Delay Calls for National Sales Tax to Replace Federal Income Tax

WooHoo!!!

BTW - I'm a bigtime proponent of a natl sales tax. However, I'm NOT a proponent of the flat tax. It discourages responsible spending, such as, house purchases. Were it not for the tax break, I couldn't afford my home. Living in Southern California will do that to a homeowner

 

A national sales tax would cause large incomes to be taxed proportionately less than small incomes...because those with large incomes can delay spending the money and hence avoid the taxable event.

I'm not sure I'd be opposed to a flat tax if a certain initial amount of income were excluded and corporations had to pay tax, too. The taxation of corporations, while in some sense "double taxation," is something which I view as only fair exchange for the limited tort liability of their shareholders.

 

I like the idea of a sales tax to REPLACE the income tax.

Watch out, though, if these people pass a sales tax provision BEFORE COMPLETE repeal of the income tax, guess what will happen?

Also, if we re-elect Bush I think that tax reform will be impossible, because his wild spending can only lead to higher future taxation.

[ April 01, 2004, 09:21 PM: Message edited by: Gina L ]

 

Is there an example where this has worked in any other country?

It sounds like a good plan...or at least better than the current tax plan.

My candidate for the US House is Ben Streusand, and he's been talking about doing away with the IRS. He received the endorsement of Tom DeLay largely because of this.

I'd like to read and hear more about it.

It's about time something was done to reform the current, faulty system of taxation.

 

The best plan would be to repeal the Sixteenth Amendment, abolish the Internal Revenue Service, repeal the Federal Reserve Act and restore the nation’s official medium of exchange to be compliant with the U.S. Constitution and the Mint Act of 1792.

Replace the current tax system (including income taxes, Social Security taxes, estate taxes, and inheritance taxes) with tariffs on foreign products.

Does anyone else find it odd that both the Federal Income Tax and the Federal Reserve were created in the same year?

 

Abolish the Fed, Pure and Simple! It is Unconstitutional
by Ross James (West Virginia)
(Printed in the Winchester Star newspaper, January 26, 1999)

Thomas Jefferson said, "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."

The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 created an un-American, unconstitutional monetary and taxation system. It is a mice trap set for the American people by an extremely cunning group of scoundrels. The Federal Reserve Board is an evil institution that has impoverished the people of the United States. It is the most gigantic fraud in the history of mankind. Many Americans erroneously believe that the Federal Reserve banks are owned by the U.S. government. The Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks are a private credit monopoly that prays upon the American people for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers. They are not federal government institutions, they receive no appropriated funds from Congress. No stock of the Federal Reserve banks has ever been sold to either the public or the government; the Federal Reserve Banks are owned wholly by their member banks. The Federal Reserve system is not federal and there are no reserves. Its money exists only in name and in public faith. The Federal Reserve system is based upon public debt and the debt was created by fraud. The federal government owes money to the Federal Reserve banks, and the Federal Reserve banks owe the money to the people. Both are in default.

The interest that the people of the United States pay on the crippling national debt amounts to a preconceived plan to destroy the economic and social independence of the United States. How did it happen that 12 private banks literally own the United States and its 260 million "free" people?

The fateful Federal Reserve Act of 1913, based on the Marxist idea of centralized control of credit and interest rates, attempted to establish a new source of money supply to ostensibly ensure stable economic development. The Federal Reserve banks were supposed to be that source. To date, Congress has borrowed trillions of dollars in Federal Reserve credit. Where could the Federal Reserve banks obtain such vast sums of money to loan? The lending power of the banks is not derived from member bank reserve deposits, and larger required reserve balances do not increase that power. Their lending power is a statutory power whereby the banks may acquire promissory notes, bond acceptances and other obligations, and give in exchange Federal Reserve notes of credit. Federal Reserve bank credit does not consist of funds that the reserve authorities get somewhere in order to lend, but constitutes funds that they are empowered to create. The Federal Reserve banks merely create whatever funds they wish to loan without restraint. The Federal Reserve banks did not have trillions of dollars to lend, they created it upon the credit of the United States. They merely created "money" on their books, giving nothing of value to Congress yet demanding in return value from the people in the form of interest and principal payments.

