Servo wrote: 
Thehell you say! If marijuana gets legalized ,we'll have Mexican beer cartels! Coronas for all.

 callum wrote: 
That's unconstitutional, though.  Sure, government officials are getting away with it, but it is still wrong.

The right way to go about enacting "preventive" taxes must start by holding a Constitutional convention, enacting an amendment to the US Constitution to abolish the 8th Amendment, and probably also the 5th Amendment.  Then any federal, state and local legislation that depends on the applicable Constitutional items must also be overturned.  Only then can "preventive" taxes be implemented legally.

I put the word "preventive" in quotes because I am not convinced that the excuse is the actual motive.  To me it looks like a convenient excuse that manipulates public sentiment to affect a quick and dirty fix.  IME, quick and dirty fixes don't last very long as fixes, but do tend to go on indefinitely as new problems.

I also have a big problem with any and all legislation that presumes guilt.  Taxes that punish innocent people who do not drink to excess (or people who keep and use guns responsibly, etc., etc., etc.) are not just unconstitutional, they are not fair.  It's an irresponsible and disingenuous way to deal with real problems that need to be dealt with responsibly and forthrightly.

Furthermore, I question the assumption that alcohol even is "likely to cost the state".  I think that that sentiment is jumping to lots of conclusions without any facts to justify those leaps of faith.  If I engage in risky behavior, my insurance rates go up.  I am the only one who suffers if I choose to do things that only might result in my hospitalization.  And if I do end up in a hospital, that stay is paid for by the years of inflated premiums that I have paid in advance.  That is what insurance is for.

For those who cannot afford health insurance, that is part of the much larger issue of what is wrong with health care in the US.  That's an issue that demands a comprehensive solution.  Honestly now, does raising the price of a bottle of beer in order to balance some state's budget for another year do anything to address the US' health care crisis?

 cc_rider wrote: 
Ayup.

Back when they were campaigning to bring a lottery to Oklahoma the promise was that it would provide all the funds the public schools would ever need.  What a load - they still whine about education being underfunded.

 kurtster wrote: 
Oh yeah, I suspect that has been a problem since the beginning of organized taxation. Look at the mess Social Security is in: if Congress hadn't been raiding it to pay for every other dang thing, it would probably have plenty of money. Experts, chime in here, but I've heard it would be just fine financially.

Many states (including Texas) have a State Lottery, supposedly to pay for Education. Yeah, right. The Lege has been raiding it for operating cash since the day it started. I like to imagine using lottery funds to pay for education is a good idea, since the lottery is basically a tax on stupid people: eventually, if the funds actually were applied toward education, the populace would get smarter and come to understand the lottery is for idiots.

All you lottery players out there, don't start with me. Playing for FUN is one thing, but the reality of the lottery is something else entirely.

One of the all-time great taxes is the 'bed tax'. Collected from hotels/lodging establishments on a per-night basis, it's usually tacked onto your hotel bill. The real beauty is that it's a tax collected on people who by and large do not live there! It is effectively taxation without representation. Genius.

c.

 callum wrote: 

I agree.  My problem lies in the fact that for example here in the states, tobacco is heavily taxed to fund other functions of government.  If the taxes on cigs went only into cancer research and respiratory illnesses, that would be wonderful and fair.  In fact smokers would be paying for their own burden on society and also for the cure to their ills.  But that is not the case here.  In fact here in the Rock and Roll Capital of the World (Ha !) they instituted a 30 cents per pack tax on smokes to fund the arts.  Where is the justice in that ?  You can't smoke at the events you are supporting.  No one else is stepping up to fund these things, so lets get the smokers, they are hooked, by a legal toxic substance.  Smokers pay the way for so many things with the sin taxes incorporated with smoking, yet all they get in return is to be spit on and treated like child molesters.

There are many others examples, but I think the smoking issue is the most clearly defined for illustrative purposes of my point.

 rexi wrote: 
The way things are going, we just might secede. Good luck finding a decent margarita...

c.

Flat Texas? No Texas at all? I'm all for it!

 kurtster wrote:  OTOH perhaps it is right to tax, for instance, alcohol because that is likely to cost the state - people who drink to excess will end up in hospital, or in the cells costing society.  The same goes for a lot of other things that have 'special' taxes.

 arighter2 wrote: 
Unfortunately that issue is only a single drop in an ocean of impracticalities.

The "flat tax" sound bite seems great, as long as you think no further.  Have you ever heard or read a comprehensive plan to replace every last federal, state, county and local tax with so-called "flat" income taxes?  Do you have any idea how much of your income would need to be taken away to cover all of the existing taxes?  Do you really think that it would be fair to force the working poor who can't afford to own a car to pay for the roads that they don't get to use?

