2003-07-24 - 4:32 p.m.
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What the shit....
SO I just watched the news for the first time in a while, because honestly I was too god damn tired of hearing this and that about Baathists and assassinated sons and further elusive Weapons of Mass Destruction (or WMD if you want to hide from reality even further and make it even harder to understand the absolute scariness in any one of these weapons). I'm tired of it all. I'm tired of the countless celebrity stories, just one after another, piling up like some joke. This one is dying from drugs or this one is dating this other one or they were dared seen outside of their mansions or some other trivial thing that makes you look the other way from your own problems. And the shooting, some psycho shooting up a room full of politicians. Hey, can't you just go and vote them out like everyone else does? Call me insensitive, but shit, there's better ways to get what you want than shooting an entire room full of people up.
And in the bundle of stories on how the economy is going well but also going poorly while it is going well as well, in there, there was a story about a senator that wished to do away with income tax.
Before you go ripping up your forms and throwing them in the air like confetti, he proposes to allow everyone the money they would get from income tax, but in return, sales tax would go up, from whatever it is by you (in NY it's like 9%, I think it's like 5% in NJ and I have no idea what it is in MA, but it's no fucking 9%) to about 23% to 35% of what you normally spend.
So...
When your 2 dollar Big Mac would normally cost you $2.18 in NY, it will cost you roughly $2.60 now. And you might say "Well shit, that's damn near nothing. That's only 42 cents!"
Well, that's only a Big Mac.
Go buy a car. $20,000 for a moderate car....you do the math.
That money will go to the Government, if this plan goes well. The extra 10-20% of taxes tacked on to everything goes right to the government. So, on top of the state getting a slice of your slice, you owe Unky Sam some dough.
The idea behind this is that a lot of people scam the income tax and lie and cheat and this way, you can avoid all that shit and, as the senator politely put it "Make everyone a tax payer for once".
Everyone including visitors.
Foreigners would pay it to. Anyone would pay it. Anyone buying things that would include this tax would pay it.
But here's the catch.
From the slight amount of information that I could get from this breif news interview, only the "essentials" such as food and clothes and stuff would be taxed.
So that income tax coming from people who are filthy rich, that shitload of money, wouldn't come in. Oh sure, they'd buy food. That's essential. Clothes. That is essential. But everything else is up for grabs. And do you think that, despite this increase in taxes, they'd purchase enough to pay the same amount of taxes as income taxes? I highly doubt it. Unless Bentleys and Courvousier becomes essentials, I don't believe those taxes will be paid. So the dollars taken away from them by income tax will get somewhat applied to these new taxes and they would get even more to play with.
So a bunch of visiting foreigners will get to pay the difference for everything not recouped by the old income taxes.
That's just silly.
Hey, I'm all about not paying taxes. I haven't really had to pay taxes, considering I don't really make that much anyway and am basically still a dependant.
But here's another point. How much of poverty level spending would become eaten up by taxes? How much more would poor people be forced to spend with even less money. You see, income taxes are less when you have less to spend. So, if you saved yourself about $3,000 from the old way, but by the time the year is over, you have spent $2,000 more on the taxes that were then imposed, how long do you think that could last? How long do you think people could last with even less, seeing as it's hard enough for many people as it is. There are a lot of people who are doing fine out there, but there's millions of people who are skating the edge, just above homelessness and above starving. Take $2,000 away from them and see what happens.
These are all speculative figures. But a huge family of 6 or 7 is going to buy a ton of food. Even though you do receive a tax break for more dependants, will it be enough to counteract the taxes that will come up?
People might not like paying taxes every year for their income taxes.
But at least you only do it once a year.
BMC
What did you just say? - What's he gonna say next?
