The VAT Cometh

[Ryan Ruck]

The VAT Cometh

March 26, 2010

As the night follows the day, the VAT cometh.

With the passage of Obamacare, creating a vast new middle-class entitlement, a national sales tax of the kind near-universal in Europe is inevitable.

We are now $8 trillion in debt. The Congressional Budget Office projects that another $12 trillion will be added over the next decade. Obamacare, when stripped of its budgetary gimmicks -- the unfunded $200 billion-plus doctor fix, the double counting of Medicare cuts, the 10-6 sleight-of-hand (counting 10 years of revenue and only 6 years of outflows) -- is at minimum a $2 trillion new entitlement.

It will vastly increase the debt. But even if it were revenue-neutral, Obamacare pre-empts and appropriates for itself the best and easiest means of reducing the existing deficit. Obamacare's $500 billion of cuts in Medicare and $600 billion in tax hikes are no longer available for deficit reduction. They are siphoned off for the new entitlement of insuring the uninsured.

This is fiscally disastrous because, as President Obama himself explained last year in unveiling his grand transformational policies, our unsustainable fiscal path requires control of entitlement spending, the most ruinous of which is out-of-control health care costs.

Sean Hannity FREE

Obamacare was sold on the premise that, as Nancy Pelosi put it, "health care reform is entitlement reform. Our budget cannot take this upward spiral of cost." But the bill enacted on Tuesday accelerates the spiral: It radically expands Medicaid (adding 15 million new recipients/dependents) and shamelessly raids Medicare by spending on a new entitlement the $500 billion in cuts and the yield from the Medicare tax hikes.

Obama knows that the debt bomb is looming, that Moody's is warning that the Treasury's AAA rating is in jeopardy, that we are headed for a run on the dollar and/or hyperinflation if nothing is done.

Hence his deficit reduction commission. It will report (surprise!) after the November elections.

What will it recommend? What can it recommend? Sure, Social Security can be trimmed by raising the retirement age, introducing means testing and changing the indexing formula from wage growth to price inflation.

But this won't be nearly enough. As Obama has repeatedly insisted, the real money is in health care costs -- which are now locked in place by the new Obamacare mandates.

That's where the value-added tax comes in. For the politician, it has the virtue of expediency: People are used to sales taxes, and this one produces a river of revenue. Every 1 percent of VAT would yield up to $1 trillion a decade (depending on what you exclude -- if you exempt food, for example, the yield would be more like $900 billion).

It's the ultimate cash cow. Obama will need it. By introducing universal health care, he has pulled off the largest expansion of the welfare state in four decades. And the most expensive. Which is why all of the European Union has the VAT. Huge VATs. Germany: 19 percent. France and Italy: 20 percent. Most of Scandinavia: 25 percent.

American liberals have long complained that ours is the only advanced industrial country without universal health care. Well, now we shall have it. And as we approach European levels of entitlements, we will need European levels of taxation.

Obama set out to be a consequential president, on the order of Ronald Reagan. With the VAT, Obama's triumph will be complete. He will have succeeded in reversing Reaganism. Liberals have long complained that Reagan's strategy was to starve the (governmental) beast in order to shrink it: First, cut taxes -- then ultimately you have to reduce government spending.

Obama's strategy is exactly the opposite: Expand the beast, and then feed it. Spend first -- which then forces taxation. Now that, with the institution of universal health care, we are becoming the full entitlement state, the beast will have to be fed.

And the VAT is the only trough in creation large enough.

As a substitute for the income tax, the VAT would be a splendid idea. Taxing consumption makes infinitely more sense than taxing work. But to feed the liberal social-democratic project, the VAT must be added on top of the income tax.

Ultimately, even that won't be enough. As the population ages and health care becomes increasingly expensive, the only way to avoid fiscal ruin (as Britain, for example, has discovered) is health care rationing.

It will take a while to break the American populace to that idea. In the meantime, get ready for the VAT. Or start fighting it.

[Malsua]

It won't matter. VAT, 60% taxation rates, more taxes, more fees, etc and this whole shittery is still going into the toilet. If the treasury gets flush for a bit they'll go on a spending spree. The debt will never be repaid and once you can't make interest payments, it collapses the currency.

[American Patriot]

I heard 60% or more of the house said "No" in a non-binding vote.

And you really, honestly, MUST change the title...

"The VAT Cometh, the VAT taketh away!"

[Ryan Ruck]

Obama Suggests Value-Added Tax May Be An Option

Apr 21, 2010

President Barack Obama suggested Wednesday that a new value-added tax on Americans is still on the table, seeming to show more openness to the idea than his aides have expressed in recent days.

Before deciding what revenue options are best for dealing with the deficit and the economy, Obama said in an interview with CNBC, "I want to get a better picture of what our options are."

After Obama adviser Paul Volcker recently raised the prospect of a value-added tax, or VAT, the Senate voted 85-13 last week for a nonbinding "sense of the Senate" resolution that calls the such a tax "a massive tax increase that will cripple families on fixed income and only further push back America's economic recovery."

