Mike Huckabee scares the piss out of me.

[Captain_Bleach]

Lago, you must understand that such people think in Black and White, and if you 'love Jesus,' then you've got to be a good guy, no matter how many atrocities you commit in the name of religion! Seriously, religious fundamentalists doing tasks like that does not surprise me anymore; it seems to have all been done before.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

"Creating a system to identify and monitor this is at least as complicated as the IRS is now, and doesn't have the benefit of already existing."

As far as keeping track of poor people, we already freaking do that in the form of Food Stamps (which are issued via gov. credit card to people that are poor). Switch that system to a 'you don't have to pay the tax card (or, you only pay X), and you have a solid system. It could seriously be in place tomorrow.

Flat tax is on the end of the line, so Guy-That-Sells hotdogs simply gets his hotdog vendors' license and can buy things for his business tax-free (the final guy pays the tax). I find this system to be superior to having a tax that this guy pays on the local, state, and national level in addition to each time he buys a hotdog (which applies additional taxes on the state and local level).

I was under the understanding that an international freeway that was currently in the US would abide by US Laws/Regulations, am I incorrect?

People that spend less than they make do so primarily because of investments, which they later spend, and whose services are taxed.

"Finally, implementing a change from the current system to the sales tax would absolutely crash the economy. What exactly do you expect to happen when everyone knows that everything is going to suddenly increase in price by about 30% next week?"

I expect those people to know that their salary is going to increase by 40% next week and figure out that they have more money in their pocket at the end of the month. Yes, the stock market will see some fluctuations, but that is not a real reason to resist change.

Who cares if the IRS is the most efficient government organization if you can create a new system that only needs half of them? This is money that can be redistributed into other government services.

Actually reading up on Obama, I tend to agree with him, but find him soft on international policy.

[PhoneLobster]

Sales tax is a regressive tax by its very nature. Its nasty and if you promote it you are promoting an agenda designed to do something no less evil than to shift the burden of running society away from rich people and onto the shoulders of poor people.

But those arguments aside one argument against sales tax that is rarely made and SHOULD be after the particular implementation we saw inflicted upon us by "I will Never Ever Implement a Sales Tax" John Howard.

Revolves around combining this...

Who cares if the IRS is the most efficient government organization if you can create a new system that only needs half of them?

And this...

Flat tax is on the end of the line, so Guy-That-Sells hotdogs simply gets his hotdog vendors' license and can buy things for his business tax-free

Because sales tax isn't just about shifting MONETARY costs from rich people to poor people its also about shifting ADMINISTRATIVE costs.

Our implementation is especially bad that way and at first was even worse (and was dramatically changed because of some serious near revolt from the small business community).

So now the tax man is also the guy who sells hot dogs. Personally, because he doesn't have an accounting department.

He now collects tax on every sale he makes and pays it on every purchase he makes. You MAY make his prior to end of line purchases sales tax free but in practice that means that he first pays taxes on every single purchase he makes THEN records it all, calculates the value and deducts it from the tax he has collected on behalf of the government from his sales (or possibly applies for reimbursement if that tax was too small).

That is MASSIVE administrative overhead AND additional money tied up as he has to keep collected taxes unspent and in reserve on behalf of the government while shelling out extra costs on his purchases until the next tax collection period, which is both never too soon (because of the money tie up) and never too late (because of the massive administrative headache it entails).

Collecting a sales tax involves by its nature more administration than an income tax. Income events occur massively less often and in more organized, simple and traceable ways than sales events. And all that complexity means more administration on SOMEONE'S part.

And it really, really, really, hurts small business.

Not only that but the shifting of administrative burdens ties directly into Black Market Economy problems.

Hot dog man is now holding the tax money, AND the records for the tax money. Which means...

Well let me put it this way. I run my small business by the books. Before the GST no one ever, ever, pressured me to attempt under the table dealings.

Now we have a sales tax it is not at all uncommon for people, or more accurately other businesses, to ask if there is some discount if they "pay by cash".

