Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
From: lachman@parc.xerox.com (Hans Lachman)
Subject: Re: Some views on Scientology
Message-ID: <1991Jul28.041938.12594@parc.xerox.com>
Sender: news@parc.xerox.com
Organization: Xerox
References: <h+9lzll@rpi.edu> <17184@life.ai.mit.edu> <1991Jul24.140607.32251@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1991 04:19:38 GMT

In article <1991Jul24.140607.32251@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> mauler@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:
>In article <17184@life.ai.mit.edu>, whatis@wookumz.gnu.ai.mit.edu (....What Is?....) writes:
>> As for where the money goes, it's largely expansion (over 200
>> new missions were added worldwide just last year alone) and projects
>> such as Citizen's Commission on Human Rights and Citizens for an
>> Alternative Tax System, the latter being devoted to abolishing income
>> tax and replacing it with a national sales tax, which has benefits I'm
>> sure you can see.
>
><SARCASM ON>
>Oh, yes, we can see the benefits of sales tax over income tax.  Example: a poor
>person and a rich person both buy $1000 of items using a 5% sales tax as a
>standard.  The poor person earns $10,000 a year; the rich person, $100,000 a
>year.  They both pay the same tax: $50.  However, the $50 to the poor man is
>1/200th of his total salary; the rich man pays only 1/2000th of his total
>salary.  The rich man is getting the better share by a factor of ten (10), 
>even though they both pay the same tax.
><SARCASM OFF (for now...)>
>Leo

Surely you don't think a typical rich person and a typical poor person
both buy the same amount of taxable goods each year, do you?  Or is
this part of your sarcasm?

I'm in favor of a sales tax over income tax.  If there's a problem with
poor people getting hit with too much tax, then we should redistribute
the tax burden by reducing or eliminating the sales tax on items that
are commonly in poor people's "basket of goods".  You can argue over
how to fine tune the system, but fundamentally it is clearly a better
system that encourages productivity and discourages waste.

Instead of dismissing the idea as unacceptable, why not try to see
what's good about it, and offer improvements in the areas you don't
like.  It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.

Sorry if this doesn't have much to do with Scientology.

Hans Lachman
lachman@arisia.xerox.com