Georgia-
Likewise. I never think I can convince someone, especially on the internet. That’s something they have to do themselves. I just try to present the facts as best I can.
1. I reject the notion that people considering the purchase of used goods as necessarily increasing the tax rate to 45%, that doesn’t jive with how the free market works. While new goods and services will have the FairTax applied to them, there will be reduced cost on the backend, minimizing the price increase, so I don’t anticipate a spike in demand for used goods, and even if there were that would quickly balance with the cost of new goods and we’d get back to a reasonable equilibrium of new-versus-used pricing.
2. I think you underestimate the capabilities of tax accountants & attorneys under our current system. We can go back and forth on hypotheticals of what the ultra-wealthy will do under one system versus another. But the reality is the vast majority of very wealthy Americans have the vast majority of their consumption domestically, and there’s no indication that would change.
I’m not sure what you’re trying to say by claiming people will only get their full paychecks if prices rise by 23% – the legislation is clear, there will be no payroll deduction from their paycheck at all. Spending power is enhanced, not reduced. AFT has a nifty interactive FairTax calculator on their site these days, I suggest you check it out to see how you would fare under the FairTax.
3. I don’t claim to know every detail of the tax situations surrounding Bill Gates or Warren Buffet. But I do know Buffet only pays what he does because he chooses not to avoid any taxes, which he cuold easily do. It’s also somewhat flawed to use the two wealthiest individuals in the nation as any type of guideline. But that’s really not the point, and it makes no sense to design a tax system based upon the tiny handful of people in their category.
What I do know is that someone who is independently wealthy can have an extremely low income tax obligation in years where their investments don’t do well. It’s a perfect demonstration of how income does not equate to wealth and why income tax is a fundamentally flawed and unfair method of taxation. On the other side of the coin you can have young professionals coming out of graduate school with a ton of debt to pay off, only to get hammered on taxes from day one as if they are debt free. We shouldn’t be making it harder for people to pay off their debts, we should be making it easier! The same goes for the entrepreneur, who after years of debt accumulation finally has a breakout year, only to have half his profits taken by the federal government before he can pay his own debts first. I see that as fundamentally wrong.
And I reject your notion that “everyone will buy used” – that’s just nonsense. Used goods are cheaper currently and we remain an extremely wasteful society. The people who are going to buy used are those who most need to financially, and that will remain the case.
As for Ireland, that is a bit of a tangent, but they did most certainly aggressively lower their corporate tax rates and they themselves credit that with substantial improvements in their economic growth rates.
