From: gld@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Gary L Dare)
Subject: Re: National Sales Tax, The Movie
Nntp-Posting-Host: cunixb.cc.columbia.edu
Reply-To: gld@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Gary L Dare)
Organization: PhDs In The Hall
Lines: 36

atboyken@iastate.edu (Aaron T Boyken) writes:
>
>Here's a question:  what if, instead of a true VAT, the federal 
>government imposed a sales tax of say 2-3%?  The tax would only
>be paid on retail sales (thus not building up at all levels of
>production costs that are just passed on to consumers anyway),
>and would only go to reducing the deficit.  (I know that this 
>would never happen, but it seems a lot more palettable than
>a VAT).

Canada's GST is collected as a sales tax and is considered a VAT.
Funnily, the previous hidden wholesale tax that it replaces was
never referred to as a tax (or, people never paid mind to it,
thus the uproar when it was brought up front as the GST --- 
one party has actually campaigned on hiding the tax again).

The stated intent of the Tories was to use the GST to write down
our deficit.  Unfortunately, their legislation didn't include any
mechanism for disbursing the collected funds in such a manner and
the money is now sitting in escrow.  I don't know what is involved
in releasing the funds, but one dilemna is that the Tories are not
fiscal conservatives themselves though while taxing and spending,
they've made moves to apply the breaks to a runaway locomotive by
the end of this time --- the end of their second term (~9 years).
While they do have chances of getting a third term, catching up
in the polls to their more moderate/slightly leftish pro-business
rivals, the Liberals (as in Euro/UK), the Tories' heir-apparent 
for the leaders' mantle has been termed a clone of Hillary 
Clinton ...

gld
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Je me souviens ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gary L. Dare
> gld@columbia.EDU 			GO  Winnipeg Jets  GO!!!
> gld@cunixc.BITNET			Selanne + Domi ==> Stanley
