Which forms of revenue are moral or constitutional?

[unknown]

For government's constitutionally limited role, what forms of revenue are moral or constitutional?

We know that income tax was ruled unconstitutional.

Tariffs?

[Swordsmyth]

Tariffs and excise taxes.

I would add a tax on state revenues and spending and eliminate the excise taxes but that isn't in the Constitution yet.

[Chester Copperpot]

For government's constitutionally limited role, what forms of revenue are moral or constitutional?

We know that income tax was ruled unconstitutional.

Tariffs?

who ruled on that? What about the 16th amendment?

[oyarde]

One of the easiest parts of this exercise is coming to a general agreement of what taxes are clearly immoral . As an example property tax and taxes on food , utilities etc are clearly immoral . Yet half the states tax food and many others fund public education with property tax . If the states themselves have been allowed to be immoral by a weak people why would the far removed and insulated federal govt ever fear immoralities against these ?

[Zippyjuan]

Do you prefer taxes which are hidden from you- where you have no idea what you are paying- or should paying taxes be obvious so that people can get upset about them and care what they are?

Tariffs are hidden taxes which increase the prices you pay for goods and services. If you want to fund government spending at current levels, we will need to apply at least a 200% tariff to everything we import- from energy to car parts to food (a 200% tariff means things cost three times what they currently do to import). Then other trading partners will put high tariffs on things we buy from them so our exporters lose jobs and the rest of us pay higher prices.

Income taxes you see. You file the papers every year. That makes you care more about taxes and want to see them reduced. Sales taxes combine both. You see how much they add onto things you buy but they also make everything you buy more expensive. What would a national sale tax look like? (Again, if we keep spending at current levels of about $4 trillion a year)- retail sales were $4.82 trillion in 2016. That means we need about a 100% national sales tax (on everything sold retail including food- if you exempt things like food, it will need to be higher).

Adding those taxes on retail sales or using tariffs will cause significant drops in imports and retail sales so the actual tax rates would have to be much higher than those I posted.

[Stratovarious]

One of the easiest parts of this exercise is coming to a general agreement of what taxes are clearly immoral . As an example property tax and taxes on food , utilities etc are clearly immoral . Yet half the states tax food and many others fund public education with property tax . If the states themselves have been allowed to be immoral by a weak people why would the far removed and insulated federal govt ever fear immoralities against these ?

Not property taxes , but property taxes on Primary Residence.

[Zippyjuan]

Tariffs and excise taxes.

I would add a tax on state revenues and spending and eliminate the excise taxes but that isn't in the Constitution yet.

A tax on taxes?

[Stratovarious]

The only 'fair' tax is flat tax , everyone pays 3% of their income to feed the beast.

No right offs, no IRS, not 3000 pages of tax code and army of IRS bots.

[Zippyjuan]

The only 'fair' tax is flat tax , everyone pays 3% of their income to feed the beast.

No right offs, no IRS, not 3000 pages of tax code and army of IRS bots.

US Gross National Income was $19.6 trillion dollars. At $4 trillion in spending, we would need a 20% tax rate with no deduction, no exemptions. Not three percent. A three percent tax rate would raise about $600 billion. Department of Defense spend about $750 billion next year.

Half of all income tax filers currently pay no net income taxes.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MKTGNIUSA646NWDB

$4 trillion spending- 330 million people (including children). Head tax of about $12,000 would cover it.

[Sonny Tufts]

The only 'fair' tax is flat tax , everyone pays 3% of their income to feed the beast.

No right offs, no IRS, not 3000 pages of tax code and army of IRS bots.

With no deductions, you'd turn an income tax on a business into a gross receipts tax, which could result in taxing someone who had an economic loss.

[Anti Federalist]

None are "moral".

All taxation is theft.

Tariffs and excise taxes.

Those are the only constitutional ones.

[Anti Federalist]

Do you prefer taxes which are hidden from you- where you have no idea what you are paying- or should paying taxes be obvious so that people can get upset about them and care what they are?

Tariffs are hidden taxes which increase the prices you pay for goods and services. If you want to fund government spending at current levels, we will need to apply at least a 200% tariff to everything we import- from energy to car parts to food (a 200% tariff means things cost three times what they currently do to import). Then other trading partners will put high tariffs on things we buy from them so our exporters lose jobs and the rest of us pay higher prices.

Income taxes you see. You file the papers every year. That makes you care more about taxes and want to see them reduced. Sales taxes combine both. You see how much they add onto things you buy but they also make everything you buy more expensive. What would a national sale tax look like? (Again, if we keep spending at current levels of about $4 trillion a year)- retail sales were $4.82 trillion in 2016. That means we need about a 100% national sales tax (on everything sold retail including food- if you exempt things like food, it will need to be higher).

Nonsense.

Idiot AmeriKa has no idea what their tax rate is, nor do they care.