Sales tax is by definition bad AND stupidly inefficient for any number of reasons, I just felt the need to highlight this particular lie about its "streamline" and "efficient" nature.

[Username17]

The short answer is because Sales Tax subsidizes:

• Black Markets - drug dealers don't pay sales tax so all income which goes to drug dealers is now also untaxed.
  
• Investor Veto - people who take their money oversees to go buy things in Thailand don't pay your sales tax, so money which can flee oversees is now untaxed.
  
• Hoarding - people who have enough income that they don't need to buy anything with it just have their numbers go up and up and don't pay taxes on it - the money leaves the system and may not come back in.

So basically you are sponsoring rich people and criminals to abscond with portions of your economy. That money has to come from somewhere, and it comes from law abiding people who live and work in your country.

Sales Tax is bad. We only do it at all in the United States because of our extremely weird system of power sharing between municipalities, states, and the nation as a whole. City and County governments don't get a sufficient share of the income taxes to run themselves, so they have to find and tax other crap. That's what is inefficient. Not the IRS. The Congress.

-Username17

[tzor]

1200349555[/unixtime]]But we're getting off topic. More religious insanity from Mike Huckabee:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/20 ... ][br]Maybe I should spell it out in crayon. The man made decisions to pardon criminals based on how much they loved Jesus.

Man's a lunatic.

No I don't think you need to spell it out in crayon, a nice charcoal and pencil drawing would be more effective.

Yes that's a definite reason to not support him for the presidency.

Frank brings up a good and interesting point. We tend to forget that Al Capone, for all his crimes was convicted of income tax evasion.

Hording is an interesting problem. Unless they are actually taking their money and puting it in their mattress or the vault they are probably puting it into a bank or a safe investment that ca yield interest. (And why not because all investments are no longer taxed.) This, ironically encourages savings but it's targeted at the wrong people again; it's the people who spend almost all of (or sometimes more than) their income who need to save the most becasue any little economic downdraft and they are in a heap of trouble.

Finally you get the real question of location. Before the internet it was easy to determine a location of a point of sale. (More or less, NY still requires you to declare the taxes you would have paid on cigarrettes if you buy them on a tax free Indian reservation and transport them out of the reservation and into the state in general.) With the internet location is a most strange notion.

(Actually the same problem applies when you consider telecommuters and state/local income taxes but it is more ovbious with sales tax because each sale is independent of each other while you can collectively join every workday sallary to a common virtual location for purposes of taxes.)

[CatharzGodfoot]

1200407103[/unixtime]]
Finally you get the real question of location. Before the internet it was easy to determine a location of a point of sale. (More or less, NY still requires you to declare the taxes you would have paid on cigarrettes if you buy them on a tax free Indian reservation and transport them out of the reservation and into the state in general.) With the internet location is a most strange notion.

I've been seeing more and more online sellers who won't ship in-state. It's pretty hilarious.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

Actually, that is a founded argument against the flat sales tax. I am now reconsidering my position. The Black Market isn't a concern (illegals don't pay taxes anyways), and the Investor Veto is a concern to competing in the world steel/whatever economy. Having investors continually invest money into the national economy isn't all that bad but international investments are (I invest internationally anyways because of the devaluing dollar, over 6% inflation, wtf?! I need 15% return on my dollar just to stay ahead!).

The main point for me is 'hurting small businesses'. That is bad. Hmm...

Actually, the more I read about Obama, the more I see a sensible alternative, go figure. Until a few days ago I had only heard how terrible he was but all of his policies seem rooted in rational thinking. I just lack the part about how he plans to pay for all of the new policies while reducing national debt (I think that it is likely a tax-the-wealthy measure).

Gaming Den is cool by me, interesting and insightful discussion.

[Username17]

Actually, the Black Market is still an important part of the argument. Remember that while criminals don't pay taxes, under a sales-tax scenario people who buy from criminals don't pay taxes either. This means that you are subsidizing people with real jobs to go to the mafia for goods and services.

