🚀 go-pugleaf

tporczyk@netcom.com (Tony Porczyk) writes: 

>canoeist@netcom.com (Mark Zen) writes:
>
>>yup, but what about the poor, they spend all of their money just on
>>things they need [generally], and then the _relative_ tax on them is
>>much higher than the rich [or even "middle" class].
>
>Read the bill.  They would not be taxed.  Your objection is the obvious
>one, and it is taken care of.  Even now you don't pay tax for food.
>Under the bill there would even be a special provision for necessities.

Waidaminut.   How do you NOT tax "the poor" with sales tax?  How would
the merchant know he was selling to "the poor" as opposed to "the rich"
so as not to charge the extra sales tax?  This is starting to sound like
it'll wind up being more byzantine than the income tax ever was when Congress
gets through with it.

>It is now, under the present tax law that the poor get royally screwed.
>I mean, $30K for a family in Bay Area IS poor.  Look how much taxes they
>still have to pay.  The current exemptions are a joke.

"Look how much taxes they still have to pay..."??  None the less, the fact
remains that income taxation is on a progressive scale and the family with the
$30K income _still_ pays less in total and less as percentage of their income
than the family with the $100K income, at least in theory.  The theory dries
up when all the tax loopholes that the rich feed off of are mixed in.

Politicians who are truly interested in releasing the screws to the poor which
you cite would be getting rid of the loopholes, not introducing a wholly
different form of taxation which is much harder to enact in a progressive
manner.  Claiming otherwise flies in the face of logic.

Fred