Quote:
Originally Posted by Suckslut
But if you read the fair tax proposal, the government will send out rebates each month to poor families.
So if the poverty rate is $12,000 per person per year, and the fair tax is 25%, the government will send the poor people $3,000 a year back.
The way I would do it is to make water, bread, milk, fruits, vegetables, rent, and all the essentials not subject to the tax.
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Where I live (Massachusetts, USA), water, bread, milk, fruits, vegetables, rents, and even "non-luxury" clothing are all non-taxable.
A poor person earning $12,000 a year can ill-afford an outlay of 1/4 of effective annual income then wait for it to be rebated, even if it's on a monthly basis.
In addition, such a tax serves to marginalize even further the have-nots. Imagine you are a poor family making perhaps $20,000 annually. Once each year, for one day, your family can afford a "vacation" ... say, an early-morning drive to the beach and nearby amusement park, and back that night because you can't even afford a motel room to crowd the family into. Suddenly, the cost of everything associated with that is 30% greater. The haves suffer not from this imposition; the have-nots no longer can afford this minuscule piece of what might make life living.
You have not thought through your proposal, I imagine, but I guarantee those who came up with the idea and advocate it have. They see it as another smoke-and-mirrors way of protecting the wealth and privilege of the exploiters and taking from the mass of people, who are viewed as less than human and whose existence only has meaning to the wealthy in two regards: as a source of labor (to the degree this is even needed any more, in the age of wealthmaking via electronic financial transactions based on speculation and phony money) and as a constant thorn in their side, always seeking "entitlements" and a "safety net."
If you want to see a "fair tax," let's have a 100% tax on all income over $250,000. That'll sort things out for sure. No one needs more money than that to live a decent life.