Word: vat
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...this proposal come from two ordinary legislators, there'd be nothing to worry about. But Long and Ullman control the most important committees in Congress. If they succeed in pushing their VAT through Congress, Americans will pay a regressive "hidden sales tax" which forces lower and middle income people to contribute far more than their share to a government dominated by the interests of Big Business...
...over two decades, this Democrat of the Bourbon South has controlled the Senate Finance Committee like his own fiefdom. He thus personally approves every piece of legislation which touches what Harry Truman called, "the most sensitive nerve in the human body--the pocketbook nerve." Without a doubt, Long's VAT proposal will pinch the money nerves of all Americans...
...enacted, the VAT will tax the values added to all goods at each stage of the production and sales process. Every time a manufacturer or entrepreneur raises the price of a product, the government will tax this added value at a rate of 10 percent. Without the VAT, Ernest and Julio Gallo sell their Pinot Chardonnay to a wine distributor for $18 a case. But this tax will force the Gallo Bros. to raise the price of their wine to $20, to cover the $2 they will have to pay the government. The wine distributor then sells the Pinot Chardonnay...
...POLITICIANS, the VAT has one fabulous advantage over a sales tax. It's hidden. Though Long and Ullman both admit that its costs will be passed onto consumers, the VAT will not look like a surcharge on sales. Instead it will be incorporated in the list prices of all goods. Consequently, most consumers who spend $50 on a case of wine will have no idea that their purchase is really worth only $45 but that the government tax has upped production and distribution costs...
...VAT, Senator Long has devised a method to furtively reach into the pockets of American consumers. The wily Southerner has thus found a solution to Edmund Burke's perennial problem: "To tax and to please, no more than to love and be wise, is not given to man." Long seems to reply to Burke by suggesting that if politicians disguise their taxes, they can please the public, take its money and still get re-elected. With unfounded audacity, Senator Long claims that the VAT is the "least painful way of collecting money," over-looking the regressive nature of this...