[Winstonm]

ArtK78, on Jan 26 2008, 12:13 PM, said:

Winstonm, on Jan 26 2008, 11:31 AM, said:

Slightly off topic, but a Louisianna jury acquited an attorney named Tom Cryer of criminal charges of tax evasion.

Unlike the snakeoil salesman that raled againt IRS and ended in prison, this attorney took a reasoned approach.

World Net Daily reported:

Quote

Although the legal citations in the case tend to run the length of paragraphs, Cryer told WND the underlying issue is not that complicated. Essentially, he argued that income is not necessarily any money that comes to a person, but rather categories such as profit and interest.

He said the free exchange of labor for compensation has been upheld as a right by the Supreme Court, but that doesn't necessarily make the compensation income

.

As he pointed out, WalMart may sell billions of dollars worth of goods but are not taxed on total sales - they back out the costs and are only taxed on profits; alternately, wages are taxed as if they were 100% profits.

An interesting concept.

No, that is not true.

All that happened was that 2 of the 4 counts of the indictment against Tom Cryer were dismissed because they were "lesser included offenses." In other words, there were 4 counts to the indictment against him, but the charges in two of them included the charges in the other two.

No jury has found him not guilty of tax evasion.

O.K., thanks for the clarification.

[jdonn]

So when I watched the GOP debate, did I hear Mike Huckabee right that instituting a fair tax would raise the same amount of revenue, but cost every individual group of tax payers (poor, middle class, wealthy, elderly) less? I don't know what makes me shake my head more, that he would say something like that if he knew it wasn't true, or that he might believe it's true.

[ArtK78]

Winstonm, I rechecked the case. My edited post is above. You quoted from my post prior to the edit.

Sorry about that.

In any case, the bottom line is that he was not acquitted of tax evasion. For whatever reason, the government dropped those charges prior to trial. He was acquitted of two counts of willfully failing to file income tax returns.

[helene_t]

In Denmark they have a politician who promises tail wind on the bicycle paths. And the U.S. patent offices receive a remarkable number each year of applications related to perpetuum mobile.

[ArtK78]

jdonn, on Jan 26 2008, 12:37 PM, said:

So when I watched the GOP debate, did I hear Mike Huckabee right that instituting a fair tax would raise the same amount of revenue, but cost every individual group of tax payers (poor, middle class, wealthy, elderly) less? I don't know what makes me shake my head more, that he would say something like that if he knew it wasn't true, or that he might believe it's true.

So, Huckabee says that everyone would pay less but the total raised by the government would be the same.

Interesting concept.

When did 1+1 stop being equal to 2?

[cherdano]

kenberg, on Jan 26 2008, 08:43 AM, said:

In discussing with friends the European taxes, VAT and Income, it was mentioned that some countries, Sweden and Germany were mentioned, have a religious tax. I'm rarely struck speechless but this qualifies. Is it true?

I apologize for being the uniformed American, but I was totally unaware of this and I want to check back for verification.

If you choose to be a member of one of the two big churches in Germany (Lutherian-protestant and catholic), you pay an additional eight or nine percent of taxes that is passed on to your church. (The state gets some cut for the administrative handling of collecting the taxes.)
Unlike Helene I would say this is a big thing, the membership fees for these churches are regulated by law and collected by the state, in contradiction to the "separation of government in church" that is supposed to exist in Germany.

[Winstonm]

ArtK78, on Jan 26 2008, 12:41 PM, said:

Winstronm, I rechecked the case. My edited post is above. You quoted from my post prior to the edit.

Sorry about that.

In any case, the bottom line is that he was not acquitted of tax evasion. For whatever reason, the government dropped those charges prior to trial. He was acquitted of two counts of willfully failing to file income tax returns.

I appreciate the help and research. I altered my above post, as well, to refelct that it was not income tax evasion - however, as I understand it, the charges were still criminal in nature. Is that correct?

[Winstonm]

ArtK78, on Jan 26 2008, 12:43 PM, said:

jdonn, on Jan 26 2008, 12:37 PM, said:

So when I watched the GOP debate, did I hear Mike Huckabee right that instituting a fair tax would raise the same amount of revenue, but cost every individual group of tax payers (poor, middle class, wealthy, elderly) less? I don't know what makes me shake my head more, that he would say something like that if he knew it wasn't true, or that he might believe it's true.

So, Huckabee says that everyone would pay less but the total raised by the government would be the same.

Interesting concept.

When did 1+1 stop being equal to 2?

