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I think the concept of FairTax is interesting, but the application through a lottery system is a gamble at best (har). Because it is working for Taiwan does not

I think the concept of FairTax is interesting, but the application through a lottery system is a gamble at best (har). Because it is working for Taiwan does not mean that it would be transferable: if a tax-system is holding an economy together, it might be quite a jump to say that applying it somewhere else would have same results

b0o 14y ago
The lottery system is no gamble, and with it also means creating a uniform receipt standard, which further simplifies our current system as well. My taiwanese relatives keep every single receipt, and they even ask for my receipts when I go back to visit. At the very least it'll have some sort of positive impact because both the Taiwanese and American economies have a number of similarities, one of which is that both economies have a huge percentage of small business owners, and they are the ones most likely to benefit from tax evasion in the case of a single-rate federal retail sales tax such as the one proposed by FairTax. However, a lottery system would force consumers to demand receipts from these small business owners thus preventing them from doing sales off the books. Also, the grand prize for the lottery is 10M NTD (New Taiwan Dollar), which is ~$337,781 USD, and overall they might pay around $1-2M USD which is a fraction of any estimated potential losses in tax revenue if such a lottery receipt system was not put into effect. Also, our current tax-system is most definitely not holding our economy together, it's pulling it apart. Implementing it into our current tax system might also work too. At the very least, I hope it'll teach Americans to keep their receipts which is a huge improvement in itself.
- WhoIsSatoshi 14y ago
  You seem to say that the implementation of a lottery would smoothly go. I disagree: the system has worked in TW but was it implemented in the same conditions? Do you remember when the US tried to implement the metric system? There were only positive things about it... I can see a lot of folks opting to go to a blooming "grey market" where they get everything at 20% discount (3% markup from OP tax rate) where they wouldn't get receipts, or a second hand economy rise and not enough revenue being generated. In either case, any drastic change is a gamble,but we're so far down the hole that it might be our last option.

b0o 14y ago

The lottery system is no gamble, and with it also means creating a uniform receipt standard, which further simplifies our current system as well. My taiwanese relatives keep every single receipt, and they even ask for my receipts when I go back to visit. At the very least it'll have some sort of positive impact because both the Taiwanese and American economies have a number of similarities, one of which is that both economies have a huge percentage of small business owners, and they are the ones most likely to benefit from tax evasion in the case of a single-rate federal retail sales tax such as the one proposed by FairTax. However, a lottery system would force consumers to demand receipts from these small business owners thus preventing them from doing sales off the books. Also, the grand prize for the lottery is 10M NTD (New Taiwan Dollar), which is ~$337,781 USD, and overall they might pay around $1-2M USD which is a fraction of any estimated potential losses in tax revenue if such a lottery receipt system was not put into effect. Also, our current tax-system is most definitely not holding our economy together, it's pulling it apart. Implementing it into our current tax system might also work too. At the very least, I hope it'll teach Americans to keep their receipts which is a huge improvement in itself.

WhoIsSatoshi 14y ago
You seem to say that the implementation of a lottery would smoothly go. I disagree: the system has worked in TW but was it implemented in the same conditions? Do you remember when the US tried to implement the metric system? There were only positive things about it... I can see a lot of folks opting to go to a blooming "grey market" where they get everything at 20% discount (3% markup from OP tax rate) where they wouldn't get receipts, or a second hand economy rise and not enough revenue being generated. In either case, any drastic change is a gamble,but we're so far down the hole that it might be our last option.