Rand Paul: Abolish IRS and Repeal 16th Amendment (October 2010)

[RonPaulFanInGA]

http://www.wkyt.com/news/headlines/104797179.html

[Anti-Neocon]

I'm personally glad he got away from the sales tax idea.

[Sola_Fide]

Horrible idea:


But for a plan that promises such a utopia, the problems with the FairTax are legion. The FairTax plan creates new taxes, new taxpayers, and new tax collectors. The stated rate of the FairTax is too low to achieve the promised revenue neutrality. The amount by which it is claimed prices would fall under a FairTax system has been grossly exaggerated. There is nothing to prevent an income tax from being reinstituted, giving us a two-headed hydra of an income tax and a consumption tax. The institution of a FairTax would not abolish the IRS – if there were no IRS then why would businesses bother to collect a national sales tax? The FairTax’s monthly prebate would put all Americans on the dole – from Bill Gates on down – and require a vast welfare apparatus to oversee its payment. The FairTax has unknown and potentially huge transition costs. The FairTax double-taxes the savings of retirees who worked their whole life and paid taxes and then need to begin spending the money accumulated in their after-tax savings accounts. And not only would the FairTax require state and local governments to pay a national sales tax to the federal government on all their purchases, the federal government would have to pay sales taxes to itself on all its new purchases. How ludicrous is that? Since I have already written extensively about the problems with the FairTax, and that is not the focus of my talk, I will stop with its problems here and focus on why the FairTax, like the Flat Tax, is not true to its name.

So why is the FairTax not fair? Well, first of all, what’s fair about a consumption tax? Why is it that people who rightly criticize the income tax are so quick to accept a national sales tax on consumption? The FairTax perpetuates the fallacy that the government has a right to confiscate a percentage of the value of each new good sold and every service rendered. This is no different than claiming that the government has a right to the portion of each American’s income. As the late economist Murray Rothbard explained:

The consumption tax, on the other hand, can only be regarded as a payment for permission-to-live. It implies that a man will not be allowed to advance or even sustain his own life, unless he pays, off the top, a fee to the State for permission to do so. The consumption tax does not strike me, in its philosophical implications, as one whit more noble, or less presumptuous, than the income tax.

The FairTax is also not fair because of the rate. What is fair about the government taking a 30 percent cut on every transaction? I know the FairTaxers claim that the rate is only 23 percent, but when I buy an item for $1.00 and end up paying $1.30, the basic math I learned in elementary school tells me that I paid a tax rate of 30 percent. But regardless of whether the rate is 23 or 30 percent, why should the bloated, pork-laden leviathan we call the U.S. government get anywhere near this much of our income? And finally, maintaining that the FairTax is a "fair" tax system, or one that is "fairer" than our current system, is highly subjective. Neal Boortz himself even acknowledges this in his newest book on the FairTax: "Whether a tax system is ‘fair’ is a complicated economic and philosophical question, one that inevitably involves oversimplification and subjective judgment."

[Sola_Fide]

The only fair tax is zero. But if you are going to have a tax, why not have a truly fair tax, an equal tax:


I first saw this proposed by the late Joe Sobran. Let every American pay the same amount – no deductions, no exemptions, and no exceptions. Sobran reasons: "The billionaire doesn’t use the police or the streets any more than the pauper. Maybe less, since he presumably hires private guards to protect him and has less need of the police, and he is less likely to drive long distances than to fly." Now, I wouldn’t like paying this tax any more than I like paying income tax, but it is certainly a fair tax.

[RonPaulFanInGA]

Horrible idea:

So now we've gone from (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?415768-Why-doesn-t-Rand-ever-talk-about-abolishing-the-IRS-(split)) "why doesn't Rand ever talk about abolishing the IRS?" to "why doesn't Rand ever talk about abolishing the IRS in a way I approve?"

[Sola_Fide]

So now we've gone from (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?415768-Why-doesn-t-Rand-ever-talk-about-abolishing-the-IRS-(split)) "why doesn't Rand ever talk about abolishing the IRS?" to "why doesn't Rand ever talk about abolishing the IRS in a way I approve?"

The fair tax does not end the IRS. And it creates an even more complicated and intrusive redistributive monster.

[TaftFan]

I am a Fair Tax supporter, with maybe some modifications. Because "no tax" nor a proportional state contribution system are viable, and a flat tax on income is not moral.

[Warlord]

So now we've gone from (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?415768-Why-doesn-t-Rand-ever-talk-about-abolishing-the-IRS-(split)) "why doesn't Rand ever talk about abolishing the IRS?" to "why doesn't Rand ever talk about abolishing the IRS in a way I approve?"

Whatever he says/does is never good enough for Sola Fide:

Addressed here:

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?415768-Why-doesn-t-Rand-ever-talk-about-abolishing-the-IRS-%28split%29&p=5047309&viewfull=1#post5047309

[sluggo]

I support any tax system that takes the burden off producers, that is non-invasive to personal privacy, and doesn't treat Americans like criminals.

Cato has a pretty interesting report on tax reform options. Unfortunately, I don't think anyone in Congress has ever read it.

http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/options-tax-reform

I would love to say I was in the "no tax" camp, I just don't think it will fly in this environment.

