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House Republicans to vote on bill abolishing IRS, eliminating income tax
- mikewarot 4y agoIf the IRS were eliminated, how would they fund the defense budget that they cherish above all else?
- tedunangst 4y agoCivil forfeiture.
- wmf 4y agoLiterally owning the libs?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- wustangdan 4y agoThe national consumption tax. It says in the first sentence...
- raincom 4y agoAs long as every other country on the earth wants to swap raw material and finished products with US dollars, they can print money to fund defense budget, social security, medicare, etc.
- rongenre 4y agoThey've been wanting to legalize slavery for a while /s
- mrguyorama 4y agoWell uh, slashing the defense budget was literally one of the requirements made by extremists to get them to vote in a Republican house speaker.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- whispersnow 4y agoThen what's the other taxes he wants to impose?
- Someone 4y agoFTA!: “a bill that would abolish the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), eliminate the national income tax, and replace it with a national consumption tax.” I guess they mean a (federal) sales tax because taxing at time of consumption is fairly hard to implement.
- __derek__ 4y ago> taxing at time of consumption is fairly hard to implement Yet very amusing to imagine.[1] [1]: In a Monty Python or Douglas Adams way, natch.
- Someone 4y agoI imagined it in a dystopian way with zillions of cameras everywhere (how else would we know who ate that sandwich that you took with you when you went hiking with friends for a week?), but yours is better. Imagine John Cleese working in an office, tallying how much toilet paper every employee uses at work, so that they (the consumers) can be taxed for it, and not their employer (who merely bought it)
- wwweston 4y agoFor better and worse, this is pretty much what I'd expect. It's not a serious attempt to genuinely govern or otherwise make reasonable policy, it's sending up an ideological flag, and since the fundamental ideology is actually opposed to the idea of well-functioning social institutions with mutual accountability...
- wustangdan 4y agoI'm sorry I'm not following you. Are you saying that what the US has now is well-functioning social institutions with mutual accountability? Since they oppose this by trying to pull funding from them.
- mrguyorama 4y agoRepublicans have run on a platform of "Government is terrible at it's job" for 50 years, and every time they get elected they work really hard to prove it.
- wustangdan 4y agoI have a hard time combining this sentiment with my lived experience in California.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y agoRegardless, what's the alternative? Have corporations run everything and only majority share holders get any say? How do you think that'll work out? Yet, that's exactly what the "government doesn't work" crowd seems to be pushing for. It's great if you're a billionaire neo-feudalist and terrible if you're literally anyone else.
- kodyo 4y agoI can imagine alternatives that aren't one of a) unlimited fascist oligarchy (present) and b) unlimited corporate oligarchy (your proposed alternative).
- jleyank 4y agoWould this eliminate the federal income tax leaving state and lower taxes? Or is it going to be nothing but one rather impressive vat?
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> Would this eliminate the federal income tax leaving state and lower taxes? The proposal “gets rid of the national personal and corporate income taxes and abolishes the IRS…as well as implements a national sales tax. Additionally, the bill gets rid of the death, gift, and payroll taxes.”
- hardtke 4y agoThe rate seems to be 23%, and given that this is only a sales tax this would mean the federal government is taxing at maybe 10-15% of GDP. If I remember correctly, federal government expenditures are around 30% of GDP.
- bb88 4y agoSo 23% consumption tax? Or would you be talking higher? I'm not sure 23% would be enough to offset the loss of the federal income tax.
- bb88 4y agoI think if you did a Roth IRA/401k and then retired, you'd be angry because you're effectively paying double taxes on consumption. Same with money that you already took out of a regular 401k and paid taxes on it. Same with money that was already taxed for the past 5 years. Etc.
- hardtke 4y ago23% is what is in the bill as the initial starting rate.
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- bobkazamakis 4y agoI'm glad there's representation for MBAs in congress.
- elashri 4y agoAm the only one who feels like thia whole article is like ChatGPT repeating the definitions without giving out any details?. For example, instead of the other Rep who said exactly just a paraphrase of what the previous Rep said, they could explain what is FairTax is actually instead of just keep saying the samething.