Under income tax the gas station worker or the fire man already has his income taxed, so the government has their cut whichever shop he goes to. But under sales tax, the government only takes a share if he buys from a law abiding store. This means that the government is in effect paying him money every time he buys from the Vory.

This is the same way that tarriffs subsidize smuggling, and sin taxes subsidize illegal drugs. But it's a bigger deal because it affects all purchases rather than specific ones.

-Username17

[Koumei]

There was talk about adding a tax to things like chocolate, because there are too many stout, bloated lardballs in Australia. If they did that, then as an underweight person, I'd totally buy my chocolate blackmarket.

Hell, if they applied it to biscuits and ice cream, that's like 50-60% of my diet, so it'd be a worthwhile investment to buy blackmarket.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

I did not think of that, actually. I stand corrected.

[Lago_AM3P]

Not to beat a dead horse or anything, but Huckabee wants to amend the constitution to reflect 'God's Word'.

For serious. There's a video and everything.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-finke ... s-crackpot

[Crissa]

Yeah, so?

So do millions of Americans. Some want to amend it so that marriage is only one man and one woman (not that it really makes sense, secularly, to make this distinction... It denies the rights of many other people to make contracts not involving marriage.) Some want to outlaw abortion. OR things they think are abortion. Others was to outlaw having pets, or livestock, or (more popular) execution.

That's one of the lovely things about the United States. We decided to make the constitution something we can change.

-Crissa

[Lago_AM3P]

That's one of the lovely things about the United States. We decided to make the constitution something we can change.

I have no idea what this sentence is supposed to mean in relation to my post.

[rapanui]

I honestly don't care who the next president of the US is.

As long as it is not Huckabee.
I'll go ahead and second the motion to cap his ass.

[Neeek]

As much as I hope Huckabee is not the next President, I'm pulling for him to win the GOP primary.

If he wins, the GOP is dead. Their coalition will fracture. Plus, he's a cakewalk to beat in the general. Though that is true of the entire GOP field other than McCain.

[Crissa]

...And that's because McCain follows in Bush's footsteps with the most support from Republicans 'who want out of Iraq'.

Yes, mr 100-years-isn't-enough McCain, leads the anti-war vote in the Republican camp.

How? I do not know.

-Crissa

[tzor]

1200544194[/unixtime]]

That's one of the lovely things about the United States. We decided to make the constitution something we can change.

I have no idea what this sentence is supposed to mean in relation to my post.

I think I understand what Crissa is talking about. We can have the power to change the constitution for important things that are new or we have decided are important. We can also change the constitution for stupid things like prohibition. With prohibition we also have proven that we also have the right to change our mind.

[Lago_AM3P]

I think I understand what Crissa is talking about. We can have the power to change the constitution for important things that are new or we have decided are important. We can also change the constitution for stupid things like prohibition. With prohibition we also have proven that we also have the right to change our mind.

But changing our system of law to reflect more religion has never ever ever worked out for the better. I think the sort of thing people like Huckabee want should never even be an option; it's like proposing that someone amend the Constitution to initiate nuclear winter ASAP.

[Cynic]

1200544194[/unixtime]]

That's one of the lovely things about the United States. We decided to make the constitution something we can change.

I have no idea what this sentence is supposed to mean in relation to my post.

I took Crissa's sentence as sarcasm.

[Captain_Bleach]

1200599831[/unixtime]]

But changing our system of law to reflect more religion has never ever ever worked out for the better. I think the sort of thing people like Huckabee want should never even be an option; it's like proposing that someone amend the Constitution to initiate nuclear winter ASAP.

Face it, LAGO, there are significant sections of the populace that believe if you follow the Bible (or only the parts that you agree with), then everything will work out fine.
Unfortunately for them, humankind is full of greedy, amoral bastards that will twist the letter of the law, intentionally or not, to manipulate the system for their own ends. And many of those people are also religious.