At 01:40 AM 6/9/99 -0400, Ron Kean wrote:
>That of course is a comprehensive transactions tax, rather than a retail
>sales tax. One attraction of a retail tax is that the tax enforcement
>need concentrate only on a limited category of relatively openly
>observable transactions. Spot checks to see that 'planted' transactions
>are reported by date, time, location, and amount could detect a pattern
>of evasion by a retailer. On the other hand, the comprehensive
>transactions tax could be rather efficiently implemented by simply taxing
>all bank deposit transactions, including cash, check, electronic, credit
>and debit card, etc. Collection costs would approach zero, as it would
>involve a small programming change in the software the banks already use.
> At such a low rate of 0.1%, there would be little incentive to avoid or
>evade the tax.
>
No collection police, at least not in the forces we are used to. Thousands of additional welfare cases? Who in industry will hire ex-taxmen?
The govt. still needs to be restrained to only spending what is taken in. If the two ideas could be combined, wow!
This idea would even tax illegal commerce - as soon as the money hits a bank. An incentive for govt. to quit with the bank privacy invasion rules they keep trying to implement. Let the criminals pay their fair share.
It makes too much sense to ever happen here. Besides, there will be many concerns about privacy, even if there's no way to track any particular transactions.
We can dream..