god forbid they get tax free food or rent, but have to pay high taxes on that 50 inch plasma or their beer and smokes... They might actually FEED their "hungry" children.
Gods, I wish we did this... it would lessen the costs of collecting taxes.
Good answer!
You could practically dissolve the IRS.
If you're poor, a far higher proportion of your income is being spent on necessities than if you're rich.
Yes. And if you are poor, a far lower proportion of your time and effort is being spent on generating income than if you are rich.
I know this from my own life.
My flatmate is on a student visa (therefor the fact that he is poor is not his fault, just want to make that perfectly clear). He works half-time (as the visa won't allow for me).
His job is easier than mine. I have to spend most weekends studying to keep up-to-date and be able to do my job. He is home a lot more than I. (Again, not so much by choice.)
His income is less than a quarter of mine, because he works shorter hours and invests less time into working harder.
He doesn't even pay taxes.
A far higher proportion of his income than of mine is being spent on necessities. That is true.
But it is also true that I invest more time and effort into generating my higher income.
What is fair about me working longer hours and working harder AND paying more to help others?
And no, I cannot just work less and in an easier job. I want to make more money. And somebody has to pay those taxes too.
If the government had taxed the landlord the full amount of the rent increase of a few years ago, my income tax could have been nearly halved without any loss of money for the state!
(The rent is as high as tenants are willing to pay. If it were any higher, everyone would move, most likely to a place were rents as so low that there is no increase to tax away.)
yes, yes you could
This is why there is a fairly large organization called fairtax trying to push for it. http://www.fairtax.org/
There is even a bill in question and it has a bunch of senators and house representatives supporting it...
http://www.fairtax.org/cgi-bin/scorecard.cgi
They briefed obama's campaign about it, and he refused to answer one way or another.
They talked to mccain, and he said he is against it (citing that someone told him it would cause a tax increase, which is incorrect, only people who fail at basic math think that... its the magic of percentages... so either he doesn't understand percentage math, or he is following the advice of someone who doesn't)
Ya...