Ah. That would be rather silly, wouldn't it? Is there something I could have said to avoid this impression?

As for rally2xs:
The definition of "luxury" is buying new items for sale at retail or services above the poverty level.

There you go, him clarifying, at the very least.

Or, get this, we don't bother. We just send everybody the mandated precalculated prebate. Done, without lots of forms needing to be filled out. Electronic deposit is very very cheap. Especially at the levels the IRS does it at. In order to keep things simple (not a lot of forms), the tax is charged on everything the tax is supposed to cover, and "everybody" gets the same rebate.

I mean, we're totally adding up everybody's spending and sending it to the IRS on some equivalent of a 1099 why? What difference does knowing the number make to their tax obligation?

I think you're getting me and rally confused. He's the supporter of fairtax. I'm the guy who read up about it years ago during his more libertarian phase and thought it was an interesting idea. That said, I'm also something of a contrarian, so I'll let you know when I think there's a problem with your understanding or logic.

It is when you're talking about getting rid of and replacing a system that hauls in $4.8T/year and replacing it with one that hauls in $6T (before sending $1.2T right back out).

And I wouldn't really call it a footnote, it's a core part of the proposal: "Replace the federal income tax with a federal sales tax. In order to keep it progressive, give everybody a prebate equal to the tax that would be paid on poverty line spending." Heck, in my "quick explanation" to you, it's the second sentence. First sentence: $4.8T of spending transformation, second, $1.2T of transformation. Hardly a footnote, but still lesser than the prior change.

It's like the second sentence in the "extremely short proposal" form. On their site, it's the 3rd paragraph.

That said, remember, I'm libertarian adjacent. The actual Libertarians and Republicans and such? They oppose UBIs pretty much on reflex (and I'm a dude who supports a UBI on libertarian reasoning). So, at least for them, you're selling them on the "get rid of income taxes!" first, and avoiding calling the prebate a UBI in order to not spook them.

I mean, it's funny, the only state in the country with a sort of UBI is Alaska, and it's republican held, and god forbid you try to touch the permanent fund dividend. But having it elsewhere? Oh no!

Battery research: Already happening. Have you read about sodium-ion? Supposed to be a lot cheaper than lithium chemistries, last longer. Main downside is that they're bigger and heavier per kWh, but for grid storage, who cares?

They only store about 2/3rds the power by weight and volume. Which means that a 300 mile car becomes 200 miles with sodium. Battery pack is ~30% as much though. Given Tesla's upscale market position (for EVs)...

Well, this is actually something I've predicted for a while now.

If solar becomes predominant enough, it actually flips the idea of night-time power being cheaper. At which point the logical time to charge your car switches to the daytime, probably at work.

Put enough chargers together, with smart enough network management, and you should be able to soak any excess periods just by topping off "All" the EV batteries at that time. As well as powerwalls, BESS systems, and other such storage systems.

Why? He corrected himself later. You're the one not accepting the correction over the poorly phrased attempt. Not accepting it simply means that you're now attacking a strawman.
Note: I replied to him as well, so we've nitpicked at each other a bit over it.

Sure it can. The poverty line is defined as a dollar amount, right? Thus, if you look at annual spending, it can be above, below, or equal to that dollar amount, correct? Equal just being very unlikely because, well, what are the odds that you spend exactly $15,060 in a year? Not that you wouldn't have a number out of ~300M people. Is an individual's annual spending greater than $15,060? Then their spending is above the poverty line. Is it less? Then it's below. Simple.

Why would it be meaningless? The poverty line is determined in terms of expenses, not income. To be exact, it's 3 times the cost of the 1963 minimum food diet in modern dollars. So, you end up with $15k in modern dollars. Why would comparing an expense calculation to spending be meaningless? Seems that comparing it to income is the more meaningless measure to me.

Still has meaning though. Obviously, if you don't have savings/assets, your spending is limited to your income. Spending and Income, especially at the lower levels, are similar enough to be considered equal.

So, given that the poverty line is a commonly accepted* measure of the minimum acceptable living expense, if we're going to do the equivalent of making food sales tax free** because taxing something people need to live is considered bad, giving a rebate on that amount becomes a sort of UBI/BIG, which should reduce the amount of means-based welfare (paperwork!) we need to do. So, we give everybody $3,450 to cover the tax they pay on minimum living expenses. That way somebody living right on the edge isn't paying taxes they "can't afford", somebody living on even less is subsidized, and those living on more (crab and caviar) pay taxes. If you're only spending a little above the poverty line, you pay only a little. If you're spending a lot, then you pay a lot. Done.

Probably, but it's not like I'm a proponent of fairtax, as I've said a couple times. Nor am I especially talented in this sort of stuff. I make mistakes, and you didn't say anything to make me think to lead with it. I'm mostly familiar with fairtax because I'm libertarian adjacent. IE of all the political parties, I'm closest to the libertarians, but I'm not particularly close to even them. I'm more classical libertarian than the extremist Libertarians that make up the party today.

