and so what if a few untaxed boob jobs get through? They'll spend money on new underwear (and the rest of the wardrobe) and pay the tax on that.

How do you establish "poverty level" of health care (all the really poor people I know either didn't get any or were on medicaid, but that would put the 'poverty level' at zero.)

Which of Michelle Obama's minions would decide what a 'poverty level' of food is? Oh, SNAP! they don't pay it. So someone else would have to decide who needed to eat what, regardless of where they live or what they do for a living. Caloric expenditure can vary greatly, just to keep the same body weight, depending on where you live, how much physical exertion is involved, and again, that climate thingy, especially if you can't turn the heat up.

Food, shelter, water, medical care are all things we have generally found necessary to life. Without the first three you will die. The fourth is something we all need, sooner or later. While over 100,000 people visit emergency rooms annually over injuries sustained while golfing, there are a lot more people in dire need of less optional emergency care.

I added energy, because heat and the ability to transport yourself to places to get food (and the ability to keep and prepare it) are important. You can choose between a clunker and a limo and pay the tax on that, but the fuel should not be any more taxed than it is.

We have disagreed on this topic before. You touched on the truth when you said without the check in the mailbox, people wouldn't go for it.  The K street types working for the Public Employee's Unions wouldn't go for the job reductions, either. There are enough IRS offices and clearinghouses scattered around key congressional districts that it'd never get through Congress without guaranteeing IRS jobs. I get it.
But I think it is counterproductive.

Just tax what isn't a necessity, and that will have to be figured out to determine what the "poverty level" of necessities is, anyway.

[Bigun]

Why not?  First there's the changeover cost.  Second there's the regressive nature of a POS tax - it taxes consumption, and someone living off retirement savings is AGAIN taxed.

A flat-rate income tax requires no such changeover - just a layoff of the hundreds of thousands of IRS drones.  It costs merchants nothing.  And the end result for those who are working is the same; and it doesn't penalize those who're at the end of their lives or otherwise living with reduced or no income.

1. There are no changeover costs with the fairtax!  45 of the 50 states already have a sales tax in place!  The only costs involved would be a few lines of code in the cash register's programming.

2. The Fairtax is NOT regressive!  EVERYONE except possibly for those who are wealthy enough under the current scheme to be able to arrange their affairs in such a way as to have little or no "Income", will be better off under the fairtax!

https://fairtax-structure-psyclone.netdna-ssl.com/client_assets/fairtaxorg/media/attachments/56c4/afa1/6970/2d7c/197d/0000/56c4afa169702d7c197d0000.pdf?1455730593

[Bigun]

nope. Nature, thermodynamics, physics, decide what the necessities are. Please explain how not taxing the essentials for living doesn't untax the poor?  The prebate ensures legions of Federal employees, just to administer it. why 'give money back' on the presumption people would spend it?  Why you do, up to a point, whether or not they are taxed. So who decides what the tax should be on an 'poverty level' of them?
 
Someone has to decide, after all that is what the prebate is supposed to offset the taxes on.

I can pretty much guarantee you it would be someone who lives in a place which is far warmer than where I live is in January, who might decide we don't need the extra heat to offset the subzero weather outside, so we have to pay taxes on that. It isn't a luxury. Spend the Alabama poverty level here for heat and you won't have to worry about taxes, you'll freeze to death.

Someone has to decide what is 'poverty level' for heat. Where will they live?

Maybe someone would decide someone doesn't 'need' medical care. We're already on the verge of that, but the taxes on chemotherapy drugs wouldn't be offset by the prebate, but someone else would get the money 'back'.  That's just wrong, kicking someone when they are down, and giving away resources they might really need to someone who doesn't.
If someone runs a light and t-bones your car, you're likely going to need more than the poverty level of health care, and you won't have a lot of choice in the matter. Under the 'Fair' tax, the uninsured illegal alien who hit you won't be picking up the tab, so you get to pay the tax on staying alive and any reconstructive and therapeutic medical care. Sorry, but that's just wrong. Just don't tax it.

Leave medicine out of it, and so what if a few untaxed boob jobs get through? They'll spend money on new underwear (and the rest of the wardrobe) and pay the tax on that.

How do you establish "poverty level" of health care (all the really poor people I know either didn't get any or were on medicaid, but that would put the 'poverty level' at zero.)

Which of Michelle Obama's minions would decide what a 'poverty level' of food is? Oh, SNAP! they don't pay it. So someone else would have to decide who needed to eat what, regardless of where they live or what they do for a living. Caloric expenditure can vary greatly, just to keep the same body weight, depending on where you live, how much physical exertion is involved, and again, that climate thingy, especially if you can't turn the heat up.

Food, shelter, water, medical care are all things we have generally found necessary to life. Without the first three you will die. The fourth is something we all need, sooner or later. While over 100,000 people visit emergency rooms annually over injuries sustained while golfing, there are a lot more people in dire need of less optional emergency care.

I added energy, because heat and the ability to transport yourself to places to get food (and the ability to keep and prepare it) are important. You can choose between a clunker and a limo and pay the tax on that, but the fuel should not be any more taxed than it is.

We have disagreed on this topic before. You touched on the truth when you said without the check in the mailbox, people wouldn't go for it.  The K street types working for the Public Employee's Unions wouldn't go for the job reductions, either. There are enough IRS offices and clearinghouses scattered around key congressional districts that it'd never get through Congress without guaranteeing IRS jobs. I get it.
But I think it is counterproductive.

