From: ercn67@castle.ed.ac.uk (M Holmes)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: Re: Some views on Scientology
Message-ID: <11911@castle.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 30 Jul 91 15:47:19 GMT
References: <yl7lqqc@rpi.edu> <17122@life.ai.mit.edu> <h+9lzll@rpi.edu> <17184@life.ai.mit.edu> <1991Jul24.140607.32251@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
Organization: Edinburgh University
Lines: 53

mauler@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes: (in reference to a Scientology plan
for Sales Tax)

><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 

>Leo

I'm not sure I follow this. The implication is that a sales tax is a
kind of head tax where everyone pays the same and this being a smaller
proportion of the Rich Man's income than it is the Poor Man's makes the
whole thing unfair? (sorta like the Poll Tax in the UK really...)

Anyway, the bit that I don't follow is that the Rich Man still has to
spend the other $99,000 and he's gonna get taxed on this when he spends
it. Ditto for the Poor Man except that since he doesn't have so much to
spend then he's not gonna be taxed so much.

OK, now I'll anticipate the objections:

* AH, but the Rich Man might *save* the other 99K as a tax dodge.

Fair enough, he might. So it sits there getting hit by inflation. At the
end of the day he spends it or it's just kinda useless to him and it
gets loaned out to someone else (via the bank) to do something useful.
Of course it will probably earn interest. This might be taxed, but if
not, it will be if he spends the interest.

A sales tax will imply a tax on imports too I guess, or the Rich Men are
gonna go shopping out of the country to somewhere there isn't a sales
tax.

Where sales taxes can fall down is if there are serious exemptions.
Houses in the UK for example are not subject to VAT ( a sales tax) and
could (and are) used as a tax dodge (though mainly because the
government taxes non-house owners and pays a slice of the interest on a
house owner's mortgage - another tax dodge for 'em).

Income Tax is basically a tax on employment, since the wage simply has
to increase enough to cover the cost. A Sales Tax might encourage saving
and help cover all that debt that Governments like to run up.

I guess this means that I agree with the Scientologists on this one.
Can't be helped.

FoFP