Wednesday, March 25, 2009

VAT taxes and financial crack

So one of the tax options floated by the Never Right has been a VAT tax. This is similar to the sales tax hike recently passed here in California: It's a tax on consumption. Err... so the answer to an economic crisis caused by a collapse in consumption is, err, a tax on consumption?

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My head hurts :-(.

-- Badtux the "That's illogical, Captain Kirk" Penguin

6 comments:

  1. Welcome to your very own version of our GST.:(

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  2. That's their answer? A tax on consumption?
    Idiots!

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  3. If fjb is from Down Here, he could attest that the GST works fairly well. (Even though John Howard lied to put it in place. But Johnny-boy was a lying sackoshit in so many ways...) The great thing about the GST is that you pau EXACTLY what the price tag says -- no having to estimate "OK, the price is $39.95 and I'm in California, so it's another 8.5% on top of that..."

    But Tux, doncha know the Reichwingers want a GST because it will be their excuse to reduce taxes on rich people and corporations? That's ALWAYS the rationale. Tax the poor, feed the rich.

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  4. The only economies for which a tax on consumption makes sense are export-oriented economies, where you want to reduce domestic consumption in order to have more goods available to export. This is to take into account that any good consumed locally is a good not available for export. For any economy which is *not* an export-oriented economy, it's a moronic idea.

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  5. "The only economies for which a tax on consumption makes sense are export-oriented economies, where you want to reduce domestic consumption in order to have more goods available to export."

    Ah ha, once again the laws are way behind the times.

    So, could someone please remind me why the taxpayers pay the salaries of "legislators?"

    I mean, really, most of the new laws (perhaps that will change w/ Obama in?) benefit those who stuff the campaign coffers for access to lawmakers.

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  6. I'm sure the right would just love a comsumption tax (such as Fair Tax) as they are typically carefully worded to make sure that businesses do not pay any taxes. If you do the math, it acutally works out to be an inverse of the progressive tax.

    Let's not forget that many companies would sneak in a price increase during the transition.

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