Just tax what isn't a necessity, and that will have to be figured out to determine what the "poverty level" of necessities is, anyway.

Yes we have and apparently we will continue to disagree!  I will take FREEDOM over slavery every single time and for so long as we continue to abide the Marxist income tax and it's attendant IRS none of us will ever be truly FREE ever again!

What you don't seem to understand is that under the present system the cost of EVERYTHING produced in this country is hugely inflated due to the fact that ALL the taxes and ALL of the compliance costs attendant to them are rolled up in them and YOU pay it all at the market!

[Smokin Joe]

Yes we have and apparently we will continue to disagree!  I will take FREEDOM over slavery every single time and for so long as we continue to abide the Marxist income tax and it's attendant IRS none of us will ever be truly FREE ever again!

I'm all for freedom. The government doesn't need my bank account information to send me a check. They don't need my address every month, they don't need to tax the exchange rate on my labor and skills, there's a lot they don't need. They don't need to tax my cell phone at 14%--the electromagnetic spectrum didn't cost a dime, and who said it belonged to them anyway?

What you don't seem to understand is that under the present system the cost of EVERYTHING produced in this country is hugely inflated due to the fact that ALL the taxes and ALL of the compliance costs attendant to them are rolled up in them and YOU pay it all at the market!

What do you think I don't understand about that? The cost of everything in this country is inflated by a bloated Federal Government which taxes us at every opportunity to make a token effort at funding itself.

Bigun, I don't see how you are going to get rid of the IRS. No matter what kind of tax is collected, someone is going to count the money, look for cheats, etc. They are still chasing moonshiners in the hills over taxes. They still check for dyed diesel fuel in the vehicles around here, over taxes. They still chase 'bootleg' cigarettes over taxes. There won't be any shortage of revenuers, unless you fundamentally change the tax structure.  We already have people collecting taxes, and people sending a pittance back every year (just not to every body every month). Eliminate one leg of that (the one that sends money back) and you eliminate a bunch of employees. Reduce the calculations involved and the paperwork, and you cut even more. Don't tax the first XXXXX dollars, a flat tax on the rest is one way to do it (flat tax), or along the lines of your idea, just don't tax food, water, housing, the energy to heat it, fuel for personal (noncommercial) use and medical care. No prebate required, the necessities won't be taxed. Tax the rest, from beanie babies and pet rocks to classic Packards, and you have a consumption tax for the things beyond the necessities. People with big houses will fill them with expensive stuff, and pay the taxes on that. With the variation in real estate values, how would you decide what was the poverty level for that, anyway? The going rate for a welfare apartment in NYC or the rent for a 30 year old 14X70 in Bumfug?

People won't be taking buckets of untaxed warm air and selling them on the black market in the winter, they won't be buying food and selling it on the sly to other people who would just buy their own, anyway. They aren't going to sell the hardware in their leg on the black market, or hawk water in the 'hood.
And with no payment system, you will have eliminated an opportunity for fraud on a commercial scale.

I know I won't convince you, but it sure makes sense to me.

[Bigun]

I'm all for freedom. The government doesn't need my bank account information to send me a check. They don't need my address every month, they don't need to tax the exchange rate on my labor and skills, there's a lot they don't need. They don't need to tax my cell phone at 14%--the electromagnetic spectrum didn't cost a dime, and who said it belonged to them anyway? What do you think I don't understand about that? The cost of everything in this country is inflated by a bloated Federal Government which taxes us at every opportunity to make a token effort at funding itself.

Bigun, I don't see how you are going to get rid of the IRS. No matter what kind of tax is collected, someone is going to count the money, look for cheats, etc. They are still chasing moonshiners in the hills over taxes. They still check for dyed diesel fuel in the vehicles around here, over taxes. They still chase 'bootleg' cigarettes over taxes. There won't be any shortage of revenuers, unless you fundamentally change the tax structure.  We already have people collecting taxes, and people sending a pittance back every year (just not to every body every month). Eliminate one leg of that (the one that sends money back) and you eliminate a bunch of employees. Reduce the calculations involved and the paperwork, and you cut even more. Don't tax the first XXXXX dollars, a flat tax on the rest is one way to do it (flat tax), or along the lines of your idea, just don't tax food, water, housing, the energy to heat it, fuel for personal (noncommercial) use and medical care. No prebate required, the necessities won't be taxed. Tax the rest, from beanie babies and pet rocks to classic Packards, and you have a consumption tax for the things beyond the necessities. People with big houses will fill them with expensive stuff, and pay the taxes on that. With the variation in real estate values, how would you decide what was the poverty level for that, anyway? The going rate for a welfare apartment in NYC or the rent for a 30 year old 14X70 in Bumfug?

People won't be taking buckets of untaxed warm air and selling them on the black market in the winter, they won't be buying food and selling it on the sly to other people who would just buy their own, anyway. They aren't going to sell the hardware in their leg on the black market, or hawk water in the 'hood.
And with no payment system, you will have eliminated an opportunity for fraud on a commercial scale.

I know I won't convince you, but it sure makes sense to me.

They won't be doing any of those things under the faritax either!  Texas has the 12th largest economy on the planet and no income tax!  NONE of that is happening here!


If you would just take the time and effort to actually READ some of the information I have linked to perhaps you might understand!  This country did quite well for a very long time without either an income tax OR an IRS!