Sales taxes and other point-of-sale taxes are far more fair than income-only taxes because they don't punish people for being frugal and saving money.  If people got taxed the same, no matter if they were frugal or spendthrifts, there would be no incentive (or in the case of the poor, the possibility) to have a nestegg.  And that's just one worm out of a very large can!

Besides being inherently unfair, I don't believe that any actual "flat tax" scheme could be enacted safely.  Legislators would end up neglecting every other matter, and spend many years just writing the legislation that would be necessary to abolish all existing tax codes, and replace them with "flat" income taxes.  And I have no doubt that even more effort would be spent on dealing with all of the unforeseen consequences.  It would be a massive and expensive effort, and would probably fail.  It's like deciding to produce only one size of shoes and clothing, and trying to devise some way to fit every man, woman and child into these one-size clothes.

I doubt that many Americans have even a ballpark idea of how much of their money goes to non-FICA taxes.  And I really doubt that many Americans would react positively when their take home pay gets cut in half or more.  While ignorance may be bliss, I don't believe in the right-wing policy of pretending that FICA is the only tax around.  There are a lot of things about the value-added tax that I really like.  First and foremost, if done properly, VAT makes it very easy to itemize the "when", "where" and "how much" of each step of the process.  VAT also can make it much harder for federal government officials to make themselves look good by shifting the tax burden from the federal level to the state and local levels.  IMHO this practice alone has done more damage than any other tax-related policy.  It should be illegal to legislate mandates without funding those mandates in the same piece of legislation.

Taxes are always going to be complicated.  And there's a very good and valid reason why: because people's lives are complicated.  The notion that a "one tax fits all" policy will actually work is utter lunacy.  There will never be any such thing as a 100% "fair" tax code, because there are far too many variables, and they are all constantly changing.

There is still plenty of room for reforms though.  I believe that the time, place and circumstance of every taxable event should be taken into consideration when collecting taxes.  When it comes to property taxes, if you buy a property only once, how come you must pay property taxes forever?  IMHO the circumstance does not warrant the method of tax collection.  There should be only one tax per sale.  Let the revenue that has come from property taxes come from more straightforward municipal taxes.  Getting back to value-added taxes, what about all of the transactions that add no value?  I believe that shuffling paper for money should be taxed the most, because it's a fraud.  OTOH people who earn income from physical labor should be taxed less than those who will not face future health problems due to the nature of their work.  Reforms like this would also be difficult to enact fairly, but IMHO they would be a giant step in the right direction.  And this kind of reform could be implemented with enough granularity so that the risk of change is minimal.

 cc_rider wrote: 
I agree with you on most of your points.  Except where we are taxing specific things to control behavior.  That just ain't right.  It distorts the true cost of goods and takes away the personal liberty of free choice.  I have heard of the plans for a National Sales Tax and they are usually based on the premise that consumption will always increase, therefore tax revenues will always rise.

I just philosophically like a flat tax on income over anything else.  I'll pay my taxes and spend my money as I see fit based on need, want and a truer cost of goods.  Let the government live within its means just as I must.  Behavior modification should not be the government's business.

 rosedraws wrote: 
My kids, whom I literally supported...oh jeez, don't get me started. Ma did his taxes on paper and I went with it. Next year I say! Ma say's ...ah, another story.

 katzendogs wrote: 
Yeah, one kid got oldenough to be un-dependented... part of why I owe BIG this year.     Once again I fell into that MF &$#%& Catagory where I made enough money for a big tax bill, but not enough to pay our (really rather modest) expenses... so I got no money to pay the man.  I'd be happy to pay my taxes... if I had the money.  grr.

BTW, I also have used Turbo Tax for something like a decade.  I've always done my own taxes, and even with the self-employment complications, it's no big deal.  I kinda like doing it.  It's like filling in a questionaire... you just answer the questions!  I just didn't like the grade I got this time...

I gotta say though, this year's Turbo Tax had some alarming problems.  I hope they stop playing with bells and whistles and just make the damn thing 100% glitch-free.

Oh, and I can not imagine doing my taxes ONLINE.  It just seems way way way too vulnerable and public.  I know there's all kindsa security and whatnot... but I like paper and the US mail for my stuff.

 BlueHeronDruid wrote: 
Why dem IRS bastids rejected my filing! Now I OWE! Damn kids, claiming themdumbass selves.

 kurtster wrote:  Our current tax code is not subject to constant adjustments and tweaking? Come on, that argument holds no water.

Rampant consumption is one reason we're in the mess we're in right now. We have been consuming far beyond our means for many years now, and the piper is demanding his due.

