Fox News/Christian Science Monitor: 999 plan raises taxes on middle-class

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It also lays off the millions of tax lawyers and accountants and bankrupts companies like TurboTax as the two page double spaced bill of the 999 plan requires no expertise to decipher.

exactly!

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It also lays off the millions of tax lawyers and accountants and bankrupts companies like TurboTax as the two page double spaced bill of the 999 plan requires no expertise to decipher.

exactly!

Economic growth!

yeah, just think of all the hundreds of billions of dollars in savings each year by not having to pay for personal tax accountants and lawyers and shutting down the IRS....now that money can be spent on something productive

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That money goes directly to the government in the form of your tax increase.  How's your business going to do now that all your accountant customers hold a masters in a profession that doesn't even exist anymore?

999 might work if we give the economy 27 years to adjust to its damages.  But it would only increase unemployment, drive down consumption, and increase the wealth divide significantly all at once.

negative:  it would force Personal Tax CPA's to learn something productive (the vast majority of accountants don't do personal federal tax preparation), it would encourage savings (the only real measure of economic security) and investment, and repatriate trillions of dollars back into the US economy.

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Grover Norquist (king of the anit-tax pledge) also doesnt like 999, but not how it is more regressive (of course he likes that). Norquist doesnt like adding a new sales tax, pointing out to various examples of states that added new types of taxes eventually raised them.
Here is the money quote:

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http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/norquist-9-9-9-puts-three-needles-taxpayer-arm

can't he count?  we ready have three:  income, social security, and corporate, and all three can be raised....

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those stats can't be right, cause according to Obama, the rich already pay the less in taxes than the middle class.

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...while cutting them for the rich.

is this based on a calculation where the middle class spends more of their income than either the poor or the rich?

I would assume so.  But if Cain's plan does what it's suppose to do, all the rates should be at 9%.

Not if you include the 9% sales tax.

And the 9% VAT

there is no 9% VAT in 9-9-9

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And the 9% VAT

there is no 9% VAT in 9-9-9

From Cain's website:

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What else would you call that? It's certainly not a corporate income tax.

gross income - all investments - all purchases - dividends...

yo, I think that is even more generous to the corporations than a flat corporate income tax, for a corportate income tax is calculate PRIOR to dividends, and thus Cain's plan seems to end double taxation of corportate profits.

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How can Cain say his plan helps with jobs when he eliminates the ability for businesses to deduct the cost of wages?

dude, please:  gross income = revenue - cost of goods sold

wages are included in "costs of goods sold", and gross income is simply your profit (in any) AFTER cost of doing business (which includes wages) but BEFORE deductions

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So, will this kill Cain's second (or first real) momentum ?

no, because there are enough people, like me, to explain his simple plan to ignorant folk who don't know the difference between revenue and gross income.  And the more these arguments trying to tar 999 are exposed for their ignorance, the more understood the plan will become and people will begin to realize how simple 999 makes the tax code, transforming it from 70,000 pages to something most (key word) people can grasp in a single session.

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dude, please:  gross income = revenue - cost of goods sold

wages are included in "costs of goods sold", and gross income is simply your profit (in any) AFTER cost of doing business (which includes wages) but BEFORE deductions

But it's all in what Cain makes deductible in the "cost of goods sold" part of the equation.  The plan allows companies to deduct purchases from other companies (and dividends) from the cost of goods sold, but mentions nothing about a deduction for wages.  That certainly effects sole proprietors, who can currently count such wages as separate businesses expenses

didn't I already say that wages were included in the cost of goods sold?  "cost of goods" being the company's cost to produce the product, including wages

http://www.irs.gov/publications/p334/ch06.html

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jmfcst, Like Cain, you are just making this stuff up.


As noted by a Bloomberg analysis and editorial today:

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-14/cain-needs-to-give-voters-the-411-on-his-9-9-9-tax-plan-view.html

And the same analysis from Bruce Bartlett (Republican economist) in the NYT

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http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/inside-the-cain-tax-plan/

And a USC analysis (done for Bloomberg) states:

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http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1941800

And from the International Business Times

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http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/230692/20111013/herman-cain-999-plan-tax-will-it-work-experts.htm

And then there is this from the conservative NRO

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http://www.nationalreview.com/agenda/279761/herman-cains-9-9-9-plan-has-vat-plus-sales-tax-josh-barro
 

I wouldn’t wager against jmfcst on this one…he knows the corporate tax code very well.

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are they saying the supposed 9% on wages (since wages are supposed now counted as taxable profit), is to make up revenue for removing the employer's side of social security tax?

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I see. So you are right and everyone else is wrong. And trust you and your secret advisers? You are Herman Cain arent you?

look, "Cost of goods sold" is an extremely common tax term and it DOES includes wages, for it represents the cost (to the producer) to produce the good that is being sold.

what is confusing people is what Cain means by deducting "all purchases from other businesses"....which could simply be Cain's way of saying that the 9% sales tax businesses incur by buying goods from other businesses is tax deductable.

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So you are sticking with the you are right and everyone is wrong line. OK. done talking to you.

all I am saying is that the term "costs of goods sold" (CoGS) is a universally defined term within the US and it is defined by the IRS.  The definition of that term is NOT in doubt, it does include wages.  I've done corporate tax returns, the writers of the articles you posts probably havent.

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Cain will have to clear this up in a press release, else it will snowball very quickly

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...also, costs of goods sold is a term used in the selling of goods, not services...which is why I am familiar with the term within the energy industry.

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those stats can't be right, cause according to Obama, the rich already pay the less in taxes than the middle class.

You completely misunderstood what he said.

"I’ll tell you what, if asking a billionaire to pay the same tax rate as a plumber or a teacher or a bus driver makes me a warrior for the middle class, I will wear that charge with honor," he told donors in Dallas earlier this month.

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I see. So you are right and everyone else is wrong. And trust you and your secret advisers? You are Herman Cain arent you?

look, "Cost of goods sold" is an extremely common tax term and it DOES includes wages, for it represents the cost (to the producer) to produce the good that is being sold.

what is confusing people is what Cain means by deducting "all purchases from other businesses"....which could simply be Cain's way of saying that the 9% sales tax businesses incur by buying goods from other businesses is tax deductable.

Ok, in another thread, Likely Voter found the reference on Cain’s site that explains the confusion.  Cain’s plan does NOT resemble a VAT, or even a VAT with a twist, rather it is a VAT, as his own site states.

So, the “costs of goods sold” used by the IRS, which I was using, does not apply…for the IRS definition is not intended to be used in the context of a VAT.

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You can't compare October 14th jmfcst with October 20th jmfcst, much less August 14th jmfcst.

that's because now I know Cain's cite was not using the American (IRS) definition of "costs of goods sold" and instead was using the VAT definition of it.

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You can't compare October 14th jmfcst with October 20th jmfcst, much less August 14th jmfcst.

It's pretty hilarious.

just because I'm dissin another candidate who hasnt read a newspaper, doesnt mean that I have changed.