J
JosephKK
Guest
On Fri, 21 May 2010 12:45:07 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid>
wrote:
luxury lines like Lexus. Go ask if you don't believe me.
wrote:
Dealers usually get mote than that, like 3k to 5k per car, more forJosephKK wrote:
On Thu, 20 May 2010 07:47:38 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:
JosephKK wrote:
On Wed, 19 May 2010 16:30:12 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:
krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Wed, 19 May 2010 15:27:01 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Wed, 19 May 2010 09:42:44 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:
On May 18, 2:46 pm, Charlie E. <edmond...@ieee.org> wrote:
On Mon, 17 May 2010 14:31:43 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com
wrote:
major snippage and attributions...
$1 only buys $0.77 worth of _stuff_ today, say the Fair Tax people
(AIUI). The rest goes to taxes hidden in the item's price.
If I tax-deferred the
$1.40, I could buy $1.00 worth of stuff. Any after-tax savings (that
is socked away before the change) gets hammered *twice*.
If you had tax-deferred the $1.40, you'd escape the indignities of the
old system. That's a windfall (assuming Congress allows it).
Going forward though, with income-taxed money, the $1 we have left
still buys the same with or without the Fair Tax. $1 with embedded
tax burden hidden inside it, or ($0.77 actual price + $0.23 Fair Tax)
both cost you $1 at the register. No loss of purchasing power.
That's the contention, AIUI.
The other false assumption is that the price would drop
instantaneously to $.77 as soon as the tax was passed.
I don't assume that. There are all sorts of 2nd and 3rd-order
effects.
In reality,
the price stays at $1.00, and the retailer uses this 'profit' to pay
off his loans. Now, as time goes by, prices 'might' drop, but I
wouldn't bet on it. I actually expect prices to rise.
I expect prices to fall, quickly. Like with gasoline there's a delay
for goods-in-transit, then market forces handle the rest.
Why would a Japanese car or Chinese-made flatscreen TV fall in price
quickly?
Because there is more than one manufacturer.
With consumer electronics the number of manufacturers inside the US is
often zero.
I don't see the relevance.
The relevance is this:
When a group of "experts" claims the price of goods will fall because
the income tax burden of the labor in a product will drop by 23 percent
that assumption is flawed for two reasons:
a. Most consumer products are from China and, consequently, not one iota
will change in the tax on labor. The only cost that changes is the labor
associated with the sales and distribution process but that's miniscule.
I don't think so. The final retail distribution is rather expensive and
labor cost driven. Take a look at the volume pricing at Digikey for
example.
I am looking at Walmart and Costco. There's nobody working there that'll
crack one can of pickles out of a 4-pack. You either buy the 4-pack or
you don't have pickles for lunch
You are confusing unit of issue, intentional recruiting at minimum wage,
and business designed for those conditions with price per unit and delta
price per unit versus volume.
What's confusing about this? Whether it's Walmart or Amazon or whatever,
competition forces such places to live on rather slim margins. The same
is true in the auto business. Yeah, the dealer/middleman might make
$1k-$2k but the other $15k go to Japan or Korea.
luxury lines like Lexus. Go ask if you don't believe me.
retailer/wholesalers).Please respond to the volume pricing at Digikey (and most electronic
b. The percentage of labor in the COGS even for products made in the US
is much smaller than they anticipate.
If the
government stops taking out SS and IRS taxes from my paycheck, I have
more to spend. I can then afford these now 'higher' prices of that
$1, plus $.23 fair tax, plus the sales tax of $.09, so it is now
$1.33.
As for savings, I don't sweat it as much. Yes, it makes my post-taxes
savings less valuable, but it also removes a lot of taxes on my
earnings and interest!
I'm interested in saving the time and energy I waste avoiding tax land-
mines. That's worth a lot--at least a couple weeks a year. More like
three, methinks.
There'll be new tax land-mines, like who gets to pay ficticious rent
tax, how much, and who doesn't. Et cetera.
That part still seems iffy, yes.
IMHO the whole idea is iffy. Fair means it has to be fair to just about
everyone and not just part of the population. And that's not the case.
The only hole I see in it is savings, that we both object to. I may not agree
(or understand completely) the economics of taxing large items (homes and
cars) heavily.
Much of that will depend on how property tax on homes and use tax on
vehicles gets changed. 40 years of property tax adds up.
You can bet on it that a certain kind of politician will only agree to
all that if it result in a serious net increase in taxes squeezed out of
the public.
That is all of them.
See, now you know another reason why I am against this change
[...]