What value are repaying? Money in its strictly technical sense is coined metal, either gold or silver, on which the government has impressed its stamp to indicate its value. From the beginning it was intended that the "Federal Reserve Note" would represent the dollar at a ratio of $1 in "Federal Reserve Notes" to be equal to one U.S. dollar in value. By 1939, the ratio of gold to "Federal Reserve Notes" slipped to 40 percent; the new ratio was established at $2.50. By 1965, the ratio approached $400 to $1. Today, the "Notes" do not represent any standard of value and are incapable of representing the U.S. dollar; they are not redeemable at the counter of the banks where they were issued, nor do they pass at the par value with gold or silver. "Federal Reserve Notes" are not U.S. money, but dishonored promises to pay dollars.

The question is who is guilty of issuing this unlawful "money"? The answer is very clear -- it is the fault of our myopic government of simpletons that American citizens are enslaved to the Federal Reserve banks. It happened because Congress has delegated authority over the money supply to the Federal Reserve System -- a private credit monopoly. Congress has made an unlawful delegation of power strictly legislative to a bunch of private bankers. It has sidestepped its constitutional responsibility, its most important function -- creation and management of the nation's money. There would be no objection to Congress borrowing something of value from banks, such as lawful money, gold or silver dollars, or bullion. But when the Federal Reserve banks simply create money on their books and the U.S. government guarantees the redemption of the worthless paper "money", it is a fraud, pure and simple.

By borrowing money through the Federal Reserve banks, Congress is laying a heavy tax upon us to repay that debt and the interest. Yet, if Congress borrowed the money directly from us, the people, as it has done in the past, there would be no interest due to the banks and no need for heavy income tax. As long as there is an interest charge against the Federal Reserve Notes, that debt can never be repaid. The continuation of the socialist tax on bankers' worthless papers is nothing less than plunder in the form of unlawful confiscation of private property to unlawfully pay the unnecessary interest on the unnecessary government debt. This greatest fraud of all time must be stopped. The Federal Reserve banks must be abolished and our national debt must be retired. Period. A government central bank must be established to deal with the monetary policy and issuance of debt-free, interest-free money based on the gold or silver standard, under the jurisdiction and direct control of Congress. Our national government must be the only creator of money and the only controller of its value.

 

Should the Fed be abolished and replaced with free banking and privately-issued money?

I found NORFED online in January, and have been researching them, the history of the Federal Reserve and silver and gold in general for the past two months.

I have learned more about the Federal Reserve and our money in the past two months, than I have learned about the subject in the past 20 years.

In 1913 with the ratification of the 16th Amendment, Congress created the federal internal income tax and the Federal Reserve Bank to fight the inflation caused by paper currency. All income tax collections are forwarded to the Federal Reserve to pay the interest on it's publicly circulated money.

I found some interesting stuff about FDR's Executive Order 6102 and JFK's Executive Order 11110 that I never knew about before. It's amazing what they don't teach you in history class at the government schools.

No Congress, no President has been strong enough to stand up to the foreign- controlled Federal Reserve Bank. Yet there is a catch - one that President Kennedy recognized before he was slain - the original deal in 1913 creating the Federal Reserve Bank had a simple backout clause. The investors loaned the United States Government $1 billion. And the backout clause allows the United States to buy out the system for that $1 billion. If the Federal Reserve Bank were demolished and the Congress of the United States took control of the currency, as required in the Constitution, the National Debt would virtually end overnight, and the need for more taxes and even the income tax, itself. Thomas Jefferson was concise in his early warning to the American nation, "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."

 

Well now, there's a lovely, lovely loophole! Why should a "wealthy person" spend money on anything when a corporation can purchase it and donate the use of it?

For instance, if I incorporate myself as Daisy, Ltd. my employer can contract my services through my corporation. Daisy, Ltd can then provide Daisy, the sole employee, with a car, appropriate clothing, lunches, housing, etc. and get the business write-off on the purchases. (This is already a popular method of avoiding income tax, but the IRS does at least tax the corporation and benefits to corporate employees.)