Quite right, consumption patterns DO change. So do income patterns and deductions. Taxes on consumption are a much more direct way to CONTROL those patterns. Look at cigarettes, gas, and alcohol: we tax those at a higher rate than other items, because we are trying to CONTROL certain behaviors. We as a society accept that (well, most of us do anyway) as the price for such 'luxuries'.

A consumption tax CAN be progressive, IF the correct things are taxed. Staples such as bread, milk, produce (fresh, frozen, canned), meat, etc. etc. can easily be exempted from sales tax: in Texas your grocery receipt indicates which items are taxed and which are exempt. Poor folks, heck anyone for that matter, should not be buying chips and soft drinks when there's fresh produce, bread and bottled water (not taxed in Texas) on the next aisle.

Want to give children a break? Easy. Set all children's clothing, up to a certain age or size or price, tax-free or tax-reduced. Baby food, formula, diapers? Exempt. In Texas there are several days a year designated 'no sales tax', usually corresponding to the beginning of the school year, for just such instances. There are limits, like shoes up to $100 or something, clothing up to $50, I don't know what the numebrs are but the point is there are controls: if you buy a $100 pair of jeans, you're gonna pay the full tax rate, 'cause the Levi's on the next rack are only $30.

The thing about sales tax is, with only a couple exceptions, the states are already collecting it: there is already a system in place for collecting a national sales tax. Yes, all the store computers would need to constantly be tweaked to account for whatever changes Congress decides to make to the tax rate. But you know what? Retailers already do that EVERY DAY. Look at all the SKU codes that are constantly being tweaked to account for sales, discounts, closeouts, markdowns, every dang thing. Right now we have TWO complex taxing systems: we could easily consolidate that into one. That way the IRS only has to figure out how to deal with 50-plus checks every month, instead of 250 million-plus checks coming in all at once. The IRS will still be PLENTY busy though: consumption taxes create black markets (see alcohol and cigarettes), so they'll still have plenty of tax cheats to go after. But almost certainly a smaller number than the potential 250 million tax cheats we have now.

Of course it's not a perfect solution: there is no such thing as perfect taxation, right? It is simply a change in philosophy, a different way of looking at how we take money to pay for our government and the services it provides.

Again: I don't honestly expect it to ever happen. I'm just trying to get people thinking about how it could be POSSIBLE. As an engineer I spend most of my time trying to find solutions to problems. Rarely is there one perfect solution, and often we spend hours on the relative merits of several approaches. What we do NOT do is dismiss proposals without really trying to make them work first. Of course there is always a degree of conjecture, and some ideas are dead ends, and some are just so complex we have to try them out on a smaller scale before leaping in. The problem of our Tax Code (and make no mistake, there IS a problem) is incredibly complex, but I think there is a better way.

c.

 kurtster wrote: 
The only way I could go along with such a tax is if a standard deduction up to the poverty level was in place. 

 cc_rider wrote: 

This is only to address your points on a consumption tax. 

I find that any tax based on consumption is doomed to constant adjustments and tweeking, ending up with a bigger mess than we are trying to fix.  Taxing consumption is a sure fire way to slow down consumption thereby reducing the revenues sought in the first place. 

Examples are many.  This past summer, Californians were told to drive less, to conserve fuel and resorces.  They did and for the first time in memory, gas consumption fell.  What came next ?  A call for higher taxes due to falling revenues resulting from decreased consumption.  In Charlotte, NC, citizens were told to conserve water.  They did.  What was the reward ?  Higher water rates to make up for lost revenue due to decreased consumption.

As tastes and needs evolve, comsumption patterns evolve and change making the tax target elusive at best.  The best way to diminish consumption of a product is to raise costs.  Taxation is the fastest way to raise costs and affect the consumption of a given product.

The cunnard that consumption will never decrease is being proved false right before our eyes.

IMO the only fair tax, is the FLAT TAX, everyone pays the same rate, regardless of income.  It is not regressive as sales taxes are.  Comsumption taxes hit the ones that can least afford to pay, ie, the poor who must spend every penny they earn in order to survive.  A Flat Tax would elimate deductions, making sure that those at the top pay taxes, just as those at all the other levels do.  I don't have any studys to cite, but I believe it would result in a higher net tax payout by those at the top presently pay due to the myriad of deductions and loop holes available. 

 cc_rider wrote: 
I think that I have been using it (TTax) for ten years, Is that possible? My taxes are not that complicated so I think that it has served me well. I'm getting another big refund this year but this may be the last time, as it is the last year that I will have had (what's that case?) two children in college. So I will pay more tax next year, but one less tuition bill; I'll take that.

 BlueHeronDruid wrote: 
see my edit. I'm going back in. Plus I've been paying the govment for years.

 katzendogs wrote: 
I really like Turbo Tax. I've been using it to do my taxes for about 8 years.

 katzendogs wrote: