VAT: Will the U.S. Adopt a Value-Added Tax?
This article by Cait Murphy originally appeared on CBS' MoneyWatch.com.
The U.S. should consider using a European-style
value added tax to help bring the deficit down, said White House
adviser Paul Volcker in response to a question from CBS MoneyWatch.com
at a panel discussion in New York City Tuesday night. "We have to think
about really revamping the tax system," said Volcker, who's best known
for successfully beating down inflation while serving as Ronald
Reagan's Federal Reserve chairman. The VAT, a levy on all the goods and
services you consume, is not a "toxic idea," he added.
White House adviser Paul Volcker
/ APUntil
recently, discussion of a U.S. VAT had been limited to the back rooms
of think tanks and cocktail hours of high-minded conferences. But
nearly every other industrialized nation has one, and the idea is
beginning to spread. In addition to Volcker, the head of the Senate
Budget Committee, Kent Conrad (D-N.D), has mused that a VAT has "got to be on the table," and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has murmured sweet nothings
about it. In fact, interest in a VAT is cropping up all along the
ideological spectrum (albeit more often along the leftish end).
The
case for a VAT is simple: The U.S. government's fiscal gap is widening
by the hour. The deficit for 2009 alone was a cool $1.4 trillion, and
it's projected to hit $1.6 trillion this year. By the end of the year,
the Office of Management and Budget says the gross federal debt will
stand at $13.8 trillion. As Bruce Bartlett, a former Reagan economic
advisor who supports a VAT, puts it, "The U.S. needs a money machine."
A VAT, because it touches every transaction, is just that: The
Congressional Research Service estimates that each one percent of a
value-added tax would raise $50 billion. That's real money.
To be sure, no one expects a VAT to join the tax code this year or next. But what about by 2020? The odds narrow sharply. "There's very little chance in the next few years," says Brian Harris, a senior research associate at Brookings, a left-of-center think tank, "but a substantial chance in the next decade or so." And Ryan Ellis, tax policy director at the right-of-center Americans for Tax Reform, who loathes the idea, says of the VAT, "I think it's coming, in the next five to 10 years certainly."
What's to Love and Hate About a VAT?
About 150 countries have a VAT. It comes in different shapes and sizes, ranging from 5 percent in Japan to 25 percent in Sweden.
It's easy to see why it's popular: As a broad-based tax that's easy to
collect and hard to see, a VAT can rake in a lot of money.
A
VAT can be assessed in several different ways. In the most common
method, the VAT is assessed on a good at each stage of production and
distribution -- when the raw material is sold, when the product is
manufactured, when a store stocks up, and when the consumer buys it.
When a business calculates its VAT payment, it deducts the tax paid at
the previous stage, based on records every company along the chain
keeps. That's one reason the VAT is considered highly efficient -- it's
hard to dodge since each link in the VAT chain keeps an eye on the
rest.
This process effectively hides the VAT from open view
-- unlike state sales taxes, the VAT is buried in the price of the good,
not assessed at the cash register. But make no mistake: a 10 percent
VAT would raise the cost of everything 10 percent. (High VAT
taxes back home are one reason that Europeans love to shop in the U.S.)
A VAT is also relatively simple to administer, so its "dead weight" --
the distortion it imposes on the economy above and beyond the price of
the tax itself -- is minimal.
The VAT's efficiency in raising
money is also why some oppose it. Even if a VAT started at a low level,
say 5 percent, it's easy to increase the rate, as Europe has proved
time and again. And its very simplicity and lack of visibility -- no tax
returns, no obvious hurt at the cash register -- raises suspicions that
a VAT is a stalking horse for higher spending. "I think America has
prospered because the general level of taxation has been lower than
Europe," says Chris Edwards of the libertarian Cato Institute, who
prefers spending cuts to new taxes. "I don't think we should go in this
direction."
The VAT also comes under attack for being regressive. Because lower income people spend a higher portion of their earnings, it may hit them particularly hard.
The Best of the Bad?
Despite
long-standing political opposition, the VAT is starting to get
attention for the simple reason that it may be the best among several
bad options. A useful rule of economics is that if something cannot go on forever, it will stop.
Current U.S. fiscal trends are unsustainable. At some point, even
Congress will recognize this fact and be forced to act. It has three
options.
- Tax the rich: Always a popular idea, but the math
doesn't add up. Top tax rates are already likely to go up to almost 40
percent. An increase much above that is counterproductive, reducing
incentives to work and invest while creating incentives to find tax
shelters and other ways to avoid paying. And the income tax well is
neither wide nor deep enough to fill more than a small piece of the
$13.8 trillion hole. Ditto for taxing big business more heavily. The
U.S. corporate tax rate (35 percent) is already among the highest in the world. Raising that is an excellent way to reduce competitiveness.
