RE: press release

["Tom Hansen" <thansen@moscow.com>]

Greetings Visionaires -

My suggestion would be to increase Idaho's sales tax to 5.5%.

I would further recommend that federal income tax be eliminated and replaced
with a 2% federal sales tax.  This would totally eliminate the federal
deficit.

Tom Hansen
Moscow

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bob Hoffmann [mailto:escape@alt-escape.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, December 10, 2002 10:38 PM
> To: Tom Trail; vision2020@whale2.fsr.net
> Subject: Re: press release
>
>
> At 12:44 PM 12/10/2002 -0800, Tom Trail wrote:
> > >>>> The Idaho Economic  Recovery and Tax Reform Act of 2003
> proposes to
> > reduce
> > >>>> the sales tax
> > >>>> rate from five percent (5%) to four percent (4%), reduces the use
> > tax rate
> > >>>> from five percent (5%) to four percent (4%)
> > >>>> and repeals certain exemptions in both the sales tax and
> the income
> > tax....
>
> OK to repeal certain exemptions in the income tax, but....
>
> Sales tax is regressive.  The poor tend to spend 100% of their income, so
> they are paying an extra tax on most of their income.
>
> The wealthy can squirrel away lots of their income in investments, and it
> seems to me that stock, bond, and mutual fund purchases and bank deposits
> are not taxed (although the profits from these can be).  So they
> can shield
> a much greater part of their income from this sales tax.
>
> Income tax is progressive--Governments provide exemptions for the first X
> thousand dollars, so the poor can duck much of this, while the
> rich get to
> pay on a greater share of their income.
>
> Me, I'm neither rich nor poor, but I favor progressive taxes
> (income taxes)
> to regressive taxes (sales taxes).  Let's take care of this on the income
> end, and not on the sales end!
>
> Bob Hoffmann
> 820 S. Logan St.
> Moscow, ID  83843
>
> Tel: 208 883-0642
>