Automated Taxpayer Machine
Only Democrats could think of this sort of tax hike. To pay down their record spending spree, that added trillions to the deficit, Democrats are pushing a bill that will help them pay down the deficits they’re creating. Let’s tax Americans on their ATM withdrawals.
One idea for raising taxes to pay down the debt is the bill introduced this February by Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.). His “Debt Free America Act” (H.R. 4646) would impose a 1 percent “transaction tax” on every financial transaction — whether paid by cash, credit card or any form of financial transfer, the only exception being transactions involving the purchase or sale of stock. Theoretically, everyone would pay one cent on the dollar for every such transaction in America every day — whether $3 million on a $300 million business acquisition, $300 on the purchase of a $30,000 car, or $5 on a $500 ATM withdrawal.
To reduce the impact of such a flat tax on the poor, Fattah’s bill provides for a 1 percent tax credit for couples earning $250,000 or less ($125,000 or less for individuals) and discretion by the Treasury Department to exempt certain transactions on which lower-income people disproportionately rely. Another idea would be to amend his bill to exempt all transactions below $500.
Great idea. Let’s steal their money and then offer it back to them in the form of a tax credit. This will fool the weak-minded followers who think “free money…great” but it is just another Democrat pushing a scheme to steal money from taxpayers. If passed, this bill will only create another slush fund for politicians to raid.
The taxpayers are truly the government’s ATM! AUTOMATED TAXPAYER MACHINE
Here’s an idea. With Obama being a Muslim it seems that all these taxes are beginning to remind me of dhimmitude. What a deviously sneaky way of imposing Shari’a law. Hmmmmmm! He did have a slip of the tongue during an interview regarding his “Islamic faith”.
We already have a transaction tax = sales tax.
How about this, abolish the federal reserve, eliminate income tax, and cut government spending by…say, 50% and when our debt is paid off, move the dollar back to the gold standard.
And continue to scale back the government to the size of the constitution.
This is just a sneaky way to pass the value added tax upon the people.
Semper Fi
Actually a transaction tax to replace all local, state and federal taxes is a very good idea.
“How would it work? Consider a family with an annual income of $60,000, paying $20,000 in interest and mortgage payments on their house and spending $40,000 on all other items. The family has total transactions of $120,000. Today that family would owe roughly $20,000 in total taxes. Under the APT tax, with a rate of 0.6% they would pay $180 (.3% x $60000) on their income receipts and $180 on their expenditures for a total tax of $360. Their employer would pay $180 tax on the income payment, the mortgage company would pay $60 on its receipts and the merchants receiving the family’s $40,000 of other expenses would pay another $120 in taxes. In total, the government would receive $720. And all the taxes would be automatically assessed and paid without filing tax returns.
How then does the government collect enough taxes to pay its bills? Most of the revenues would be collected from the massive volume of stock and bond trades and foreign exchange transactions none of which are now taxed. One might be concerned that imposing taxes on these types of transactions would stifle economic activity in these critical areas, however, the tax is so small it would be dwarfed by the simple fluctuations in price that typically occur during the trading process. Although “day trading” and short term foreign exchange transactions will certainly decline, the reduction in these “hot money” transactions are only likely to reduce speculative market activity, thereby reducing the volatility of prices in these markets.
Although every voluntary transaction is assessed the same low tax rate, the APT tax achieves equity and fairness because the wealthiest portion of the population executes a disproportionate share of financial transactions, whereas the poorest members of society engage in relatively few financial transactions since they have so much less wealth to manage. So progressivity is achieved through the skewness of the tax base rather than through a progressive tax rate structure.
Practically speaking, how will the APT Tax work? Every bank, brokerage, or other financial account established by a person, corporation or other taxable organization will pay 0.3% on ALL funds moving IN OR OUT of that account. The tax would be automatically transferred to a federal government tax collection account in the same institution. This will be true for stock, bond, options, and futures traders and investors; foreign citizens, companies and governments exchanging their currency for US dollars; a couple buying a new car (no more 6% sales tax, instead 0.3% APT tax); and, a teenager buying movie tickets with a credit card. The movement of funds is taxed and collected immediately without recording who or what was the source of funds or the recipient. This automated system would totally eliminate the need for filing tax returns and information returns, freeing individuals and businesses of enormous costs of tax compliance and greatly reducing the government’s costs of collection and enforcement. “
You bring up some valid points, but the government isn’t going to stop collecting tax revenue for this one program. This is double taxation plain and simple. We are taxed before our checks go into our bank accounts and now they want to tax us for taking out our money…1% on every transaction. The government is broke. Americans are broke. This is just another tax that allows corrupt politicians to spend more and drive America further in debt.
Sorry about the gold standard statement.
I know better, this country can not afford to go on the zinc standard.
Just bring back the green back, and end the fed anf fractional reserve banking.
Actually there isn’t enough gold in the world to back up each countries currencies, which is why Nixon had to take the country off the gold standard.
Nixon’s wage and price freezes, reducing the armed forces after Vietnam, Arab oil embargo’s, Ford’s (WIP) Whip Inflation Now all contributed to inflation, high unemployment that doomed Carter but made Reagan look good … until he started the country down the path of deficits don’t matter …. fast forward to December 2008 … $10+ Trillion dollar debt and 10 year projected deficits of $8-12 trillion dollars … yup, yup deficits don’t matter.
I’m so sick of all this Obama is a muslim stuff. I really wish that people would start educating themselves as opposed to listening to the sound bites of idiots.
Yeah, like idiots who voted for him but didn’t read the two books he published. However, the article you are commenting on has nothing to do with that debate. Reading comprehension for idiots is something I would recommend you pick up and read.