Not only is this a good idea, it puts all the numbers thrown around stimulus discussions into context.
As in...
quote:
In 2020 the personal income tax was expected to raise $1.81 trillion and the corporate income tax $260 billion, for a total of $2.07 trillion.
So Pelosi was getting all stompy-footed, insisting on another 'stimulus' that, by itself, was more than the IRS collects in personal income taxes in a year......
Let me lapse into New Jersey vernacular at this point. "Freaking A."
Here's the article text, for those who may not have WSJ subscriptions:
quote:
OPINION COMMENTARY The Best Stimulus: 0% Income Tax Instead of collecting and spending $2 trillion, why not cut out the middleman?
By Stephen Moore Updated Oct. 6, 2020 3:33 pm ET
Before President Trump suspended negotiations Tuesday, he and Congress were homing in on an economic stimulus plan that would cost some $2 trillion. That money would fund schools and hospitals, a bailout of mostly Democratic states and cities that have amassed large budget deficits, small-business loans, airline and Postal Service bailouts and $1,000-a-person payments to households. It’s a mishmash of spending that aims to inflate the economy for a few months.
There’s a better way. Instead of spending the money, why not cut out the government middleman and not collect the taxes? In 2020 the personal income tax was expected to raise $1.81 trillion and the corporate income tax $260 billion, for a total of $2.07 trillion. For a little more than $2 trillion, Congress could suspend the personal and corporate income tax for a year.
Think about what a year without income-tax liabilities and collection would mean. Roughly 150 million workers would no longer have income tax withheld from their paychecks, providing an enormous boost to their incomes and their incentive to work. (The payroll tax, which funds Social Security and Medicare, would still be collected.) America’s 30 million or so small businesses would no longer have to pay, collect or calculate the income tax for a year. This would mean more money for hiring workers and investing.
Some 100,000 American corporations would see their tax rate fall from 21% to zero. For 12 months the U.S. would have the world’s lowest corporate tax in the world, boosting profits and stock values and attracting capital.
The annual cost of income-tax compliance is estimated each year at about $400 billion. This would fall to zero. Auditors and tax preparers would have to find productive work. Unlike a spending stimulus plan, which requires tens of billions of dollars of government administrative costs to pass out money and oversee programs, suspending the income tax would save as much as $11 billion a year in Internal Revenue Service costs.
The current 2,100-page House stimulus bill would dole out dollars to hundreds of special interests—solar companies, airlines, transit operators, universities, state and local pension funds, hospitals, art programs and teachers unions. The income tax suspension would benefit everyone. Unlike the $500-a-week bonus unemployment checks that Mr. Trump and lawmakers want to send out, this proposal would reward Americans for working. And with no income tax, there would be plenty of jobs for the unemployed to fill.
Liberals will complain that the benefit would disproportionately go to the wealthy. But the people who pay the most income tax are those who own and operate the businesses that employ tens of millions of Americans.
Income-tax reductions have always had positive repercussions for the economy. That was true in the 1920s, 1960s, 1980s and 2010s. Suspending the income tax altogether would give the economy a far stronger shot in the arm than another borrow-and-spend stimulus.
Posts: 15235 | Location: North Carolina | Registered: October 15, 2007
Instead of collecting and spending $2 trillion, why not cut out the middleman?
Yes! That would be awesome.
Also, as pointed out, it would put more than the amount collected back into the economy. The annual cost of income-tax compliance is estimated each year at about $400 billion. This would fall to zero.
"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." -- Justice Janice Rogers Brown
"The United States government is the largest criminal enterprise on earth." -rduckwor
Posts: 24881 | Location: St. Louis, MO | Registered: April 03, 2009
0% income tax would be amazing- It'd let the individual determine who benefits the most from this stimulus. No special interest, no benefit to Who gives out the money.
Now here is an idea that is so damn simple that it's bound to fail.
No way the government allows themselves to be cut out of the process.
Screw the rest of us... they care most about maintaining control.
---------------------------------- "If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism.." - Thomas Sowell
Posts: 2673 | Location: Migrating with the Seasons | Registered: September 26, 2007
Hey, here's an idea, we could call it, "The Fair Tax", and just get rid of income taxes, corporate taxes, the IRS as we know it, and this is really crazy, we could pay a national sales tax, 1 or 2 pct of purchases, then every dollar gets taxed everytime we use it to buy goods, so criminally gained booty used to buy lambos, go fast boats, mansions, the furniture, by Tony Montana would have been taxed, hey that's just crazy talk....
Posts: 24667 | Location: Gunshine State | Registered: November 07, 2008
isn't that the notion on 'no income, no tax' policy now long in effect? The 'rich guys' have 'no income (wages)' to tax, with such as capital gains & investments being at a lesser rate, so I'm told.
While the 'national sales tax' seems to sound better that decades past, we know from centuries of experience now, that Congress will be unable to define simply and without wretched expansion of such policy, into being far more expensive to implement than predicted.
**************~~~~~~~~~~ "I've been on this rock too long to bother with these liars any more." ~SIGforum advisor~ "When the pain of staying the same outweighs the pain of change, then change will come."~~sigmonkey
