If we were to do away with the 16th Amendment, thereby eliminating Federal income taxes, could the gov't make up the lost revenue via tariffs on imports (or some other method which creates American jobs)?
Seems like a win to me, but I don't know where to start to find the right stats.
It's not that we are not willing to pay federal taxes. It's that we want our tax is properly spent on americans not foreigners, illegal aliens, corruption, and a slush funds.
Income taxes are a bad idea.
You always get less of something if you tax it. Always.
We should figure out what we want less of, and tax that.
No one wants less income.
Yes. Tariffs are the original Constitutional tax that our Fed ran on for 100 years.
The globalists would rather our government run off of taxing our income than imports.
I'm all for returning to a tariff based model of government funding.
They could actually be relatively high though. A 20-30% import tariff is not unreasonable and was actually lower than the norm not that long ago. Frankly, imports would go down but not by as much as you'd think (and that isn't necessarily a bad thing as the tariffs could bolster against offshoring). Still, it would not nearly cover the income tax revenue. Not even by half.
I personally want to see rolling tax tariffs that change depending on the class of the country being traded with. Ie. Mexico should have higher tariffs than Canada. Countries with equal wages should have 0% tariffs. International trade is not my field, But the theories that international trade are based on are extremely old and kinda balk at income inequality and overall economic health of a country (just country wide consumption, which is an idiotic way to view it)
I thought our import volumes were ridiculously high. Seems like a low tariff on high volume would make a ton of money, if done right.
Not that high. I have been for tariffs for a long time... but they would need to be supplemented somehow. A change to property taxes, corporate taxes and sales taxes could do the trick. But either way, it doesn't matter how much you tax, really. The problem is in spending.
I want to see the numbers.
How much do we import each year?
How much is collected in income tax revenue?
The math should be simple from there.
Not that simple. You have to assume imports are not perfectly inelastic. A tariff would decrease the amount of imports somewhat. I just quickly looked up the numbers and a 25% average tariff rate gets you about 33% of income tax revenues assuming perfectly inelastic imports.
Yeah, I'm sure the market will react. Elasticity is a key feature.
I'm convinced we should only tax that which we want to reduce.
Taxing income and sales don't qualify, as more of both is better.
Do you have any suggestions?
The obvious choice, vice taxes, seems to just grow the black market.
The problem is income taxes are very good for their redistributive properties. You do want some redistribution in society. Thats why I think property taxes can help as you can make them extremely progressive. Corporate taxes can be good too but you'd need a whole new set of laws to prevent tax evasion and fraud (and probably lobbying) which we don't have in place right now (which is why Amazon and Hollywood etc basically shit all over America)
Ayn Rand proposed a tax I've always found compelling. It's a transactional tax that is completely voluntary, and available for every transaction in which you engage.
Basically, if you choose to pay the tax, then you reserve the right to appeal to the court system in the case you are defrauded in that transaction. Both sides of every transaction have the option to pay.
I like it because it balances the revenue received with the obligations of the courts with regard to the disputes that might arise.
This proposal was within a larger one regarding drastically reducing the size of government, so it was strictly trying to pay for the justifiable gov't expenses like the courts.
As far as redistribution, I think it's better to teach people that resentment is evil.
I'm not against a social safety net, but I think it needs to be one net, not 19.
Your mention of property taxes is one I hadn't considered on a Federal level.
I'm trying to avoid the reduction effect that taxes can have when we tax good things. But, real estate is static. The amount of real estate in a given area will never go down, absent natural catastrophe. The values might go down, but the actual underlying asset is essentially unchanging.
This might make this idea our winner, as the land value in the whole of the US must be insane. How much would we need to tax our real estate to make up for getting rid of income taxes?
This idea helps those who don't own much but are willing to work. I like it.
No . $2.5 trillion in imports * 24% (average income tax) = $600 billion (US dollars) out of $4.79 trillion federal BUDGET .
At what level do you think imports would stop and be more profitable to produce within and therefore skip tax? Ye probably way lower than 24% since the average import tariff now is 2.0 percent.
Oh and BTW ... Only SOCIALISTS believe the government can create JOBS. In capitalism the government CAN ONLY DESTROY them by imposing RESTRICTIONS the PEOPLE CREATE JOBS not THE GOVERNMENT.
"At what level do you think imports would stop and be more profitable to produce within and therefore skip tax? Ye probably way lower than 24% since the average import tariff now is 2.0 percent."
This is how it creates American jobs, producing within.
Maybe. But still that answered the question regarding income tax. The only proper way of creating jobs is innovation and undercutting foreign imports by BEING MORE EFFICIENT. I'm certain you don't want to compete with concentration camp labour force on price ... even with the added tariffs .
I agree, and they should. Many branches should be shut down completely.
I'd to turn all the buildings in DC now filled with lobbyists into parks with statues of Trump, Pence, Cruz, and Rand Paul: The re-founding fathers.
Lin Wood and Sidney Powell may deserve statues as well.
Better idea, eliminate income tax, replace with a 8-12% flat tax for Medicare and start a group health care account linked to social security, the more you've worked and earned, the less your healthcare costs. People who mooch the system get higher healthcare Bill's, but still allow private insurance. Then to make up for the lost income, federal sales tax, those who have and spend the most money, pay the most taxes.
Plus, you can't dodge a sales tax, it's due when you purchase. No more fraudulent tax returns.
A flat tax is still an income tax, which means better ideas likely exist.
I think a sales tax has the same issue that income tax has.
You should only tax things you want to decrease. We shouldn't decrease income or sales. Commerce is good. Hard work and trade is how wealth is created.
We need to identify something that it would be beneficial to reduce, and tax that.
Was the 16th Amendment properly ratified? News to me.
Probably not, but can't change history.
All that would really matter now would be getting the repeal Amendment ratified.
I also think we should repeal the 17th and the 26th while simultaneously eliminating the draft. Voting age should be 25.
(All that really matters now is stopping the steal, but my mind wanders.)
sure