[VIDEODROME]

Wouldn't the Fair Tax relieve a lot of the accounting burden employers deal with everytime they hire somebody? Also for the employees themselves? One time just to find work I drove over the road as an independent contractor and had to keep a massive pile of gas receipts. I always had to wonder how was actually going to workout on TAX day.

I also think the current system is a ridiculous invasion of financial privacy. I would rather pay some Sales Tax or Excise Tax if it was a more simple system.

[Brett85]

Abolishing the IRS and replacing it with nothing is never going to happen, unless you also think it's realistic to abolish Medicare, Social Security, and dismantle the U.S military. Rand actually put forward a reasonable proposal, which is to replace the income tax with a consumption tax. If that were to ever happen, the goal would then be to make the consumption tax as low as possible.

[sluggo]

Abolishing the IRS and replacing it with nothing is never going to happen, unless you also think it's realistic to abolish Medicare, Social Security, and dismantle the U.S military. Rand actually put forward a reasonable proposal, which is to replace the income tax with a consumption tax. If that were to ever happen, the goal would then be to make the consumption tax as low as possible.

I hope Rand will put something tangible together so those of us who support such a thing can push for it.

[TonySutton]

Estimated federal spending for 2014 is 3.8 trillion dollars. Divide that by 314 million population and you get roughly $12k. Just ask each family to pay $12k per person and we can pay all of our bills and maybe open a few eyes.

[Peace&Freedom]

Abolishing the IRS and replacing it with nothing is never going to happen, unless you also think it's realistic to abolish Medicare, Social Security, and dismantle the U.S military. Rand actually put forward a reasonable proposal, which is to replace the income tax with a consumption tax. If that were to ever happen, the goal would then be to make the consumption tax as low as possible.

Putting forth a consumption tax without getting rid of the income tax by constitutional amendment, and without getting rid of the Federal Reserve/private central banks issuing the currency, means "abolishing the IRS" is never going to happen. We'll simply end up with both, and still be having our wealth sucked into the debt black hole of the banksters. The tax exists in order to pay interest to the Fed, that's why they both came in together in their current form 100 years ago.

We've seen in this country (with tax reform in the '80's) if you reduce or eliminate taxes merely statutorily, the cash sucking vampires simply bring it back later. The legal basis for imposing it at all has to be permanently taken away by constitutional amendment, else it will be restored. The Ron Paul solution is still best: END the IRS, and END the Fed. Let's have tax FREEDOM, not tax REPLACEMENT.

[Debbie Downer]

I am a Fair Tax supporter, with maybe some modifications. Because "no tax" nor a proportional state contribution system are viable, and a flat tax on income is not moral.

I'll take Rand's proposed 17% flat tax with $33,000 exemption for couples over the current system. I'd add in a 10% of total income deduction for charitable contributions (tithings should not be taxed), though.

[Brett85]

Putting forth a consumption tax without getting rid of the income tax by constitutional amendment, and without getting rid of the Federal Reserve/private central banks issuing the currency, means "abolishing the IRS" is never going to happen. We'll simply end up with both, and still be having our wealth sucked into the debt black hole of the banksters.

Rand's position was to repeal the 16th amendment and replace the income tax with a consumption tax, not to add the consumption tax to what we already have.

[Warlord]

Rand's position was to repeal the 16th amendment and replace the income tax with a consumption tax, not to add the consumption tax to what we already have.

But as said it's not going to happen and you'll end up with both. A future Congress/president can change its mind if the 16th is there and re-institute the income tax

I suspect Rand has woke up and realized this.

Unless you can repeal the 16th fully and immediately without reservation there is no point in a fair tax.

This is very hard to achieve and can take years.

As president he can demand from day 1 a flat tax and start a transition over the lifetime of his administration.

Yes, that means some agency will exist to collect it. Maybe the IRS will have to be completely reformed/shut down/renamed in light of the recent scandals but whatever its called something will have to exist to fleece the citizens in the short term while the mess is sorted out.

[Anti-Neocon]

The only fair tax is zero. But if you are going to have a tax, why not have a truly fair tax, an equal tax:


Estimated federal spending for 2014 is 3.8 trillion dollars. Divide that by 314 million population and you get roughly $12k. Just ask each family to pay $12k per person and we can pay all of our bills and maybe open a few eyes.
And that is the worst idea ever... Why would we try to destroy the lives of lower income people in order to prove a point?

[mad cow]

And that is the worst idea ever... Why would we try to destroy the lives of lower income people in order to prove a point?

So that lower income people would get a clue that the money that pays for all these things they love doesn't magically rain down from heaven or come from Obama's stash?

[Brian4Liberty]

Horrible idea:

But for a plan that promises such a utopia, the problems with the FairTax are legion. The FairTax plan creates new taxes, new taxpayers, and new tax collectors.

All businesses already deal with Federal taxes. This would not be new. All businesses deal with State taxes already too. Most deal with sales taxes (only 5 States don't have it). Not a lot of "new" there.

Rates on the other hand would be a concern.

[Matt Collins]

Not to talk out of school, but I seem to recall that there was some controversy about this statement, right? :confused: