It looks like they may be collecting them but some are not sendint them on to the government. The GAO seems to Have found that about $3 billion dollars in withholdings tax has not been remitted by defence contractors for years (a criminal offence) but the DOD is still doing business with them and. doing nothing to help collect the money.
These are not some left wing inaginary figures. They come straight from the Dubya's on General Accounting Office.
You mean, the Office of General Pardons for Crooks. Isn't that being run by some relative of a high white house inhabitant right now? Henhouse, foxes, etc...
Jim
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Amazing to see a democrat even mention pardons for crooks :o). Kind of like Kerry accusing Bush of politicizing vietnam. Absolutely amazing. greg sefton
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That's not what I'm proposing. I'm proposing a universal sales tax. That's completely indifferent to income, either in amount or source. You could make whatever you like, stuff it in the mattress, and pay no tax. But if you try to do anything with the money, you pay the tax. No exceptions, no escape.
What would be included in your definition of "doing anything with it"? Money you paid for investemts? Your maids, buttler and yacht captain's pay? What you spend on your weekend jaunt to Burmuda or Paris? What you pay your lawyers and accountants to find ways to avoid the tax?
Sales tax is by its very nature regressive and places the most burden on those who must spend all their income just to stay alive.
I guess one of the questions I have about this plan would be the definition of "you," and also the definition of "doing something." Is "you" restricted to an individual, or could "you" include GE corporation, who is giving profit to their executives? Does this also include giving it to somebody, like a relative or an heir?
Jim
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Somebody slap me, I just caught myself feeling nostalgic for Nixon, Kissinger, and Mitchell. They weren't such a bad bunch, comparatively speaking of course.
You still have Henry. He basically planned out the entire invasion of iraq, years ago. It really is proceeding according to his plans.
Jim
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No shit Jim?? When did you hear about that? Our last one pardoned far more & far worse than ancient history. Still amazes me that a liberal Dem would even think of bringing up pardons & crooks :o). Greg Sefton
Of course it is equal. Spend a dollar, pay the tax. Doesn't matter who you are, who you know, how much you make or don't make in a given year, what "deductions" or "exemptions" you might have claimed under the old system, etc. Everyone is treated the same.
Ok, so what? The first fellow spends $30K, and pays $6,900 in tax. The other fellow spends $200,000, and pays $46,000 in tax. We don't need to care what either of them makes, or what they did to get it, nor do we care what either of them saves. That's irrelevant. We only care what they spend. That's taxed, equally dollar for dollar for both of them.
But I'd make all sales taxable, no exceptions, no exemptions. You spend money, you pay tax. If you prefer to sock the money in a mattress, fine, you don't pay any tax, but you don't get any benefit from the money either, except a lumpy night's sleep.
In other words, if you want to use taxes as a method of social engineering, you want the tax code to be complicated and riddled with exceptions. If you want the tax code to be simple enough for anyone to understand, and fair, then you can raise the needed government revenues without all the social engineering BS by directly taxing those who ultimately pay all taxes, the consumer, at point of sale, and print out in big numbers on the receipt exactly what the government they're voting for is costing them.
Well, while GE has much of the same legal status as a person, it isn't a person. It is made up of people, and owned by people, though, and every one of them is a consumer. They do pay taxes, both directly at point of sale, and built into the prices of things that they buy.
GE as a corporate entity merely acts as tax collector. Every penny of tax paid by GE is simply built into the prices of the goods it sells. So GE isn't actually paying any taxes at all, it is just collecting them from the consumer for the government. In other words, it is just an indirect sales tax.
This is not an efficient mechanism, and it is rife with fraud. It would be much simpler, and much harder to cheat, if all taxes were direct on the consumer at the point of sale rather than having some of them hidden in the price of goods.
It also levels the playing field with respect to imports. Import goods would be subject to exactly the same taxes as domestically produced items. No more, no less. Importers would no longer have a price advantage due to not having to pay for the social costs of the society to which they're trying to sell goods.
This latter is directly relevant to the title of this thread. Our tax code currently works to export jobs by artificially inflating the cost of domestic production. It doesn't have to be that way. The tax code can be fair, and still not penalize domestic production.
Yes, our current complex tax system, where corporations are charged with being indirect tax collectors, is rife with fraud. A tax system which doesn't present that sort of opportunity for fraud would be much better.
Well sure, *now*, under the current byzantine tax laws. But it would be a new ballgame with a different tax code. Prices are determined by
*both* supply and demand in the absence of other market distortions. The current tax code is such a distortion. Change it, and the way the market behaves will change too.
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