Why not refund the taxpayers cost of tariffs from the tariffs collected? Tariffs are being broken out on invoices, file the tariff tax as deductions on 1040’s. It would be a wash for the taxpayers.
The goal seems to be replacing of federal income tax with import tariffs (like it was in the 1800s). The flat rate they set could collect as much as the income tax if import levels stay the same. Also, some of the stats shared by the administration early on on collections per day would multiply up to the total income tax collected. Writing them off would be counterproductive.
The only downside with consumption taxes is that they are regressive. People in the lowest income levels will end up paying more percentage richer people because there is so much that rich people can consume from overseas vs poorer people.
That seems convoluted but also as stated it wouldn’t be a wash.
A deduction means pretend that portion of income never existed and the taxable portion of it is not charged.
Then generally the deduction has to be above the standard deduction to make sense to use, and the standard deduction is just so high nowadays.
So if you claimed a hypothetical deduction of 1,000, then you reduce your tax burden by only 200 or so, assuming you otherwise had like 20 some odd thousand in deductions to get you close to the standard deduction.
The only way it would be a wash is if it were a refundable tax credit with no qualifications, and that almost never happens for anything. I could imagine a non refundable credit that would make it a wash for anyone with sufficient tax liability.
However, this would make the tariffs an utterly pointless needless complication, needing a whole lot more accounting by sellers and consumers just to get to a similar and simpler position of not doing the tariffs in the first place.
Why not refund the taxpayers cost of tariffs from the tariffs collected? Tariffs are being broken out on invoices, file the tariff tax as deductions on 1040’s. It would be a wash for the taxpayers.
The goal seems to be replacing of federal income tax with import tariffs (like it was in the 1800s). The flat rate they set could collect as much as the income tax if import levels stay the same. Also, some of the stats shared by the administration early on on collections per day would multiply up to the total income tax collected. Writing them off would be counterproductive.
The only downside with consumption taxes is that they are regressive. People in the lowest income levels will end up paying more percentage richer people because there is so much that rich people can consume from overseas vs poorer people.
Canada tried that with a carbon tax
People weren’t able to understand the two were related
If the tariffs are immediately refunded, why collect in the first place?
That seems convoluted but also as stated it wouldn’t be a wash.
A deduction means pretend that portion of income never existed and the taxable portion of it is not charged.
Then generally the deduction has to be above the standard deduction to make sense to use, and the standard deduction is just so high nowadays.
So if you claimed a hypothetical deduction of 1,000, then you reduce your tax burden by only 200 or so, assuming you otherwise had like 20 some odd thousand in deductions to get you close to the standard deduction.
The only way it would be a wash is if it were a refundable tax credit with no qualifications, and that almost never happens for anything. I could imagine a non refundable credit that would make it a wash for anyone with sufficient tax liability.
However, this would make the tariffs an utterly pointless needless complication, needing a whole lot more accounting by sellers and consumers just to get to a similar and simpler position of not doing the tariffs in the first place.
Well you see the problem here is that you’re using your brain and well we just can’t be having that