People who know economics and public policy ITT

Just a question for everyone: What do you think of a value added tax (VAT) as opposed to an income tax like we currently have?

There are some positives and negatives to VAT:

Pros:

  • You get charged on consumption (spending), so you won’t be “punished” for earning more or saving your money.
  • It’d generate income from those who work under the table (since they don’t pay income tax) because they will spend that money like anyone else would.
  • Similar to our sales tax now (depending on location), you wouldn’t be taxed on necessities such as food, clothing, etc…

Cons:

  • It’d cost businesses more money, and they’d make less profits which in turn means less opportunity for expansion and hiring of new employees (unless the .gov gives tax breaks).
  • It is estimated (in my Public Policy textbook from last semester) that in the US, the VAT would be about 30% in order to be equal to the income generated by our current tax structure. That new 2014 GTR costing $100k would now be $130k, and that’s before actual reg fees.
  • It’s more complicated than most would imagine. Complications = easier to commit fraud.
  • It takes away incentive to spend money. If someone is making $1M a year, but only buys bare necessities, and someone else is making $50k a year, and goes on vacation or finances a new car, he’s paying more money.

I’m sure there are other pros/cons, but I just wanted to get everyone’s thought on the subject.

true ballers don’t care about taxes!

people are gonna buy products no matter what taxing consumption over income makes much more sense.

well this thread went to shit in one post.

this seems like cossey wants a real discusion on it and i don’t know a lot about it so i’m just gonna keep my mouth shut. something needs to be done and a vat does intrique me but i don’t see it ever happening.

It would be a difficult transition and I would doubt it would happen. With that said I like the idea of a flat tax like mike Huckabee proposed.

there’s no reason it can’t be done. you do it in layers, starting with certain commodities and products and slowly integrate it into others over time until sales tax is worked out.

My question is how do you add a VAT to labor. I means if I have to charge sales tax for services how is it factored? Also, I assume businesses would have a VAT exempt form for purchasing material.

why it will never happen, that would deem lots of gov’t jobs useless.

Actually, my research indicates there’d be MORE gov jobs because VAT is harder to enforce and is more confusing.

that’s news to me, I assumed it would be just like sales tax

id be all for a system that taxes consumption rather than income I just don’t see us making that transition.

Personally I’d like to see a flat tax. You make 10,000 a year you pay 1000. You make 100,000 you pay 10,000

honestly i perfer no tax. esp if they use it for profiting. if the system was fair i wouldnt have a problem paying tax. but we live in a corrupt place. our tax money is not spent legit.

heres the website for citizens for tax justice. http://www.ctj.org/

i wish when we paid tax we could choose what it was being used for.

i dont want to pay taxes so a individual person can profit. ie prison systems are big money makers off tax payers $$$.

[ame=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMjkczc2jCA”]Facebook Earns $1 Billion Profit, Pays No Taxes - YouTube[/ame] facebook pays no tax???

[ame=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxwDUNXUVgQ”]ECONOMIC COLLAPSE 2012 - Gas Prices, Big Oil and Government Profit and Taxes - YouTube[/ame]

just say we the people win or even earn a bunch of money guess what we pay more taxes than facebook.

super profit tax. but big wig republicans are exempt.

wtf join the community for stoping the unjust spending of our tax money. stand up for yourself today.

also if you dont want to pay tax. heres a write up from ny’s website that will help you rich folks from paying some tax

http://www.tax.ny.gov/bus/st/exempt.htm

i want to use this on every purchase and income that i make. so looks like i need a non profit church.

If they got rid of the excessive spending in the military and gave me free health care and pumped more money into education, ill take the VAT.

I’d just be happy with getting rid of expensive spending EVERYWHERE. Couldn’t care less about free healthcare, as it shouldn’t be a federal issue. It, like education, should be state issues.

Healthcare shouldn’t be free, but there shouldn’t be insane price gouging with care either.

i’d be all for a constitutional amendment to make education a federal issue, they south fucks up their education system way too much.

The military budget should never be cut I dont wanna be wearing shit body armor riding in a shit truck with a shit weapon.

look into the military budget and be amazed at how much could be cut with out ever effecting the military.

we do not need to be the World’s police. The reason why they hate us so much is because we are fucking imperialists and up in their business. We spend waaaay to much on the military it’s disgusting.

I agree we stick our nose in alot of stuff. But while im one of the guys fighting, Id rather know im on the team with the better equipment and training ya know.

While I agree we spend too much on the military, I believe it’s mostly that we spend too much on the wrong aspects of military.
Being World police = Bad.
Ensuring great technology for our troops to use, such as body armor, weaponry, vehicles, etc… = Good.

A majority of the technologies we utilize every single day were mostly funded by DoD for military use that trickles down to civilians.