Gee, haven't you heard of supply-slide economics?

[Winstonm]

For the sake of accuracy.
From The Shreveport Times:

Quote

A Shreveport attorney who has challenged the government for years on the legality of filing federal income taxes has been acquitted on charges he failed to file returns.

A federal jury unanimously found Tommy Cryer not guilty this week on two misdemeanor counts of failure to file.

And according to Cryer, the prosecution dismissed two felony charges of tax evasion prior to trial.

[ArtK78]

Winstonm, on Jan 26 2008, 01:55 PM, said:

ArtK78, on Jan 26 2008, 12:41 PM, said:

Winstonm, I rechecked the case.  My edited post is above.  You quoted from my post prior to the edit.

Sorry about that.

In any case, the bottom line is that he was not acquitted of tax evasion.  For whatever reason, the government dropped those charges prior to trial.  He was acquitted of two counts of willfully failing to file income tax returns.

I appreciate the help and research. I altered my above post, as well, to refelct that it was not income tax evasion - however, as I understand it, the charges were still criminal in nature. Is that correct?

Yes, the charges were criminal in nature. And that is the reason he got off. The jury could not convict him beyond a reasonable doubt of willful failure to file. Hard to imagine how they came to that conclusion.

If the charges were civil in nature, the standard would be a preponderance of the evidence. I strongly suspect that the jury would have found in favor of the government in that event.

What is missing from these reports is the result of any civil proceedings against Mr. Cryer. In other words, did the government get any taxes, penalties and interest from him?

[helene_t]

cherdano, on Jan 26 2008, 08:01 PM, said:

If you choose to be a member of one of the two big churches in Germany (Lutherian-protestant and catholic), you pay an additional eight or nine percent of taxes that is passed on to your church.

8 or 9 promille, I hope.

[kenberg]

Cherdano,
Thanks to both you and Helene for this confirmation. I remain stunned. The involvement of the government, the connection with one or two specific churches, the setting of an exact amount, these all are a shock. Since it's not my country, and since I belong to no church, it's clear I should content myself with saying I had no idea of this practice.

Thanks for the help.

Ken

[cherdano]

helene_t, on Jan 26 2008, 06:46 PM, said:

cherdano, on Jan 26 2008, 08:01 PM, said:

If you choose to be a member of one of the two big churches in Germany (Lutherian-protestant and catholic), you pay an additional eight or nine percent of taxes that is passed on to your church.

8 or 9 promille, I hope.

No it is 9 percent (of your federal taxes, not of your income).

[Codo]

kenberg, on Jan 27 2008, 10:38 AM, said:

Cherdano,
Thanks to both you and Helene for this confirmation. I remain stunned. The involvement of the government, the connection with one or two specific churches, the setting of an exact amount, these all are a shock. Since it's not my country, and since I belong to no church, it's clear I should content myself with saying I had no idea of this practice.

Thanks for the help.

Ken

I agree with helene that this is no big deal.

It is at first hand an administative issue. I think it has its source in the idea that the state did not want a big organisation to collect so much money on its own without the control of the state. But this side of history is not to my best knowledge, so it is just a guess.

And the main churches, which are involveds in this system, represents more then 80 % of all believers in Germany. (Another guess).
The only big group which is not invoved in this systems are the muslims and they have so many differernt groups here that they are not in a position to benefite from this system. (And there maybe other reasons why they do not participate).

And 8 or 9 % of your loan taxes is quite a small amount here. Many people pay no loan taxes at all, and for an average employee it should be about 30 € a month, which is about 1 % of your income.

[Al_U_Card]

Codo, on Jan 27 2008, 07:12 AM, said:

And 8 or 9 % of your loan taxes is quite a small amount here. Many people pay no loan taxes at all, and for an average employee it should be about 30 € a month, which is about 1 % of your income.

As long as it is voluntary.....np. No oversight, no control, just people getting money (are they taxed on this "income"?) Many "charities" require audits to retain their non-profit or tax exempt status (except churches, of course, because God keeps an eye on them...) Most spend a large percentage on administration and fund-raising so that only a part goes to the charitable work. Just another business.

[luke warm]

ArtK78, on Jan 26 2008, 04:45 PM, said:

Winstonm, on Jan 26 2008, 01:55 PM, said:

ArtK78, on Jan 26 2008, 12:41 PM, said:

Winstonm, I rechecked the case.  My edited post is above.  You quoted from my post prior to the edit.

Sorry about that.

