Ron Paul Is Secretly Taking Over The GOP — And It's Driving People Insane

[inactive]

I'd be happy if all the people saying the FairTax plan isn't fair to the poor actually read the FairTax plan.

I did, which is why I qualified my examples with:

If you have a basic living expense credit, like the Far Tax books describe, then the situations may change.

 

[mons meg]

Yeah, I wasn't particularly aiming my high powered lens of perception at you.

 

[Billybob]

So what you're saying is that the plethora of tax breaks available to everyone, benefits everyone, including the IRS which gets to retain more control and power? But if we eliminate tax breaks, we should only do it to the rich? I'd have no problem with them eliminating ALL tax breaks, so long as they cut the corporate tax in half and eliminate those tax breaks that benefit the low income earners as well. If you earn very little and want taxes to hurt less, you either need to work harder or get smarter. No one deserves a free ride in this "progressive socialist" system!

No, I was addressing Lurker66's statement about "shams". What I was trying to say is that if you have a show horse that you've never used to herd cattle, thrown a rope from, or even ride to check your fences and you claim the feed and upkeep for that horse as a expense in a cattle ranch aren't you getting a luxury at the expense of the public by getting tax breaks for it? What about personal vehicles not used for a ranch or business yet are claimed as such for tax breaks?

What if you claim expenses for and support people that are not really part of your corp out of corp funds, is that proper or should that money come out of personal income that you're taxed higher on? .

And if you knowingly cheat on taxes just because you know that even if caught your situation will still allow you to come out ahead aren't you benefiting at the expense of others by not paying your share?

If people in these type situations want more shouldn't they also work harder to get them as opposed to using shams just because they're in a position to do so?

I remember long ago welfare recipients were caught claiming more kids than they had to scam the system, there was outrage and the system was corrected to prevent such from happening. Maybe we should be as concerned with correcting the system to prevent the scams people who have more use to work the system for gain otherwise are we sending the message that if you work hard to get ahead you're entitled to scam the system?

What are our children learning from seeing things like this?

Can it be compared to the situation in our banking system where massive frauds have been committed yet nobody goes to jail and the banks only pay back a portion of what they made off their scams while their profits rise?

 

[Glocktogo]

No, I was addressing Lurker66's statement about "shams". What I was trying to say is that if you have a show horse that you've never used to herd cattle, thrown a rope from, or even ride to check your fences and you claim the feed and upkeep for that horse as a expense in a cattle ranch aren't you getting a luxury at the expense of the public by getting tax breaks for it? What about personal vehicles not used for a ranch or business yet are claimed as such for tax breaks?

What if you claim expenses for and support people that are not really part of your corp out of corp funds, is that proper or should that money come out of personal income that you're taxed higher on? .

And if you knowingly cheat on taxes just because you know that even if caught your situation will still allow you to come out ahead aren't you benefiting at the expense of others by not paying your share?

If people in these type situations want more shouldn't they also work harder to get them as opposed to using shams just because they're in a position to do so?

I remember long ago welfare recipients were caught claiming more kids than they had to scam the system, there was outrage and the system was corrected to prevent such from happening. Maybe we should be as concerned with correcting the system to prevent the scams people who have more use to work the system for gain otherwise are we sending the message that if you work hard to get ahead you're entitled to scam the system?

What are our children learning from seeing things like this?

Can it be compared to the situation in our banking system where massive frauds have been committed yet nobody goes to jail and the banks only pay back a portion of what they made off their scams while their profits rise?

Let's see...how many people on who pay zero net taxes, fail to claim earned income from illicit drug sales, stolen property sales, work performed for cash, etc.?

Face it, our system is a LOT more corrupt than most people are willing to admit. Only honest people pay their fair share and there is no "dishonesty tax" that can be levied. We penalize people either civilly or criminally when they're caught and found guilty of tax evasion or fraud. It's the best we can do, but it's a drop in the bucket. My point is that tax revenues would be higher and fewer people would be guilty of defrauding the system at ALL levels, if everyone was given a set amout of taxes based on income and there were no exemptions.

 

[RickN]

I agree it's actually a pretty impressive number. I was just trolling a bit to demonstrate the sheer scale of our spending.

When someone says "We'll save a BILLION dollars," it sounds impressive until one considers it's like, less than 1 hour of federal budgetary spending. Saving a billion is good, no doubt, but it's a drop in the bucket on the whole.


Personally I think we need to increase our collections as well, but a reasonable corporate tax rate with a closure of loopholes is a far better approach than trying to bleed out the middle (and upper, for that matter) class.

To my mind, we need to do away with the corporate tax altogether. We have the highest corporate tax rate in the western world and it is one of the reasons so many of our companies move overseas. Do away with it for US manufacturing companies, cut regulations, and draw those jobs back to the US.

Get enough people working and paying taxes, cut out the waste and tax cheats including those in government, and the budget will balance itself fairly quickly.