 |
EMIL
FRANZI |
Sales tax no panacea for reform
April 2, 2008
|
I
dropped Kathy off at Sky Harbor
for a back east trip to see the
kids Easter morning, and got as
far back as Eloy before the need
for steak and eggs overpowered me.
Iron Skillet, $7.49, with coffee,
tab was $9.68. Tax was $1.23
bringing it to $10.91 — 12.5
percent.
I recognize that those in Eloy are dedicated to ripping off travelers. Fortunately, Eloy has no seacoast, otherwise they’d be lighting fires to confuse ship captains and lure them onto the rocks to loot their vessels. To score those driving through, they also have to grind their own citizens, but most don’t seem to mind. Driving home I seriously re-considered the FAIR TAX proposal supported mainly by folks on my side of the political spectrum like Grover Norquist, Mike Huckabee, and national talk show host Michael Medved. The FAIR TAX would replace the federal income tax with a national sales tax. To raise the same amount would depend on what items were excluded from that tax — most advocates would not tax groceries or medicines. Some states now tax services such as auto repair and hair salons, and as they become more avaricious they will no doubt add more. Should the federal government adopt this measure that would move some state governments to follow and eliminate their income tax in favor of higher sales taxes. The estimates as to what would be needed to replace the IRS start at 17 percent and shoot well up into the 20s. About 25 percent seems to be a reasonable number (for a beginning). The virtues of eliminating the income tax are well known. One of its greatest evils is that much of the economy is planned around tax laws instead of productivity. Opponents point to entire buildings in D.C. containing lobbying firms devoted to preserving one line in the current tax code. Switching to a sales tax supposedly would simplify this. I submit otherwise. Go back to that $7.49 steak and eggs. Multiple sales tax increases would kick it up to about 15 bucks. I might just drive another 40 minutes for breakfast at home. I cite that as one simple example of how much higher sales taxes will also influence economic decisions, albeit in different ways, than income taxes do now. The political war over what will be exempt and what will be taxed at lower portions, etc., will simply re-employ all those lobbyists for a different line in the replacement sales tax code. It was long a mantra of the Democratic Party that sales taxes are regressive and land mainly on the poor. For the last 20 years they have abandoned that principle in practice, starting with the Democrat majority on county boards of supervisors including those in Pima and Pinal. Unfortunately, the need to spend often overtakes pretenses at justice by too many in both major parties. Republicans have historically supported sales taxes over other forms. Both parties reflect their relative constituencies and validate John C. Calhoun’s thesis that the public divides into tax producers and tax consumers. That’s found in a lengthy and boring tome called the theory of the concurrent majority. The idea is to get out of column A and into Column B. Wal-Mart and professional baseball would appear to have more than a passing knowledge of it. A couple of months ago a reader justifiably complained about my statement that the property tax was not inherently unfair. He was correct — I left out a key word. The property tax is not inherently more unfair than other forms of taxation. Income, property, sales, fees, government lotteries all screw over somebody. Much more succinct than Calhoun but equally edifying is the great Robert Heinlein’s Lazarus Long, who simply tells within a few pages of aphorisms that there is no such thing as a fair tax. My conservative colleagues should take note.
|
BUT WATCH WHAT YOU SAY! |
|
|
|||
