way to take a complex issue and try to dumb it down to childhood cartoon level.
the way you vaguely describe being taxed at 'every dollar of every transaction' sounds to me like a VAT tax, do they have a VAT tax down there in cali?
and farmers pay their accountants more than themselves? lol. how do they do that, with federal subsidies at about $18 an acre to grow corn? LOL! they make no oney on the corn, they make all their money on the subsidy from uncle sam.
sorry dude, your level of debate is just too partisan hack shouting match for me, as much as i do enjoy partisan hack shouting matches.
all crops are not subsidized, and not all land can grow all crops. the crops most crown in my region are almonds walnuts sunflowers rape tomatoes mustard alfalfa rice garlic onions table grapes and melons. of these only rice receives any subsidies, and rice growing is strictly regulated and controlled (yes, it is controlled, due to high water consumption, alleged leaching of fertilizers into the aquifers, potential river and stream pollution, mosquito infestation and increased flood risks in the levee system)
I'm not engaging in partisan shouting, I's speaking from over 30 years of experience in agriculture. (yes plowboys start working in the fields at 8 years old)
First of all, ill make it simple with the "Meathead Tax" Rob Reiner (meathead from all in the family) lobbied for and got passed, a cigarette tax. This was a simple tax of $.50 on each pack of cigarettes at the point of sale. Int the fine print was an additional $.50 per pack paid by the distributors of cigarettes. Simple math says this is a tax of $1.00 per pack. NO NO said the proponents, its only 50 cents. the distributor pays the other 50 cents! But wait, since the distributor sells his product which now costs him 50 cents a pack more, to retailers, will he not pass on the costs? No, of course not. Tobacco distributors cannot do that, because those who try to pass on the tax will lose business to those who meekly accept the tax as their penance! When the tax became effective, every pack of cigarettes was $1 more overnight. You see, the extra 50 cents per pack the distributors pay was applied to every pack of cigarettes in the state, thus the tax was passed on to retailers, and eventually, the purchaser. Thats how commerce works. every expense will either be passed on, or be counted as a loss on the balance sheet at the end of the year.
Vat taxes are quite interesting as an illustration of how taxes get added at each stage of production, because they record it.
Vat taxes are simply ordinary taxes with extraordinary accounting expenses. a Vat tax is actually designed to bypass most of the various stages in the production and supply chain. every link of a Vat chain requires careful accounting of every ""value" (capitol investment) added at your stage, so the tax can be suspended until it reaches the "end user" level where the VAT accountancy ledger spills it's contents on the guy at the bottom. in essence european style vat taxes fall heavily on farmers, as the farmer is the "end user" of seed stocks, fuel, fertilizers and other "consumable" goods (yes seeds are considered consumed when planted) which do not add value to the end product, so they are a simple tax expense . the "initiator" (farmers, mining concerns and timber cutters) of the supply chain pays the Vat tax for every unit of whatever he "consumes" to produce his products, and records but does not usually have to pay the "initiator value" of his product as a baseline. when he ships it to the next link in the chain, all subsequent segments of the supply chain after the "initiator" do not pay the tax, they simply record the amount that will be eventually added to the final price of the finished product, and pay the accumulated VAT tax on any products consumed (fuel, electricity, lubricants, tools etc...) during their contribution to the eventual product
The smarter potheads are starting to see why many farmers wind up paying their accountants more than they pay themselves...
Finally, that coffee table that looks so cool in IKEA winds up costing you:
materials + transportation + labour + advertising + accountancy/legal +VAT tax + state and local sales tax (if applicable) + profit for manufacturer + profit for retailer = way more than if they just taxed your income for the same revenue.
In the US it's even harder to figure out what any particular thing costs to produce without the taxes which are added at every level.