In any case, the bottom line is that he was not acquitted of tax evasion.  For whatever reason, the government dropped those charges prior to trial.  He was acquitted of two counts of willfully failing to file income tax returns.

I appreciate the help and research. I altered my above post, as well, to refelct that it was not income tax evasion - however, as I understand it, the charges were still criminal in nature. Is that correct?

Yes, the charges were criminal in nature. And that is the reason he got off. The jury could not convict him beyond a reasonable doubt of willful failure to file. Hard to imagine how they came to that conclusion.

why is it hard to imagine? the gov't failed to prove there was intent, which was key to the case... correct verdict imo

Codo, on Jan 27 2008, 07:12 AM, said:

kenberg, on Jan 27 2008, 10:38 AM, said:

Cherdano,
Thanks to both you and Helene for this confirmation. I remain stunned. The involvement of the government, the connection with one or two specific churches, the setting of an exact amount, these all are a shock. Since it's not my country, and since I belong to no church, it's clear I should content myself with saying I had no idea of this practice.

Thanks for the help.

Ken

I agree with helene that this is no big deal.

i think it's a huge deal, from a philosophical standpoint... it also seems discriminatory (assuming not all religions are treated equally)

[hrothgar]

[quote name='luke warm' date='Jan 27 2008, 04:53 PM'] Ken [/QUOTE]
I agree with helene that this is no big deal.[/QUOTE]
i think it's a huge deal, from a philosophical standpoint... it also seems discriminatory (assuming not all religions are treated equally) [/quote]
For better or worse, different countries have very different standards regarding the whole "Separation of Church and State" concept.

On one extreme, you have countries like Turkey that was explicitly founded as a secular republic. On the other, you have overtly religious governments such as Iran. In between, you have all sorts of weird stuff.

From my perspective, I'm not overly enamored to see government collecting tithes for churches. However, I think that there is a hell of a lot worse going on throughout Europe. I think that the concept of official State Churches is much more problematic, as is the integration of overtly religious messages into the state run Education system.

For that matter, of lot of what happens here in the US strikes me as a lot more problematic. Bush's whole "Faith-Based and Community Initiative" strikes me as nothing more than an attempt to funnel government resources to promote Religion. Don't get me started on Huckabee...

[Winstonm]

First, I agree with Jimmy that church taxation is a big deal. Once a government requires a payment from an institution, it gains some degree of power over that institution.

Second, any discussion of taxation first should determine what level of services government should provide - and any restraints on government spending. In the U.S., a change to the tax system seems a mute point as all ideas are based on status quo, and the government deficit spends itself into near insolvency by borrowing.

Does it really matter what kind of tax system provides the shortfall, other than which classes are most penalized by tax?

[kenberg]

In this country we have tax exemptions for churches, we have disagreements over how much help that, say, a county government can give to a faith based school, we have disagreements about government involvement in faith based charities and so on. So I am perfectly happy to worry about our own way of handling such matters here and leave the German way to the Germans. My main comment was that it came as a total surprise to me. Still, I would not support such a plan here for a variety of reasons, including the perhaps paranoid view that I would rather not tell the government what church I do or don't go to (well, they can read it on the bbo forum if they truly care), but if the European approach works in Europe then it's not my concern.

Anyway, this is only a minor tax matter so back to the Fairtax of the original posting. Is there any substantial economic school that supports this? It's not a new idea, right? Just one that has some press because of Huckabee. My hope (often unrealized) is that someone who proposes a radical change in some structure is able to make a reasonably sound estimate of what the consequences would be. All I can see with any confidence is that young families who need to make a lot of initial purchases to get their lives going will be paying a lot of taxes. Older people such as myself who already own most of what we are interested in owning will pay less taxes.

My guess is that three years from now "The Fair Tax" will be a completely forgotten issue.

[skjaeran]

Quote

For better or worse, different countries have very different standards regarding the whole "Separation of Church and State" concept.

On one extreme, you have countries like Turkey that was explicitly founded as a secular republic.  On the other, you have overtly religious governments such as Iran.  In between, you have all sorts of weird stuff.

From my perspective, I'm not overly enamored to see government collecting tithes for churches.  However, I think that there is a hell of a lot worse going on throughout Europe.  I think that the concept of official State Churches is much more problematic, as is the integration of overtly religious messages into the state run Education system.

As living in a country with an official State Church (i'm a Humanist myself, but that doesn't affect my standpoint I believe), I strongly agree with this.