wont this inevitably just help the rich?

you betcha!

poorer people will spend a bigger percentage of their income on 'sales tax' than rich people

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I have something to hide.

Rich people are more likely to spend conspicuously than poor people.

And, the poorest 40% of Americans don't pay any income taxes, anyway, so a flat tax won't impact them either way.


Were a national sales tax implemented, the Repubs have already indicated that the poor would get a rebate.

Catz

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Job 13:5 (New International Version)
If only you would be altogether silent! For you, that would be wisdom.

Which discourages people from moving their way up in life.

Plus, right now rich people can write off all sorts of things, so their taxes end up being pretty low comparatively. What a flat tax does is it doesn't allow people to write off anything, which takes a HUGE burden off the IRS (decreasing how much money the US government has to shell out) and it evens everything out. So if everyone pays 20%, that means that a rich person who used to be able to get away with only paying 15%through write-offs now pays whatever anyone else does. And I do refer to you Theresa Kerry!

If anything, this benefits the middle class. The Democrats are supported by the poorest and richest Americans for a reason. The burden of the taxes right now is with the middle class, with a flat tax it really does even things out more than it is right now. It would solve a LOT of problems.

www.fairtax.org.

Poor people would pay NO TAXES AT ALL. Just like now. Jeez.

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Where are we going? And why am I in this handbasket?

so many different political types see the value of a flat tax.

If this makes it anywhere, just remember that the devil is in the details.

The nonproductive types (lawyers, politicians, lobbyists,accountants) will try to screw the rest of us.

beware.

Umm...

Isn't a flat tax just a system where everyone pays a certain percent of their income regardless of income level?

Catz says that the poorest 40% still pay no taxes. Wouldn't this make it a progressive tax, not a flat tax?

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"The belief that nothing exists outside your own mind--surely there must be some way of demonstrating that it was false" - 1984

No income tax is paid. Instead everyone would pay a consumption tax I believe with a 23% rate.[/i]

I worry that a large sales tax and no income tax would severely hurt the economy. Doing so would encourage people to save their money, hurting the businesses, peole's salaries, and unemployment.

In the long run I'm betting only the rich would gain from this since they spend less as a percentage of their income than the poor. Also top management jobs are the last to go in a failing company. I'm pretty indifferent on the idea in general though...

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"He who would give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

The rich spend a ton of money and if they were taxed fairly they would spend even more in the US. Companies would prosper and could hire more workers and pay higher salaries. Penalizing the top bracket by higher income tax causes many of the rich to look for the loopholes such as off shore bank accounts.(not saying that those tactics are right)

Some jobs would have to go--the huge bureacracy that is the IRS.

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Society is produced by our wants and government by our wickedness ~Thomas Paine