All they care about is a refund...a refund of part of the money already stolen from you before you even see it.

[Stratovarious]

With no deductions, you'd turn an income tax on a business into a gross receipts tax, which could result in taxing someone who had an economic loss.

They should try another business , or go bang on Burger King's door.

[Zippyjuan]

None are "moral".

All taxation is theft.



Those are the only constitutional ones.

Not really. There is a coma after "taxes" meaning in addition to what follows. Article One Section 8 Clause 1:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

If it was written out in long form:

The Congress shall have the power to lay and collect Taxes.
The Congress shall have the power to lay and collect Duties.
The Congress shall have the power to can lay and collect Imposts.
The Congress shall have the power to lay and collect Excises.
The Congress shall have the power to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;

[Stratovarious]

US Gross National Income was $19.6 trillion dollars. At $4 trillion in spending, we would need a 20% tax rate with no deduction, no exemptions. Not three percent. A three percent tax rate would raise about $600 billion. Department of Defense spend about $750 billion next year.

Half of all income tax filers currently pay no net income taxes.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MKTGNIUSA646NWDB

$4 trillion spending- 330 million people (including children). Head tax of about $12,000 would cover it.

Good , lets eliminate or cut budgets for; DHS NSA TSA FBI CIA CPS IRS FDA NASA, Cut Congressional Fat Cat pensions, Term Limits

Bring Troops Home, Close the Pentagon........there's a good start.

[Zippyjuan]

Good , lets eliminate or cut budgets for; DHS NSA TSA FBI CIA CPS IRS FDA NASA, Cut Congressional Fat Cat pensions, Term Limits

Bring Troops Home, Close the Pentagon........there's a good start.

Even with all that you still have over $3 trillion left in the budget- you only got rid of a quarter of it. Zero Department of Defense and zero for all other parts of government. Open borders. What is left? Social Security, Medicare/ Medicaid and interest on the debt. Just interest on the debt will use up most of that $600 billion ($400 billion of it).

[Stratovarious]

Even with all that you still have over $3 trillion left in the budget- you only got rid of a quarter of it. Zero Department of Defense and zero for all other parts of government. Open borders. What is left? Social Security, Medicare/ Medicaid and interest on the debt.

Dept of defense with troops home is not 3 trillion left.
Open borders?

lmao

It's a start, you have a problem with cutting the programs I listed ?

Welfare , you didn't even mention that.


And Welfare and services to Illegals, gee, you get real quiet quick.

[Zippyjuan]

Dept of defense with troops home is not 3 trillion left.
Open borders?

lmao

It's a start, you have a problem with cutting the programs I listed ?

Welfare , you didn't even mention that.


And Welfare and services to Illegals, gee, you get real quiet quick.

That is what you said you wanted. Your budget, not mine. You left out the welfare from cuts and got rid of any way to deal with immigration including law enforcement and border security. If you do want to keep the DOD and cut all other parts of government to zero, you will have $3.7 trillion left and cut about ten percent of government.

[Stratovarious]

That is what you said you wanted. Your budget, not mine. You left out the welfare from cuts and got rid of any way to deal with immigration including law enforcement and border security.

Blah blah blah, so cutting govt spending scares you?

What is your plan zippy ?\\\\






Raise taxes?

[Swordsmyth]

Do you prefer taxes which are hidden from you- where you have no idea what you are paying- or should paying taxes be obvious so that people can get upset about them and care what they are?

Tariffs are hidden taxes which increase the prices you pay for goods and services. If you want to fund government spending at current levels, we will need to apply at least a 200% tariff to everything we import- from energy to car parts to food (a 200% tariff means things cost three times what they currently do to import). Then other trading partners will put high tariffs on things we buy from them so our exporters lose jobs and the rest of us pay higher prices.

Income taxes you see. You file the papers every year. That makes you care more about taxes and want to see them reduced. Sales taxes combine both. You see how much they add onto things you buy but they also make everything you buy more expensive. What would a national sale tax look like? (Again, if we keep spending at current levels of about $4 trillion a year)- retail sales were $4.82 trillion in 2016. That means we need about a 100% national sales tax (on everything sold retail including food- if you exempt things like food, it will need to be higher).

Adding those taxes on retail sales or using tariffs will cause significant drops in imports and retail sales so the actual tax rates would have to be much higher than those I posted.

Hidden taxes are better, not because they are hidden but because of other factors.
They tend to reduce consumption rather than production and they have lower compliance costs.
Any tax on wealth that isn't moving is much worse than any tax on money that moves because it forces you to work in order to keep up, that is very near to actual slavery.

[Swordsmyth]

A tax on taxes?

Yes, it would push all tax domestic tax collection down to the state and local level and discourage states from having high taxes and spending.

[unknown]

None are "moral".

