tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5090403.post6684074639051101094..comments2023-09-07T04:24:11.648-06:00Comments on y-intercept blog: The Object Oriented Taxy-intercepthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03389285761013186443noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5090403.post-39003747884141971362009-08-10T11:38:52.657-06:002009-08-10T11:38:52.657-06:00The people proposing the FAIRTAX want a structure ...The people proposing the FAIRTAX want a structure where the government writes everyone a check once a year. This will make people hate business and love government.y-intercepthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03389285761013186443noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5090403.post-31835752780521610682009-08-10T09:45:07.775-06:002009-08-10T09:45:07.775-06:00The FAIR taxers believe that the invisibility of t...The FAIR taxers believe that the invisibility of the ultimate taxpayer is one of their system's virtues. That is, getting rid of the progressive nature of taxation is a good thing in their mind, since the government essentially has no business knowing as much about you as it does, including how much you earn. Nor do they believe government should have any clue as to what you individually spend.<br /><br />Since all of the tax would be collected at the point of sale, government would know no more about you than state governments know about your current spending habits by way of sales taxes.<br /><br />But the FAIR taxers then turn around and ruin this apparently vitally impersonal nature of their method by having government assign values to individual lifestyle choices and circumstances in order to preserve some progressiveness in taxation.<br /><br />The way it would work is that everyone would have to pay the taxes up front, but would then receive a subsequent refund based on the factors politicians decide to be worthy of subsidy. The government would still need to know a lot about you and would still create market-skewing incentives based on political whim.<br /><br />I suppose the FAIR tax would sort of work OK if it could be implemented wholesale without politicians ever being able to tweak it. But we don't live in a utopia where that would ever be the case.<br /><br />IMHO our taxation method will not change until dissatisfaction with it reaches critical mass AND an alternative is presented that appears to be less painful.Scott Hinrichshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11831447472339880148noreply@blogger.com