Why I voted no

[Percy]

Hmmmmm.....does removing all income taxes and charging a sales tax where the more expensive things are taxed at a higher percentage than lower priced items make any sense?? This way, the rich folks would pay large for Harleys and fancy dinners and us poor folks might save a buck or two cookin wienees over the fire drvin used Dodges ;D ;D ;D

[Cedarman]

If I bought the cedar standing and my crew did the logging, there is no record of how much footage was brought in. If we do the sawing, who knows what footage came out of those logs. Who knows how effiecient we are.  Maybe Jack got cash from all the firewood he sold for cash.  

Why do you think the powers that be want us to go to a cashless society?

[Minnesota_boy]

Hmmmmm.....does removing all income taxes and charging a sales tax where the more expensive things are taxed at a higher percentage than lower priced items make any sense?? This way, the rich folks would pay large for Harleys and fancy dinners and us poor folks might save a buck or two cookin wienees over the fire drvin used Dodges ;D ;D ;D

That kind of taxation was tried here once.  We "needed" more revenue so there was a luxury tax added to expensive boats to tap the rich folks a bit more.  The rich quit buying boats, the boat manufacturers had to lay off workers because of the reduced demand for their product, and net revenues went down instead of up.

[Tom]

Don't try to look at this sales tax thing as if you were outside of it looking in.  Sales tax would not be something that someone else collected from you.  You would be rresponsible for collecting, recording, reporting and paying it too.  Are you prepared for that?  Are your records sufficient that you could stand a federal audit to insure that you were giving them all of the tax money you were collecting?  Do you have the time , or would you have to hire someone, to handle the paper work, collect and pass on the tax money?  Those reports need to be done whether you collect a tax or not.  Everyone would have to do it under threat of a fine.  How else could Federal "Big Brother" know that you should pay the tax?  ...and if you said you had not collected any and they found out you had......guess who is in the bind. :D

Why would anyone look forward to putting themselves in a position of having to account for their every move to a Government?

[rebocardo]

Congress plays games with money inside other government agencies to falsely balance budgets and pay bills all the time.

I challenge anyone to explain "forgone revenue" and the Postal Service. If people ever knew how postage was determined and the insider favors delivered, our current income tax system would seem like a good thing.

I am all for a VAT and Bill Gates paying the same tax for a hamburger at MacDonalds as I do. We can always level the playing field and help the poorest survive the tax by giving people free coupons for basic services such as food. We do it now.

What VAT will do is make the increase something we can touch and feel and figure out, unlike the current tax code. So, when it goes from 19% to 20% it will be something concrete and not shoved through the back door like the current code with smoke and mirrors.

I can program computers in machine language, but, I can not figure out my own taxes and get the same answer twice without using H.R. Block and their programs!  I can write 500 lines of ML and have the program run correctly the first time, I can not say same the same with my taxes.  

12 pages of figures and that was not even for a business. You can tell this system was designed by a bunch of lawyers, Congress, they do not even do their own taxes because it is too confusing.

We will never reel in our 8 trillon of debt if we do not have an easy to understand flat tax code. A VAT for new manufacture makes sense (houses, hamburgers, cars, etc.) and would not effect most of the poorer people.

The USA should not have even one penny of debt and that is the goal to work towards. What we waste on interest payments far exceeds our social programs.

[ADfields]

I voted yes. :-/   The way I see it is if I am gonna get ripped off I would just as soon not spend a week or more every year doing paper work about it for free!!! >:( >:( >:(

Sales tax, flat tax or about any thing but what we have right now!   I'm even willing to pay more if the loop holes are closed for "ALL" and I don't need to relearn the new tax code every year.   The way it is now the people that can't afford a CPA or the time to read the new code every year to find the loopholes take most of the tax burden and thats just wrong. :-/
Andy

[Bruce_A]

Vat is a bad word for me.  Every four years the county tax assessor redetermines the value of my property and uses nothing that makes sense to me for that.  They pull figures out of the air, because they can't place a tangible value with proof for those figures.  What I have only has the value that someone is willing to pay, yet I have to pay a tax on something that I can find no buyer for.  To set the price on lumber at a certain price means you can find someone to pay that price.  If not the price goes down or the wood rots.  I have packed my deeds to the courthouse twice in the last ten years to sell to them.  Each time was after they had found that my property was worth more than I paid for it by 25%.  At least once they called the seller and told him he had sold too cheap.

[ARKANSAWYER]

  A feller has to think about this for a spell and then ask themselves this one thing.  If'n they was the CEO of Wal-Mart and making $50 million a year would the present tax laws really upset you?  Nope! because you pay some guy $100,000 a year to save you $3 or $4 million a year in taxes.  Most of the folks who are into politics is rich or come from rich stock.  Them make the laws.  I mean how many years has Congress turned down a pay raise? None. nope not one.
  A sales tax would only get them that have to buy something in which to live.  The CEO making $50 million a year lives on less then $1million and hordes the rest so he is not spending it and thus will pay less taxes.  He will take some fine trips over seas where he will pay no taxes in the US.
  A better system is needed and waste could be trimmed out a bit.  In my small business I can wright off alot of stuff.  I can see where a big business with capital could really save a bunch.  
  Now the problem I have is like with big companys like ENRON who pay their CEO $100 million a year.  I am sorry but I can not justify in my mind any one person being so smart or important that they are worth that much coin.  I know the likes of the Waltons, Gates and who built their companys get alot of profit from their efforts while standing on the back of the poor laborer who makes the money for them.  But this is what makes our Country work and the leader of the world in most things.  Some day ARKANSAWYER Sawmill will be in every town and I will be making $100 million a year off the sweat of someone elses labor and from the top my view will change and the current tax system will be just fine. >:( NOT!
  Something needs to change and that is why I go to the polls so I can say atlest I am trying to do something.
  [Oh! by the way cash price is $850 for that lumber and Uncle will never know.]
ARKANSAWYER