I actually support having a UBI, though I'm nasty and only support like $6k/year, half that of most proposals. But that is because, well, given my family's history (we came from poverty), I actually know how cheaply people can live. Also, I think the higher amounts are unsustainable.

*No where near universally, but I'd argue that it's a good start.
**Though there are arguments about whether or not things like candy, soda, and really expensive foods should be included, or just "staples".

You might want to take a fresh look at the market then. So many people take this sort of advice and never check out the new car market that used car prices are elevated - you can often get a NEW car for less than a newer used. And that's not being a "status following sheep", that's just saving money.

Who cares if GM or Ford is hurt? GM and Ford obviously. Their investors second. Their lenders third. Fourth would be the politicians and such who want more jobs inside the USA. Not that GMs and Fords are actually made in the USA all that often anymore.

Darn tooting GM and Ford should feel threatened. Hell, Tesla feels threatened, Musk has mentioned it before, and Tesla is like the biggest threat to the traditional manufacturers right now.

They need to wake up and adapt, but as you mention, they tend to get sitting on their laurels, what little remains, until they get into bankruptcy level trouble and get bailed out. Or bought out. Remember when we had like a dozen independent car manufacturers in the USA alone?

Would I personally feel all that sad if they actually fold? Not really. But there would be people who would be. Like the UAW killing the golden goose. The car manufacturers need to survive for those workers to get their pensions, after all.

I think that you missed what the GP was going on about:
Many people in the USA are "brand loyal". IE as long as their first vehicle and the maker treat them decently enough, they'll go back to them for their next car. For example, me and Toyota. Though in my case it's less that I'm brand loyal (I do look at other maker's cars when I shop), and more that Toyota produces vehicles in the price range and feature set I'm looking for.

So if somebody wants a small new car, to use your mentioning it, they go with Honda, because GM/Ford and such just aren't in that segment anymore. Then, when they want to trade up to a crossover SUV, their first stop is likely going to be the Honda dealership, and that might be their last stop. So Honda picked up a future sale because they got the first sale.

That's what sphealey was talking about, I think. It's not that small cars aren't being produced at all, it's that manufacturers who don't make one might find themselves losing sales because people go for the brands that DO make them, because they're a lot of people's first new vehicle.

You basically implied that the used car market can satisfy those currently buying NEW cars (young consumers) even if the car companies stop making them, which caused me to simply point out that if no new cars are made, the used car market will eventually lack them as well.

Even if, due to economics, most young purchasers go for a used car, if their criteria is "car" and not "SUV/Truck", and GM/Ford aren't making them, then they end up in a used Honda, and again, it's to the Honda dealership they'll go when they decide to trade up to a new car. That means a vehicle GM/Ford isn't getting to sell, which is trouble for them.

BLUF: (Bottom Line Up Front)
To repeat what rally2x said: "Luxury goods" is a misnomer - it's actually spending above the poverty line that is taxed.
Under most standards, the criteria to get the prebate IS NOT COMPLICATED: Are you a legal resident of the USA? You get the prebate.
VAT: Could you please give me your definition of VAT so we can figure out what the difference is? I think you're using VAT where you mean "national sales tax". Fairtax is not a VAT by default, though it could be implemented as one fairly easily, but would increase complexity in the USA because that would make simply using the state sales tax agencies (as was proposed) more difficult, because none of them currently do VAT. So you can't do "Add 23% to the stuff you're already taxing".

Uh, I think we may have different perceptions of what a VAT - "Value Added Tax" is, because I'm still not seeing how Fairtax is a VAT.

Could you please give me your definition of VAT so we can figure out what the difference is?

But that means that it's an implementation, which fairtax by default would not go with, because none of the states are using VAT.

It's not that simple, I'd argue that there are benefits and negatives to it. For example, in the USA there are entire businesses that don't have to deal with sales tax at all, because they only sell to exempt parties (other businesses). If you go to VAT, suddenly they do. There's extra accounting the businesses downstream have to do, etc...

Honestly, I think you're saying VAT when you mean "national sales tax", because that's in the context of how the EU countries use VAT.

Note, I'm far from convinced that fairtax is actually a good proposal, as I already mentioned. But this indicates that you still don't understand the proposal. To be fair, I'm not really a proponent of it, and rally2xs doesn't necessarily explain stuff well.

But I know full well that rally2xs already explained the luxury thing to you. To wit: "luxury" in this case means anything new that is in excess of poverty line spending. IE $15k for an individual in 2024. $31k for a family of 4. So the individual would get 23% of $15k = $3450/year. Exact amount may vary based on the actual legislation, for example, it wouldn't be that unusual to set the prebate amount at 150% of the poverty line, the poverty line itself might be adjusted, etc...

Complicated mechanism for the handout: Are you living inside the USA legally? You get the prebate. Done. There may be a handful of other exceptions like "fugitive on the run", "currently in prison", and such. But despite the USA imprisoning the most people per capita in the world, that still not that many people, and the bureau of prisons can handle that.
Compared to the income tax code? Extremely simple.

