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How the Mormons Make Money

Making a flat rate in itself would be a drop in the bucket towards the goal of making the tax code simpler.
The complexity comes from all the intricacies involved with compiling all of the numbers that the rates are applied to, not the rates themselves.

I assume that you are implying that a flat tax would make lots of other changes besides a flat tax rate, but I am not sure what. Now, if by flat rate, you are advocating eliminating all deductions and credits, that would be an improvement from a simplification standpoint. Good luck with that, I would be for it. You realize that practically every organization related to health care, charity, religion, and education would scream bloody murder. So would any company connected to the housing market, and half the general population regarding the real estate deductions alone, and all local and state governments.

However, a lot of complication would remain. You would still have the all the complications involving the self-employed, partnerships, corporations, international workers, offshore tax havens, investment income, for starters. Are you proposing elimination of all private and public retirement savings programs? How are banks, brokerage, and insurance companies effected? Health care? Are you offering alternatives to programs that eliminated? Are all forms of income now taxed at the same rate ? (That is an interesting idea, maybe you are on to something.) Is the flat tax going to magically undue every special rule , benefit , or exception that our tax code has established in the last 300 years for every group or industry? Are state , city and local taxes going to disappear under a Federal flat tax system?

I am all for simplification, but there is a lot more to it than just saying let's have a flat tax.
 
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That would be much simpler for most individuals.

I doubt it is practical. Many of the issues I mentioned in the previous post would also apply. Also the negative impact on the average family might be huge, with a corresponding drag on economic growth that could be devastating. I doubt that a government of the size people are accustomed to could be supported. The shifting of wealth from the poor to the very rich would arguably accelerate, to a degree leading to unimaginable social problems.
 
Only if the rich stopped spending.


......................................................................... nm.
 
nm = no more?

all people would slow their spending with the new super high sales tax rates.
How much sales tax would we have to charge on baby food to keep schools, hospitals, military, police forces, infrastrucure, jails, etc for everybody funded?
Is the tax on all services too, or just goods?
How to fund the prevention of black markets?
 
northeast said:
nm = no more?

all people would slow their spending with the new super high sales tax rates.
How much sales tax would we have to charge on baby food to keep schools, hospitals, military, police forces, infrastrucure, jails, etc for everybody funded?
Click to expand...

It can be variable .. as it is now .. but, of course, it's evil in its present state. What say u? (is the answer)
 
variable = high >> capital flight >> end of the USA

The answer? My first instinct is to say it is not any one quick fix, rather the code could be simplified and improved in many ways, so it is just a matter of going through all of it to make incremental adjustments one by one that make good sense, but making the changes is hard.

Some of them are just a matter of a hard slog of making changes. People would tediously need to be convinced of the desirability of every change. There will be a negative , however minor, offsetting every benefit that will cause someone to argue against every change. Congress and the IRS will not want to admit that what they did in the past was stupid.

and those are the easy changes.

Then you've got all of the tax complications and inefficiencies that give special benefits to a minority of people or organizations, or organizations over individuals. In these cases, making a change is especially hard, because the special interest benefactors will always argue passionately for keeping their benefit.

And then there are issues that go beyond individuals, regarding how organizations and internationals operate, which get even more complicated.

So perhaps a radical sweeping change has a better chance of being accomplished than many incremental adjustments.
I have not entirely dismissed the options you and Pearl have advocated. They do have their appeal. I definitely like the idea of equalizing rates between different types of income where possible, and eliminating most deductions.

I also like the idea of having less kinds of taxes. You suggested eliminating the income tax, and increasing sales taxes. If this could be made to work and not destroy the economy or the populace, this would make taxes much simpler for most people. however, I would also consider variations on this theme. What about eliminating other types of taxes, like sales taxes, or social security taxes, and increasing the income tax? How about exempting self-employed non-professional individuals from income taxes? How about eliminating all taxes on individuals, and only taxing corporations? What about eliminating income and social security taxes, and replacing them with a tax on financial transactions?

i will have to give this more thought. I have lots of small suggestions to modify the current code, but I am not sure if sweeping or incremental change is the way to go.
 
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Seeing that this thread has evolved into tax talk at the moment, I have a question that maybe someone can answer. In states that don't have a personal income tax, how does the state get all of the revenue it needs? Some states are obvious, like Nevada getting money from gambling, but in other states like Texas or Florida for example, do they just charge high sales and property tax rates?
 
nightmare3983 said:
Seeing that this thread has evolved into tax talk at the moment, I have a question that maybe someone can answer. In states that don't have a personal income tax, how does the state get all of the revenue it needs? Some states are obvious, like Nevada getting money from gambling, but in other states like Texas or Florida for example, do they just charge high sales and property tax rates?
Click to expand...

I live in Houston and the Property taxes are quite high.
 
nightmare3983 said:
Seeing that this thread has evolved into tax talk at the moment, I have a question that maybe someone can answer. In states that don't have a personal income tax, how does the state get all of the revenue it needs? Some states are obvious, like Nevada getting money from gambling, but in other states like Texas or Florida for example, do they just charge high sales and property tax rates?
Click to expand...

In Tennesse there is no income tax. They make up for this by slightly increasing several taxes. Such as the sales tax.
 
A guy who used to work for the nonprofit part of the church told me that the mall was paid for with the corporate side of the church. No tithing monies were used.
He also said the 25 year estimate of charitable giving is only what they donate monetarily to other charitable organizations and doesn't include the funding that goes into their own charity organizations, or any goods or in kind service they provide.
He says they work with Catholic charities to do a lot of their shipping type things.
Just thought I'd share.
 
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