charcoal grey, navy blue or black look best in front of a blue screen….is this lavender?

Most countries in europe now have a VAT of about 18%, which started off in the 60′s harmless enough at about 3%…..and on top of that top marginal income tax rates around 45% as well as social program and health care levies on top of that which bring most peoples tax burdens to well over 50% of their income….

The VAT as a replacement to the IRS would be a great idea…if the left talks about overhead in insurance companies, then think of all the overhead the IRS is…..replace that with an 18% VAT, with some $2000 rebate to all to make it fair to low income earners, and abolish the IRS and you would have a great system….but as an additional source of revenue, no matter how low it starts out, it just feeds the beast….

you need to know about the VAT tax:

1. No matter what mechanisms you apply to calculating the tax, you can’t avoid it exponentially increasing the price of goods because it is applied at each level of production and distribution. So a 3% tax can quickly add 9% to the cost of a good, even if it isn’t adding 9% to the tax rolls.

2. It’s a hidden tax, so the socialists get to blame “greed capitalists” for price increases they are causing.

if you combine it with some balancing measures – like cut or outright elimination of corporate taxes, you coudl end up with a nice vehicle for paying down federal debt, which is shared equally across the population (in fact a VAT is actually a regressive tax, ie affecting lower incomes, unless you have some supplementary food-stamp-akin program to ease the burden on the lowest earners, which would be a good thing).

I have discussed the merits of a VAT myself:

http://blog.beliefnet.com/cityofbrass/2009/06/the-case-for-a-vat.html

http://dean2004.blogspot.com/2009/05/spare-change-we-can-believe-in-case-for.html

of course I am liberal (thouhg I’ve been around here at RS since its inception. I predate Erick) so take my arguments with the ideological grainof salt. Stll, a VAT is an idea that is worth some discussion, esp if you couple it with corporate taxe rates and elimination of the AMT (see my link for more details)

A VAT tax would be logical for liberals….. just another way to redistribute wealth and growing government size. I can’t even imagine what it would do to retail sales which are in the dumps right now. this all translates to few jobs – - a Democrat’s delight I guess and the tanking of the dollar – - which Obama is solely responsible for.

If you live in states like New York (also run by the Dems) it would just dump another tax on top of what is already unsustainable government costs on its residents, ….not to mention the looming Cap and Trade tax coming down the pike from our friends in Washington, the increase in energy costs (in NY 2 percent surcharge within this year and a request from NYSEG for a 9 % increase).

The NY State legislature just passed a bill effectively limiting gas drilling in the southern tier by increasing regulations in the name of envirionment…a potential that would be of significant importance in our economy. The law demands an inspector from “the government” be present during drilling – - even though there are only 17 hired by NY and many applications to drill in a lucrative field. So you either prevent drilling or increase NY’s size of government and costs by hiring many more inspectors…works out well for the liberals….

Democrats want to destroy our economy, and make the government the controlling factor in all our lives. While they complained about individual rights during the Bush administration because some potential terrorists were being monitoried, theycontinue to take away nearly all rights of Americans with their ‘environmental”, “economic emergency”, “health care emergency” agenda.

This goes beyond ideological differences, it is the undermining of our Constitution.

I need to preface this by pointing out that I am very much in favor of the US setting up a VAT, assuming that the law is written so that the revenue is completely offset by reductions is other taxes. I know many find that result unlikely, and I’ll admit that I do too, but I am willing to argue the merits in good faith for the time being and oppose the final result later if the Democrats try to cheat.

Nevertheless, the best argument against the tax is that it is grossly unfair to seniors. I don’t see anyone arguing it here, and I didn’t hear it in the video, but it is the line of attack that I feel would get the most traction. Today’s seniors worked their whole lives under an income tax framework, and are now living, in many cases, on savings accumulated from after-tax income. What this new tax would do is to tax them a second time on those funds through everything they buy.

It’s akin to the difference between a regular IRA and a Roth IRA. The former let’s you contribute pre-tax money, but you have to pay taxes on your withdrawals later. The latter you contribute to with post-tax funds, but your withdrawals are tax free. A VAT would be forcing all seniors into a system where they saved post-tax money, and yet are taxed again on withdrawal (essentially).

Like I said, I favor the proposal itself, and believe that there are ways around its basic unfairness, but if you want to keep it from happening, this is where you should start.