For days, White House spokesmen have said the president has not proposed and is not considering a VAT.

"I think I directly answered this the other day by saying that it wasn't something that the president had under consideration," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters shortly before Obama spoke with CNBC.

After the interview, White House deputy communications director Jen Psaki said nothing has changed and the White House is "not considering" a VAT.

Many European countries impose a VAT, which taxes the value that is added at each stage of production of certain commodities. It could apply, for instance, to raw products delivered to a mill, the mill's production work and so on up the line to the retailer.

In the CNBC interview, Obama said he was waiting for recommendations from a bipartisan fiscal advisory commission on ways to tackle the deficit and other problems.

When asked if he could see a potential VAT in this nation, the president said: "I know that there's been a lot of talk around town lately about the value-added tax. That is something that has worked for some countries. It's something that would be novel for the United States."

"And before, you know, I start saying 'this makes sense or that makes sense,' I want to get a better picture of what our options are," Obama said.

He said his first priority "is to figure out how can we reduce wasteful spending so that, you know, we have a baseline of the core services that we need and the government should provide. And then we decide how do we pay for that."

Volcker has said taxes might have to be raised to slow the deficit's growth. He said a value-added tax "was not as toxic an idea" as it had been in the past.

Since then, some GOP lawmakers and conservative commentators have said the Obama administration is edging toward a VAT.

[American Patriot]

It is TIME my friends, to fight this NOW. Not later. Not when they start drafting bills.

FIGHT IT NOW!

NO VAT!

Congress, kiss our asses. We won't pay it.

[vector7]

Serfdom to Slavery...

Serfdom was typically tax 18-20%, but once you reach 50% you are no longer a serf but a slave...

Michele Bachmann "The President Is Calling For A Value Added Tax!"

[vector7]

Dick Armey: Democrats Will Impose Value Added Tax On Top of All Other Taxes

Thursday, April 22, 2010
By Nicholas Ballasy, Video Reporter


– Economist and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas)

(CNSNews.com) – Economist and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) said he “always believed” the Democrats would impose a value added tax (VAT) on top of all existing, current taxes when they took control of the House, Senate and White House. Armey described the VAT as the most “insidious tax of all.”

In an exclusive interview with Armey on Capitol Hill, CNSNews.com asked, “Paul Volcker, a senior economic adviser to President Obama, and several members of Congress, including Speaker Pelosi, have floated the idea of the VAT tax being implemented on top of current taxes. Would you support something like that? Why or why not?”

Armey said, “Absolutely not. Look, in 1994, I studied – actually, starting in the fall of ’93 – I studied all tax options out there, and I, of course, settled on the flat tax as the best option for a lot of reasons. The Value Added Tax was always the most insidious tax of all, and I always saw that – I’d seen that back in ’77.”

“But, I always believed that when the Democrats got the majority in both the House and the Senate – and I’ve told this to people for years – when they get the House and the Senate and the White House, they’re going to add a Value Added Tax to the existing income tax,” said Armey.



“It’s not going to be a VAT instead of – it’s in addition to, and, of course, they are doing exactly what I predicted. Why? Because they’ve got gluttonous spending habits, and they want to spend more, and they need to raise money to do it, and they can’t raise the money out in front of God and everybody for the taxpayer to recognize what they’re doing,” he said.

“So they are looking at that best instrument to hide the tax from the taxpayer. And that’s why the VAT tax is attractive. The VAT tax has never been attractive to anybody except tax leviers,” Armey added.

The VAT is a general sales tax added to the price of goods and services at each step of production whenever value is added to those goods and services.According to the Tax Policy Center, the VAT was first imposed by France in 1948 and then by the European Community (EC) in 1968. To date, over 100 countries impose some form of a VAT except Australia and the United States.

Economist and best-selling author Thomas Sowell said that the advantage of a VAT, “from the standpoint of the officials who impose it, is that the total amount that the taxes add to the final price paid by the consumer is not apparent, as it is with a sales tax, for example. In general, the less visible a tax is, the more revenue can be collected without resistance or electoral retribution by the voters.”

Many European countries use a value-added tax as “a major source of revenues,” said Sowell.

Paul Volker has said the value-added tax "was not as toxic an idea" as it has been in the past. "If, at the end of the day, we need to raise taxes, we should raise taxes," he said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told the “Charlie Rose Show” in October 2009: “Somewhere along the way, a value-added tax plays into this. Of course, we want to take down the health-care cost, that’s one part of it. But in the scheme of things, I think it’s fair to look at a value-added tax as well.”

Armey said the “flat tax” is the most honest tax.

“The first thing about a VAT is it’s not honest,” Armey told CNSNews.com. “It’s a dishonest effort to pick your pocket and disguise it from you. The straight income tax gives you a clear picture of what your tax liability is and what your neighbor’s tax liability is, and then you need to get rid of the corruptions that are in the tax code.

“The two great corruptions in the tax code are, one, the desire to redistribute income and, two, the desire to do such things as social engineering,” he said. “Get rid of that garbage. It’s not their job.”

Armey also said the Democrats will pass the VAT by arguing that it’s “an emergency.”

