#1. Give each Individual tax payer and citizen $12K social security per year loaded monthly on a Government Debit Card. Every Man, Woman & Child from birth till death. #2. Eliminate all state and federal income taxes. #3. Free Healthcare aka Medicare with prescriptions for all #4. K-College Education is Free including Public State Colleges #5. Eliminate all other financial aid, unemployment and welfare programs. #6. Eliminate USD paper currency and coins. All electronic. #7. Eliminate all ancillary taxes (Gasoline, Food, State Sales Tax) How do we pay for this: Simple 1% National transaction tax on all monetary exchange without exception. All transactions are cleared through your govt account. Transaction tax applies to any use of the $ including foreigners and foreign corps (Apply on line for a USD ID). States receive a cut of the national transaction tax by $'s spent by their citizens. Our annual $3Trillion investment will trade hands over 200 x per year generating $6T in transaction fees. The solution to our financial woes is increasing the transactions from the bottom up and capturing 1% on every use of our currency. Our govt and military must protect our $ at all cost as the reserve currency of the world.
I like the idea of a consumption tax as opposed to an income tax, but at this point in time i think it would be a disaster, as we currently need to encourage consumption, not discourage it. There would be a lot of pain before this would work, in the current environment. The time to implement an idea like this would have been during the tech bubble, or at a time when people are spending like crazy, it would make for a much easier transistion. Over all though a consumption tax is what we need as we need to encourage saving money, for the long term health of the economy. The other thing is that i really dont believe a 1% tax would get us there, unless you were taxing financial transactions as well which would end up being a disaster for american markets.
A 1% tax on the value of all my leveraged trading transactions puts me out of business. What you're talking about is a financial transactions tax more destructive than even the most Marxist members of the EU can come up with. Thanks. But I'll have to pass on this one... Oh, by the way, your idea sucks for a lot of other reasons, too.
It's to your advantage if you trade futures, options or any derivative contract: 1% to add funds into your account and 1% to take your funds out. Your broker gets dinged 1% on the commissions they charge. For equities you'll get hit 1% every time you buy, sell or get assigned but this should still be less than the 15% long term capital gain rate. No more schedule D's, no $3k loss limits... No short term/long term differences. No need to carry over losses. Would also trim much of the govt payroll by reducing head count and eliminating the duplicated departments between the state and feds.
This is a bad idea. This would mean that people start at atleast a 2% deficit on every single financial transaction right off the bat. (1% in 1% out) Not to mention the money it would cost to move funds in in and out of certain accounts. Do you really believe many people would make money in the markets if there was a 2% hit right off the bat for every transaction?
1% tax will get rid of all the daytraders and they will all have to go get real jobs then. Of course when you remove that much liquidity, you increase volatility...the day traders left over will see huge swings in price, but on the down side, see really huge spreads.
You do get $12k a year regardless of income to keep things fair. That would cover the round trip transaction fees on $600K of equities. I do see your point but unless you can work around the transfer of securities maybe using options my marxist plan would ding you 1% when you fund your account, 1% when you buy and 1% when you sell any security where ownership is conveyed and 1% again when you take your cash out. 4% per trade would be a brutal hit. My original intent was for the transaction tax to only be assessed when transferring money in and out of your account. The actual trading activity in your broker account would not be subject to transactional fees. Your broker on the other hand will get hit with transaction fees on their settlements which would be passed down to you in their fees. The key for this style of a taxing plan to work is to constantly have money trading hands. The transactional volume will be at least 10x our GDP.
Free education and healthcare? You know they won't stop spending on the military... this would take an INSANE amount of lobbying.
lol.. yup but the lobbyist get clipped 1% too. The military is under mission to ensure that the dollar remains the reserve currency. Our education system needs an overhaul too. High School should stop at 10th grade 16 years. Vocational / college should be 11th - 14th grades. No reason to have 18 & 19 year olds high school seniors. Computer based training can accelerate the process. Seeing that each citizen receives $1K social salary per month from the govt they would qualify under our govt health plan. We can lower healthcare costs by lowering the cost to educate doctors and get them out practicing by the time they are 24. As it stands now Doctor's rack up $500k in student loans and don't get to practice until their almost 30. They need $80K minimum to justify their investment. A 24 year old with no student loan debt and no income tax burden will start on a team for $40K and grow. Our corporations will have a substantial reduction in overhead to employ people and be relieved from the burdens of filing and paying income and sales taxes. We are in a downward death spiral and need drastic changes. The 12K we hand out will get spent and allow our work force to compete globally. People will work and be able to survive even earning a modest $12K salary with the govt social, medical and educational benefits.