Resident aliens getting it basically comes under 'very short summary'.

As for sales tax, you're talking that, in exchange for a percent or so of the federal tax, the state tax agencies would handle collecting and forwarding on the sales tax, right? Logical enough, i guess, but you would still have the 5 states, the prebate, and you'd still probably want an audit and fraud investigation unit. These days, I wouldn't trust a the states to be on the up and up.

And yes, you pay at the cash register. Just like how the lions share of income tax is collected via paycheck deduction by the employer. A lot of people don't send a check or whatever to the feds at all, instead the feds send them a payment.

The rebate would be huge, plenty of work for the IRS to manage.

It's because they were dumbasses who parked in the airport parking lot (without charging), left them in sentry mode which consumes more power for a month, then tried to mob the charging stations without knowing enough to precondition the battery by telling the car that you're going to a charging station.

That's why you weren't hearing similar stories coming from other cities further north, such as Canada, Norway, Sweden, and such.

There are many solutions:
1. Driver education
2. Improving standby power use
3. Installing at least trickle chargers in airport parking lots
4. More charging stations so you can handle the rush of low-charge rate customers (low charge rate because they didn't precondition).
5. Improved batteries that can charge faster anyways, or retain more range after sitting in a parking lot for a month
6. Software improvements so the battery gets preconditioned anyways
7. Hardware improvements so the battery can precondition faster
etc...

I think that it's also that populations are getting older. Many of the older people in my family have mobility issues. For example, I have to help mom out of my car if she rides in it - but she can get out of their compact SUV just fine.

Modern cars are typically built so low that people with arthritus and bad ankles and such can have a hard time with them. So when they go to the dealership, they're going to buy a vehicle that they can get into and out of without hurting, and that's often not a car.

Plus, well, I've seen ads placing compact SUVs as cheaper than cars smaller than that. What's up with that? And the amount I saw wasn't a small amount - it'd be like 5 years to make up the price difference with the extra gasoline use of the SUV, assuming average driving.

fairtax proposal.

Very short explanation:
Replace the income tax (and possibly other taxes) with a 23% sales tax. If you meet requirements like being a US citizen, you receive a "prebate" equal to the tax you'd pay on poverty line spending. Somewhere around $3,464 for an individual, $7,176 for a family of 4 (I couldn't find these numbers on the site, I had to calculate them based on the description of the prebate). This makes it a reasonably "progressive" tax.

The site itself talks about "no longer needing the IRS". Personally, my first thought on that is that you're still going to need an agency collecting the sales tax money as well as administering the prebate, which would logically be the IRS. IE the mission changes in some major ways, but still remains - to collect taxes and pay out refunds as required by law. To me, the IRS is not the "enemy" most people who hate income taxes view it as, as it just operates how congress tells it to.

VAT and US style sales taxes are different. With VAT, what happens is that business A, for example, produces wood logs. They sell them to business B, charging VAT. business B converts them into boards (for example), then sells them to business C, charging VAT. They then get to deduct the VAT they paid to A for buying the raw materials. Business C sells the boards to customers, again, charging VAT. They deduct the VAT they paid to B, and remit the excess to the government.

In the USA, that's generally handled by simply making business transactions tax exempt. So A selling to B simply doesn't charge sales tax. You only charge sales tax when selling to the final consumer.

Except for the problem that you'd probably sell notably fewer $73k SUVs as long as somebody is still able to offer a $70k one, perhaps one imported from overseas where they pay even less.

Well, except fairtax isn't really VAT, the idea is to get rid of the huge mess and waste of time that is our income tax system, and replace it with a theoretically simpler to manage sales tax system.

Note: I say "theoretically" because I'm far from convinced that that is actually the case. For example, fairtax cites taxes foreign visitors as a benefit - but what about the tax loss of US tourists going elsewhere? If I can, say, go to Canada for a vacation and not pay 23% sales tax, why wouldn't I? Heck, maybe I'll bring back some stuff while I'm at it.

It hasn't paid more than the occasional token statement towards being communist for decades now. It's still statist and authoritarian, of course, but it isn't communist.

Except that if no new small cars are being made, eventually the used car market for cars with a decade left in them will dry up.

They'll be stuck buying the huge used clunker that consumes even more fuel now that it's old and a bit worn out.

While the analogy isn't entirely correct, it's my impression that Tesla's cars are the equivalent of BMWs in country, at least for electric vehicles.

So BYD can be like, say, Toyota. Once you're high enough economically, getting a Tesla for appearance's sake starts becoming a thing. Or maybe you actually need the extra capabilities.

I have to point out that it's more "all US vehicles", it is very much not limited to electrics. Hell, I'd argue that there are far more ICE vehicles with this level of monitoring and interference level built in the USA than electrics.

Your "how much to disable" comment? You might as well apply that to any newish car these days.

Remember, it wasn't an electric vehicle where the manufacturer tried to make heated seats a subscription.

And China will happily give your data to the TLAs.