 

Well now, there's a lovely, lovely loophole! Why should a "wealthy person" spend money on anything when a corporation can purchase it and donate the use of it?

For instance, if I incorporate myself as Daisy, Ltd. my employer can contract my services through my corporation. Daisy, Ltd can then provide Daisy, the sole employee, with a car, appropriate clothing, lunches, housing, etc. and get the business write-off on the purchases. (This is already a popular method of avoiding income tax, but the IRS does at least tax the corporation and benefits to corporate employees.) </font>[/QUOTE]Daisy,

I wish you would show me where you can get deductions like this in the tax code. I really could use them this year when I'm filling out the tax forms for our business.

It just ain't so, Daisy.

Check with your friendly IRS office and they'll set you straight.

 

Yeah, it ain't so, yet.

I was referring to the proposed new tax code:

.

Now suppose your business wanted to diversifiy into real estate, starting with a nice residential single-family rental. Under this proposal it could invest taxfree. If it bought a "fleet" (who is to say how many constitute a fleet?) of cars, it is free from business-to-business tax.

Of course, I'm speculating rather wildly here, but as proposed, this could be very sweet for the individuals "employed" by self-owned corporations as it is presented here.

 

Why doesn't Delay want to use the Value-Added tax system used in Europe?

I am still skeptical about a national sales tax. What would happen to goods purchased overseas? What if the US citizen moved overseas? This makes it look as if he might escape taxation entirely.

And I see the possibility for further tax avoidance by compensating executives with what they need...the actual goods or services themselves...rather than with money. Since there would be no business-to-business taxes, where would be the taxable event?

I just have way too many questions of tax fairness to favor a national sales tax.

 

How does that work, CalvinG? Is it in addition to or instead of sales & income taxes?

New York State wants people who drive to New Jersey, and elsewhere, to declare their out of state purchases when they re-enter NY and pay NY taxes on them. You can imagine how well that's working out.

I think the late, great Roy Cohn was a glorious example of how that could work.

As do I.

 

As soon as we move to a cashless society then you will see a national sales tax go quietly into effect.

 

For you who question the fairness of a NST or a flat tax, where is the fundamental fairness in a person having to pay a higher percentage, just because they make more money? If I go out and work hard and take risks, why should I have to pay a higher percentage than someone who does not? I think that is fundamentally unfair.

An NST at least taxes everyone fairly and equally ... those who spend more will have higher taxes. Those who spend less will have lower taxes.

The factor that I haven't seen discussed is the effect on the economy. If I know that buying a new car will bring a big tax bill, I might be more inclined to drive my old one. Will an NST slow down the economy?

 

Pastor Larry,

I am content to let the US electorate determine what is fair in this regard.

Don't you think it's easier for the wealthy to spend less where it will be taxed? So that they can if they choose actually pay a lower percentage in taxes than those who must live paycheck-to-paycheck? Do you think that is fair?

I can't predict the effect on the economy, though I doubt it will be extensive.

I'm not sure if VAT is instead of income tax. It might be in addition. But it is basically a tax on the added value of a good at each point along the chain of manufacture or sale. So...instead of the entire tax being at the retail level as in the case of a sales tax, the value added tax is gathered along the way from goods produced. It is a tax paid by corporations.

This type of taxation seems to comply with our various trade agreements. I have seen articles which indicate that there are bonuses in terms of trade for collecting tax in this fasion in a free trade environment.

 

I believe that the government's responsibility is to implement fair and constitutional taxation. To that extent, I agree with Larry that a NST is a good and fair approach.

If the government does its job to that degree (fair and constitutional taxation), the effect on the economy should be at most a secondary consideration. "The economy" is not the responsibility of the federal government.

BTW, it seems to me from a practical perspective the NST is great. Most of the IRS could be shut down, saving mutiple billions of dollars. The states, with I think the exception of only 1 or 2, already collect a sales tax. So, the Fedgov could contract with the states to simply collect the additional sales tax and pass it on, keeping a small administrative fee.

 

Since such a sales tax would tax us on what we spend, not what we make, thus encouraging saving and making wise spending choices, that's perfectly fine with me. A person should never be penalized for saving.