All taxation is theft.

Truth.

Those are the only constitutional ones.

Gotcha.

Whats an example of an excise tax?

[unknown]

who ruled on that? What about the 16th amendment?

Pollock vs Farmers Loan and Trust.

After which they passed the 16th Amendment although its debated as to whether enough of the states actually ratified it.

Because the states would love the idea of being additionally taxed by a central authority... who wouldnt?

The Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States was never ratified by a majority of the sovereign States.

After an exhaustive year long search of legislative records in 48 sovereign states (Alaska & Hawaii were not admitted into the Union until after 1913), Bill Benson wrote his fact findings in The Law That Never Was, Vols. 1 & 2.

He was able to unequivocally prove that the 16th Amendment was never Constitutionally, properly, or legally ratified.

The only record of the 16th Amendment having been confirmed was a proclamation made by the Secretary of State Philander Knox on February 25, 1913, wherein he simply declared it to be "in effect", but never stating it was lawfully ratified.

[heavenlyboy34]

Truth.



Gotcha.

Whats an example of an excise tax?

What is an Excise Tax

An excise tax is an indirect tax on the sale of a particular good or service such as fuel, tobacco and alcohol. Indirect means the tax is not directly paid by an individual consumer — instead, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) levies the tax on the producer or merchant, who passes it onto the consumer by including it in the product's price.


https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/excisetax.asp

y/w ~hugs~

[Danke]

Truth.



Gotcha.

Whats an example of an excise tax?

The Income Tax.

[Anti Federalist]

Not really. There is a coma after "taxes" meaning in addition to what follows. Article One Section 8 Clause 1:



If it was written out in long form:

The Congress shall have the power to lay and collect Taxes.
The Congress shall have the power to lay and collect Duties.
The Congress shall have the power to can lay and collect Imposts.
The Congress shall have the power to lay and collect Excises.
The Congress shall have the power to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;

Then why did it require a specific amendment to collect taxes on income, regardless of enumeration, if the power to do so was already there?

[Sonny Tufts]

They should try another business , or go bang on Burger King's door.

Tell that to someone who has to pay rent, employee wages and payroll taxes, insurance, utilities, and the cost of supplies but can't deduct any of these because, e.g., he's in a personal services business and can't allocate a portion of these expenses to Cost of Goods Sold, which a manufacturer can do. You've essentially stacked the deck in favor of certain types of businesses (manufacturing) and against others (personal services).

[Superfluous Man]

For government's constitutionally limited role, what forms of revenue are moral or constitutional?

The answer to the question of what forms of revenue are moral is bound to be much more limited than the answer to the question of what forms are constitutional, since the Constitution delegates to the federal government a great deal of immoral powers, particularly in the realm of raising revenue.

As to what's moral, here is the litmus test: Would it be moral for any private citizen to get money from any other private citizen this way? Whatever the answer is for any private citizen, it's the same for the government. Anything immoral for you or me is immoral for the regime as well. Thus, taxation is theft or extortion.

As to what's constitutional, Article 1, Section 8.1-2, 5, and 18 say:

1: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

2: To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;

....

5: To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

....

18: To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

And the 16th Amendment says:

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration

We know that income tax was ruled unconstitutional.

We do? Ruled unconstitutional by whom?

[Superfluous Man]

Then why did it require a specific amendment to collect taxes on income, regardless of enumeration, if the power to do so was already there?

I don't believe it did require that.

[Sonny Tufts]

Then why did it require a specific amendment to collect taxes on income, regardless of enumeration, if the power to do so was already there?

Because the Supreme Court held in the 1895 Pollock case that a tax on investment income (dividends, interest, rents, and royalties) was equivalent to a tax on the underlying property producing the income and was therefore a direct tax that had to be apportioned. The Court had previously held in 1881 (in a case in which the taxpayer's income consisted of bond interest and personal earnings) that an income tax wasn't a direct tax, but Pollock carved out an exception for investment income. This meant that the rich wouldn't be taxed on their investment income, while those with wages and personal earnings would be taxed on theirs.

Not surprisingly, Pollock was a very unpopular decision and provided the impetus for the 16th Amendment.

The Sixteenth Amendment declares that Congress shall have power to levy and collect taxes on income, ‘from whatever source derived’ without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration. It was not the purpose or the effect of that amendment to bring any new subject within the taxing power. Congress already had the power to tax all incomes. But taxes on incomes from some sources had been held to be ‘direct taxes’ within the meaning of the constitutional requirement as to apportionment. [cites omitted] The Amendment relieved from that requirement and obliterated the distinction in that respect between taxes on income that are direct taxes and those that are not, and so put on the same basis all incomes ‘from whatever source derived.’
Bowers, Collector v. Kerbaugh-Empire Co., 271 U.S. 170, 173-174 (1926) (emphasis added).