- Cut spending:
If government spending were brought into line with revenues, new taxes
wouldn't be needed. But that isn't happening. Ellis, of Americans for
Tax Reform, points out that even if federal tax revenues return to
their 40-year average of 18 to 20 percent of GDP (in 2009, it dipped to
about 15 percent), the spending promises on the books for 2010 and
beyond start at some 25 percent of GDP. That number is hard to knock
down because the majority of federal spending is for Medicare,
Medicaid, and Social Security, all of which are set to grow briskly as
baby boomers retire. No one in either party seems interested in taming
these leviathans. "It is almost literally impossible to close the gap
on spending alone," says Michael Linden, associate director of Tax and
Budget Policy for the left-leaning Center for American Progress.
- Find new sources of revenues:
If more juice cannot be squeezed from the income and corporate tax
code, the logical alternative is to tap a wider base. And the logical
way to do that is to pass a VAT. Alan Greenspan, for one, considers the
VAT "the least worst way" to narrow the budget gap.
Neither
party shows enthusiasm for taxing you if you are not a plutocrat.
President Obama has pledged no tax increases for 95 percent of the
population, and most Republicans flinch at the "T" word in any form.
(Interestingly, though, many GOP economists favored a VAT in the 1980s,
and it was Margaret Thatcher who introduced one to the U.K.). But
crisis can create opportunities for reform, and America's fiscal
position is close to crisis. This may be the opportunity to take
another real crack at our complicated and inefficient tax code,
something last done in 1986.
A VAT could be a useful part of a larger reform. For example, in his book, 100 Million Unnecessary Returns,
Columbia law professor Michael Graetz proposes a 10 to 14 percent
value-added tax, but earners making less than $100,000 would pay no
income tax at all, and other income and corporate taxes would be
reduced. That's just one idea. Press the buttons of almost any tax wonk
in Washington and a different plan spits out; a VAT is part of most of
them.
Americans as a whole did not squawk when spending
rose during the Bush administration, and in electing Barack Obama, they
voted for bigger government. At some point, the politics we have voted
for have to be paid for. A VAT is likely to be part of the answer.
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Current government officials STOP what you are doing. You are not listening to the people you represent!!!!! Please start doing what you are being asked to do.
There is, however a 3 step plan that will put us back on a styable foundation.
First - greatly reduce or eliminate all the obsolete and inefficient federal programs/departments. These would include our funding foreign rogue governments, elimination or greatly reduce the education & the energy & the welfare dapartments & all pork-barrel funding.
Second - eliminate the IRS along with it's volumijous never understood regulations and loopholds & eliminate the Social Security tax, the state taxes, and all the other federal and state taxes
(gas, sales, etc.).
Until this government eliminates all wastfull spending FIRST and then finds a way to tax EVERYONE fairly this financial downturn will only be the beginning of our demise as a first place world power.
"When the people fear the government tyrany reigns. When the government fears the people FREEDOM reigns."
Third - institute the Fair Tax plan that would eliminate all the loopholes, add all the drug dealers, and all those who are currently working under-the-tableto the tax rolls and all NECESSARY funding will be avilable with a credable surplus (with proper planning).
With top White House advisors floating a ?Value Added Tax? hot air balloon, the current administration seems to be taking the country?s collective pulse on new taxes to finance the burgeoning federal deficits.
The United States is the world?s ingenuity engine. This ability to evolve and innovate has enabled us to grow our economy to become the world?s largest economy. This ingenuity and innovation has been fostered by the American entrepreneurial spirit, a spirit that federal tax policy has traditionally encouraged.
Any change in tax policy that dampens that entrepreneurial spirit would inhibit innovation, and, without counterbalancing policy, could hinder our economy over the long-term. This would have negative consequences for the American standard of living.
At Safeguard, we embrace and nurture the entrepreneurial spirit. We would hate to see any change in policy that puts that spirit in jeopardy, but would encourage change that augments innovation and entrepreneurship.
- Peter J. Boni, President & CEO, Safeguard Scientifics, Inc.
Tough times in America: Who's to blame? Part 2 Read on at http://wp.me/pPdcm-1P
Better question: Will US Govt. Stop spending money like there's no tomorrow?
Hey, maybe the democrats can pass a VAT that only gets paid by conservatives. Now that would be heaven!
Tough times in America: Who's to blame? Part 2: http://wp.me/pPdcm-1P