Thanks for Noticing
May 15th, 2007 - 6:32 pm
Will Collier comments:
In all seriousness, I notice the future-readers at ABC haven’t noticed the 10,000-strong FairTax rally that Neal Boortz ginned up, literally across the street from the debate tonight. I’m reasonably sure the people at that one are outnumbering the predicted protesters by at least 500 to one.
But they’re not protesting for leftie causes, so we’ll just ignore them. ‘Kay?
A quick search of Google News (Beta!) yields zero hits on the big rally. I have to admit I don’t really know what Boortz’s FairTax thingy is all about. Of course, it’s not like I have anybody in the MSN to help explain it to me.
fairtax.org
Basically replacing the income tax with an inclusive sales tax, dependent on the repeal of the 16th Amendment.
The hard uphill climb to rip the social engineering and favoritism out of the hands of government that they never deserved to have.
Most never see the behind the scenes “smokey back room” manipulations and buying of support unless it trots over the legal edge and a prosecution results.
If the tax system is taken out of play, then it is harder for special interests to do the private damage they do and businesses can get back to making choices as to what is the best outcome for their business to grow and not what do I have to do just because of my tax impact of my choice.
I don’t run a business now, I am retired.
But just to occupy myself I am an active day trader in the stock market.
My electronic tax return that I filed this year came to over 640 pages just to record my trade transactions since I am an active day trader.
I am for the fair tax, it would make us the largest tax haven in all the world and encourage offshore entities that are strictly tax dodges to base themselves here.
I am also for major revisions to the overkill of Sarbanes-Oxley that was the legal version of hunting quail with a howitzer.
In my business I ran two companies. One I had worked for and bought for 10 cents on a dollar when it went belly up due to bad decisions by the owner. There was another I created to do related work.
It went from an employer with 12 workers that bit the dust to two companies that employed over 4500 people and had a contract backlog of over a half a billion dollars when I sold the companies in only 5 years time.
You have not a bit of clue of how many times I fought the tax guys as the company exploded and they were saying you can’t do this or that because of the tax impact.
They finally learned that my consistent answer was , so I gotta pay more taxes, big f***ing deal, like it will mean I can’t go out an buy prime rib tomorrow night. I want this company to do the smart and the best thing it can do to get it right. If higher taxes result , so what. I just want my company to be the best it can be.
Sarbanes-Oxley was one of the reasons I kept my company private until I sold it.
If I had chosen to keep the company and taken it public, I would have had to take three months revenue, not net profit, to build a data center just to meet the requirements of that legislation.
Totally useless overhead, since there are still ways if I was a bad guy to game the system.
I passed the revenue point addressed in the legislation of 75MM annual revenue in my second year and destroyed it in my cap gains rate in later years.
I was riding a rocket and still had control because I always made the correct business decision, not the tax or law impact decision. I obeyed the law , and looked at all the law enabled speed bumps as just that. I complied and I paid, but the companies thrived because I chose not to be sucked into the vortex of it’s bad tax choices rather than good business choices.
Yes I realize I was a different drummer person here, but imagine the fair tax in place where every business can feel that way without having to pay extra taxes because of correct decisions.
Awesome ain’t it?
Exqueeze me, getting rid of the income tax would NOT require repealing the 16th Amendment (although it’s a good idea). All that’s required is one additional line in the Fair Tax bill: As of the date of signing, the US income tax rate is set to 0 for all classes of income; all laws, regulations, etc. related to collecting income tax are declared null and void, and the IRS is directed to expend no funds on further enforcement of the same.
SDN, the catch there is that any future Congress could raise the income tax from the dead with a single vote. Having both a national sales tax AND an income tax would be untenable.
Just for the record, I’m neither particularly for or against the “FairTax” idea. While I’m definitely in favor of major tax reform (more like complete overhaul), I’m agnostic on what form it takes.
The only problem with the Fair Tax is that it’s a really really dumb idea.
What’s the rate? 21%? 24%?
As a sales tax? Not even a VAT, but a SALES TAX? Charged once at retail?
Way to create a grey/black retail economy, don’t you think?
I’m not even a criminal and I can think of several ways to scam such a system for a few million $ in a three month period.
No, silly.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for reform of the tax system but this one might be one of the few even siller than the present.