Comments on: Fix the Tax Code Friday: VAT

By: Kelly Green-Krist

Kelly Green-Krist — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 15:27:50 +0000

Sounds to me VAT would be an additional tax. I find it hard to believe it would replace another revenue stream to either the federal government or the states.

By: r

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 06:31:49 +0000

if one of the advantages of the VAT is ease of administration, it would seem the logical choice would be to get rid of the income tax

By: Rainer

Rainer — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 21:44:46 +0000

The only way to make the VAT tolerable here would be to eliminate ALL income taxes and ALL local sales taxes. Of course, since the VAT would be collected on the federal level, there would have to be revenue sharing to return the appropriate share to states and localities to replace the eliminated sales taxes.
What do you want to bet that the great sticking point would be determining what constitutes an appropriate share of the revenue? Population? Local income? Local business activity? Number of congresspeople?
Then there is the spectre of “double taxation”: We were promised favorable tax treatment of IRA, 401k, and Roth moneys when we made these investment decisions … but the favorable part would go out the window. Pity the poor soul who converted a $100,000 traditional IRA to Roth the month before deliberations on the VAT began!

By: Brian

Brian — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 17:25:29 +0000

Hmm.. I don’t believe that a VAT will replace any tax currently imposed. In my opinion, it’s just a ruse to make people ok with it. Kind of like the slot machines in PA were supposed to lower property taxes. Seen any of that money? And now they want table games…