- lurquer 4y agoMeaningless. Senate wouldn’t back it and President wouldn’t sign it. Telling how ignorant audiences are of civics that this stunt would merit an article. (Indeed, a good number of these same reps literally voted to fund the IRS at unprecedented levels just a few weeks ago.)
- happytoexplain 4y agoI don't understand the implication that this must have a chance of passing to merit an article. The behavior alone merits an article. I am glad to be informed of government behavior (regardless of party).
- eklitzke 4y agoI know that this isn't a serious piece of legislation, but just entertaining the idea of a consumption tax: wouldn't this hugely incentivize people to spend money overseas rather than domestically? Basically this would give people a huge discount if they take vacations abroad rather than domestically, to the point that it would make sense to do regular weekend trips to Mexico or Canada. In theory the government could try to tax consumption abroad, but in practice it seems like that would be very hard to enforce.
- riku_iki 4y agoanother concerning point is that ultra-rich would be taxed much less, say now Bezos sells 100B of stock, he pays 20B in taxes (long term capital gain). With new tax he will pay nothing.
- bigfishrunning 4y agoHow often does bezos sell 100B of stock, vs how often does he buy cars and boats and houses? you have to look at both sides of the scale, i'm not sure he'd end up paying less as a consumption/sales tax. I think the major argument is that the income tax is a mess, and very difficult to administer
- riku_iki 4y ago> How often does bezos sell 100B of stock, vs how often does he buy cars and boats and houses? Bezos very likely sold much more stocks value wise than spent on boats and cars.
- knubie 4y agoHe would pay taxes on whatever he spends that 100B on. If he just has 100B sitting in his bank account does that really benefit him? Money is not worth anything until it's spent. The problem with taxing money before it's spent is that you have no way of separating out "good" consumption (e.g. health care) from "bad" consumption (e.g. yachts, 2nd homes). That kind of system leads to convoluted tax codes and things like HSA's and using health insurance as a form of compensation.
- _null_ 4y agoThis is just the first in a long list of "messaging" bills that will come from a very slim Republican House, because there is Democratic control of the Senate. They know it won't become law. The point is to rile up the media, get hits on cable news, fund raise, and generally be useless as a governing body. This is what both parties do when they are out of power, and I would say is what they _prefer_ to do. It's easier than governing, makes them money, gets them media attention, etc. Both parties here in the US _want_ to be minority parties so that they can behave this way and assume no actual responsibility for anything.
- optimalsolver 4y ago>They know it won't become law Didn't Brexit start as a "there's no way this will actually happen" signaling gesture by establishment Conservatives?
- _null_ 4y agoThere is literally no way a Democrat controlled Senate even reads this bill. To your point though, a good example of that kind of thing is the idiocy of Republican states who passed years of anti-abortion "trigger laws" in case Roe/Casey were ever overturned. They all assumed those precedence would never be overturned, and so they could be as extreme as they wanted. Now they are reckoning with their posturing.
- ashwagary 4y agoWill voters barely making ends meet dealing with inflation prefer the party that doesnt send government agents to attack them while they are struggling?
- V__ 4y agoI really don't get this “both parties” attitude. There is no basis for that argument. There is a lot to criticize about Democrats, but they at least want to govern.
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- crmd 4y agoFor contrast, the first bill introduced in 2018 by the democrat-controlled house under newly minted Speaker Pelosi focused on voter suppression and anti-corruption[0]. Like this bill, it was ceremonial and had zero chance of passing the senate or getting the President’s signature. [0] https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/policy-and-politics/2018/11/30/18118158/house-democrats-anti-corruption-bill-hr-1-pelosi https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/policy-and-politics/2018/11...
- zxcvbn4038 4y agoShort 1000 INTU ;)
- Overtonwindow 4y agoRegrettably taxes are kind of necessary within our system. I don't think abolishing the IRS is the solution, but I would certainly like to see it dramatically, cut down, and the tax code dramatically simplify. Get rid of all the loopholes and just set a flat tax for each income bracket.
- dang 4y agoPlease don't post garden-variety politics to HN. There's too much of it and it mostly isn't intellectually interesting. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html