pull down to refresh
20 sats \ 19 replies \ @Undisciplined 29 Jan \ on: William McKinley: Prostitute of Protectionism Politics_And_Law
How do you feel about the idea of abolishing the IRS and income tax, but replacing them with consumption taxes and tariffs?
I would go for firing more government drones and not taxing at all! But, to be realistic, tariffs are bad moves due to retaliation that the tariffed countries will dish out on us. Consumption taxes are another tax on, wait for it, consumers or the labor component, who are already in a pinch for money.
The best thing to do would be to get rid of the fed, the legislative delegation of authority and balance the budget and drop a lot of taxes, but that is all in dreamland.
reply
I agree and I generally agree with Rothbard about the amount of taxation being much more important than the form of taxation.
That said, I would be very happy with the tradeoff of consumption tax in place of income tax.
reply
Yes, you have some sort of control over the taxes you pay! With the income tax and Friedman’s withholding, you have absolutely no real control over the taxes you pay. I don’t think that the retailers and final sellers will like being tax collectors, though.
reply
Probably not, but most places have some sort of sales tax already, so it wouldn't be much extra burden for most of them.
reply
Yes, but I think the problem is more like they would be collecting taxes and people’s ire for collecting taxes for the man. Most retailers and sellers don’t really want to get their customers angry at them. Just think of transferring your ire with the IRS over to your local mom and pop store. Do you think anybody would appreciate it?
reply
Good point.
There was mention of tasking the states with collecting the sales tax. If they would just go a little further down that road, they'd get to a better idea: just collect a head tax from the states.
That would allow states to levy the least intrusive taxes, as well as incentivize them to increase prosperity and disincentivize counting illegal immigrants towards their official population numbers.
reply
You’re kidding, aren’t you? Say for instance, you want to give this taxing authority to the states of California, New York, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Colorado and Illinois where there is no doubt about their abuse of taxing and spending systems. Just think of Newsome and Pritzger in charge of taxes for the federal government. I can imagine it would look like the DoD and the missing money there.
reply
What additional taxing authority do you see here?
This is just an obligation for them to turn over a certain amount of money to the feds, based on their populations. The states already have very broad taxing authority,
Also, I think people should leave those terrible states for their superior neighbors.