Why are you guys talking about what will happen to Snipes like it hasnt been already decided. The jury came back with their verdict on Friday. http://accounting.pro2net.com/x60629.xml "Snipes was acquitted Friday of federal tax fraud and conspiracy, but jurors found him guilty on three misdemeanor counts of failing to file a tax return. "There was no intent to defraud anybody - he's not a fraudster, he's not a felon," defense attorney Robert Barnes said. "There's a couple of returns he should have filed. He'll be looking to make amends on anything he needs to make amends on." Snipes faces up to three years in prison, and is still liable for millions in taxes likely to be pursued in civil court. He had faced up to 16 years in prison if convicted on all charges. "
The flat tax [applied through a sales tax] is a much more efficient tax. aka... it's cheaper to collect and control evasion. In order for it to work you have to impose it equally on all economic actors, people and corporations equally... sure, they won't get taxed on revenue, but every time they spend money they'll get taxed. if the gov's true intention was to maximize profits from taxes, it'll consider the flat tax. Sometimes you obtain a larger revenue by lowering taxes. If you set taxes to 0% your revenue = $0. if you set taxes to 100% your revenue ='s $0 [all economic activity goes into evasion and any economic activity that doesn't evade, goes out of business]. So, you need to set taxes to the % that gives you the highest revenue... Here's were the flat tax comes in handy: With the sales tax [or an aggregated value tax, which works in pretty much the same way], you simply need to adjust one tax to try and optimize your revenue, and supervision is at it's cheapest. Regarding the acountants, they'll still be needed inside corporations, for internal controls and for making reports that are required by Exchanges and Banks [when you ask for a loan] and other means of financing...
What is wrong with raising taxes to match spending? Isn't that the conservative way? Either cut spending to match income or raise income to match spending or a combination of both. That is conservative, that is how we manage our personal financial lives if we're smart. And the deal with the tax cuts, it is not a tax cut when the government spends more than it receives that year. It is a tax increase on the future, the only way a deficit can be repaid is with future taxes. I don't know how so many people get so excited about tax cuts that aren't matched with spending cuts. It's all smoke and mirrors and everyones falling for it.
I support the FairTax, http://www.FairTax.com I would encourage you to read the book, "The Fair Tax Book: Saying Goodbye to the Income Tax and the IRS", http://www.amazon.com/Fair-Tax-Book...d_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1202148058&sr=8-2 And the second book, "FairTax: The Truth: Answering the Critics", http://www.amazon.com/FairTax-Answe...bs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1202148058&sr=8-1 Don't worry, people who are poor will get a tax rebate.
Are you a high tax payer? Do you think it's wrong for "YOUR taxes to be raised to match [wasteful, greedy, self-serving] spending"? Or do you think it's OK to raise taxes just so long as someone besides you pays it? As a high tax payer myself, I'd prefer spending be curtailed. But if they insisted on raising taxes to fund higher spending, those of us paying would eventually protest. But when they "deficit spend", it's not so clear to the majority of tax payers what they are doing. Just another form of lies, deceit, cheating the public... all "bidness as usual" for the Gummint.
The biggest problem with a national sales tax is that I don't trust the government not to institute an income tax after the national sales tax has been implemented. Then we will have the worst of both worlds.
Well if we have a national sales tax and an income tax, there would be no point in working. We can all live in tents and hunt for food.
Since any national sales tax would have to be phased-in while the current income tax is phased-out its not so much that I don't trust them to not re-implement the income tax as I don't trust that they wont ever completely eliminate the income tax to begin with.