“Well, what they do is they pass the VAT, the Value Added Tax saying it’s an emergency – it’s necessary,” said Armey. “They pass it at a low level. Once they get it in place, they hide it, and the perception of the public, if they perceive it at all is, ‘Well, it’s only falling on the business people. Real people aren’t paying taxes.’

“What happened in England is they got the VAT, they got it as a gentle, minimal tax, and people thought that’s not very harmful,” he said, “but pretty soon it’s growing like a weed.”

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said on Monday that the White House is not considering a Value Added Tax (VAT), but on Wednesday, when pressed by reporters, he would not say that the Obama administration is ruling out the idea.

[vector7]

RED ALERT
Obama to snatch up to 75% of your income

Federal government could confiscate more than half of everything earned

Posted: May 24, 2010
1:58 pm Eastern

© 2010 WorldNetDaily



If President Obama repeals the Bush tax cuts and imposes a 20 percent value added tax, or VAT, on the U.S., Americans may be facing tax rates where more than half of everything earned is confiscated by the federal government in the form of income taxes, Jerome Corsi's Red Alert reports.

Add Social Security taxes and the tax burden quickly advances to more than 60 percent.

"Adding state property and income taxes to the burden, the amount government confiscates could be in the 75 percent range before Americans have a chance to vote Obama out of office in 2012," Corsi wrote. "Are Americans willing to be taxed 75 percent of every dollar earned?"

That is the current tax burden in Scandinavian countries as the table below demonstrates.

"In a five-day work week, will Americans be willing to work four days for the government?" Corsi asked.

He said as Obama moves the U.S. in the direction of becoming a European-style social welfare state, it is important to consider taxation levels typical in Europe.

Corsi noted that even high levels of taxation are not sufficient in Europe to prevent debt levels from rising to crisis proportions, as has been seen in Greece and is looming on the horizon in Portugal, Spain and Italy.

"These are the real costs of income redistribution, as taxpayers are made to bear the taxation costs of generous pension plans for government employees at all levels of government – federal, state and local – as well as funding Social Security, paying for Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare and funding welfare, including educating the children of illegal immigrants in Spanish in public schools," he wrote. "There is no limit to generosity when it comes to socialist states providing social welfare benefits to increasingly government dependent populations."

To learn more about the true costs of income redistribution, read Jerome Corsi's Red Alert, the premium, online intelligence news source by the WND staff writer, columnist and author of the New York Times No. 1 best-seller, "The Obama Nation."

Red Alert's author, whose books "The Obama Nation" and "Unfit for Command" have topped the New York Times best-sellers list, received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in political science in 1972.

For nearly 25 years, beginning in 1981, he worked with banks throughout the U.S. and around the world to develop financial services marketing companies to assist banks in establishing broker/dealers and insurance subsidiaries to provide financial planning products and services to their retail customers.

In this career, Corsi developed three different third-party financial services marketing firms that reached gross sales levels of $1 billion in annuities and equal volume in mutual funds. In 1999, he began developing Internet-based financial marketing firms, also adapted to work in conjunction with banks.

In his 25-year financial services career, Corsi has been a noted financial services speaker and writer, publishing three books and numerous articles in professional financial services journals and magazines.

[Backstop]

The Dems have to try any means available to take our money to keep our country and economy going.

It's that simple.

And let me explain something to you folks that may show you a difference.

Referece the tax chart that vector7 posted.

First off, I don't vouch for the accuracy of that, and I'm not gonna research it.

And second, I don't agree with the entire VAT system. I'm all for small government.

So I'm saying I don't want this system here.

There is a fundamental difference in the tax systems here and overseas.

I've lived about 15 yrs various places in Europe.

Friend of mine was stationed in Luxembourg in the late 70s, married a lady there, and stayed.

He now owns 2 very successful bicycle shops, and he was taxed out the whazoo.

What did he get for all those taxes?

1. Free health care - such as it is. And I don't want it. I should add that I spent time in a German hospital after being hit by a car. It was freaking miserable, and the food was worse.

2. A retirement fund. Every year he received a retirement statement, detailing how much money he (they) put into it, how much it had earned, how much it was worth, and how much he would get when he retired. He showed it to me when I was considering staying in Europe. He retired in 2005, and his retirement is almost exactly as much as his income was when working.

3. His mil time counted toward his retirement. Yes, that's right. His 3 years in the US Army counted toward his Luxembourg retirement.

So what's that fundamental difference I mentioned?

He got something for all his taxes.

They raise taxes/institute a VAT tax here, and you won't see jack shit returned to you.

Any tax increases are going to prop up an already faltering economy led by out of control spending.

It's time RFN to stop feeding the beast, let the pieces fall where they will, and rebuild.

[American Patriot]

I am AGAINST any form of taxation without representation. Basically, that means, if I get nothing for my something, they can pound sand, I won't give it to them

[Ryan Ruck]

I am AGAINST any form of taxation without representation. Basically, that means, if I get nothing for my something, they can pound sand, I won't give it to them

With 47% not paying any federal tax, we now have representation without taxation.