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I have been interested in this sort of tax for about twenty years now, since I first heard the idea, I believe from some objectivist literature.

I have tried to read all the posts here in this forum, but admit to skimming much of it.

I am very glad that Mr. Layman has spent so much time defending the status quo. I know he is not entirely happy with the current scheme, but he is definitely consonant with the spirit of current tax law.

If he is still around, I would tell him that, to put it kindly, he provides an exceptional example of those who think that government is there to engage in social engineering experiments. I don't believe this is its primary function, and if it is, it has done a miserable job of it.

HOWEVER, although I am from the conservative/libertarian/strict constructionist neck of the woods, I DO think that the Preamble tells us that the people desire its government to provide for the common welfare. The key being the providing for.

And taxes are the primary means to that end. Originally, the tax system looked much more like an APT tax than any of the post-16th amendment taxes. That the constitution originally very specifically denied the taxing of incomes, I do not take lightly, and evidently neither did those who pushed for the amendment--those who were also behind the Federal Reserve Act. The bankers needed a way to insure that there was ample means to force the people to pay the debt and interest on that debt that the system was designed to impose. There is no coincidence that they occurred practically simultaneously.

Those same powers that imposed the usurious system on the people, also created a broad system of control and unconstitutional mandates to infringe on property and privacy rights, and chaining the people to a debt and tax burden that directly punishes their pursuit of happiness. Simultaneously, by imploring the government to take care of those who can't or don't take care of themselves, the people have dug themselves and their progeny into a deeper hole, which only promises an ever increasing burden.

We are generous and hard-working, with an incredible productive capacity, but one who at the hands of the globalists has been destroyed by the god of profit. The people seem to understand this pretty well, and like Mr. Layman, would like those who have benefited the most from these profits be compelled to help those who have been hurt. Increasing the progressiveness of the income tax seems the most logical way to regular folks. That doesn't make it the best or most constitutional way to accomplish the general welfare. Just the one that occurs to people who are most fully indoctrinated to the supposed virtues of a progressive income tax.

Adam Smith did not promote a progressive income tax. He simply stated that those who have and make more wealth should be expected to contribute the most. The APT tax actually does this much better.

But I want to stop calling it a tax, because I don't believe that it is. It is simply a user fee. It is totally voluntary. It is a pay-for-play. It is directly paying for the government under which the utility of money is provided.

I call it the T-Fee. The transaction fee. If you want to utilize the technology of money provided by the people through their government, that comes with a small fee to support the administration of that system, as well as to provide for those other necessary and proper and specified responsibilities for which we have instituted this government.

As for morality, I am for an amoral means of financing government. One that does not make a single value judgment as to what sort of activity in which one might engage.

A T-fee is exactly that sort of financing means. I know of no other. Mr. Layman seems to constantly revert to the income tax being so important because it allows the controllers to suborn ones individual capacity to help provide for his fellow man by taking that money and that choice from him by force, to use it to fund that which he may not agree.

In my experience, those who have the least are proportionally much more generous than those who have the most. Extorting alms from them only breeds a resentment to a government they want to respect, but has grown into a controlling, tyrannical, bureaucratic, kafka-esque nightmare to those who don't have accountants and lawyers on the payroll.

Someone mentioned that it seemed unfair to tax cash at a higher rate, since those with the least tend to deal in cash more. The simple answer to that is that the fee for all cash transactions have already been paid. If I buy a cup of coffee with that dollar, there is no fee. When the coffee shop deposits the dollar, there is no fee. Only when cash is brought into the economy is it subject to a fee, based on the average number of times it will be spent before landing back in some bank account somewhere. The simple convenience and flexibility of cash should be worth the additional user fee.

As to the relationship of this federal fee with states, I would leave it to each state to decide. I think that once a federal system is in place, then states will find it an obvious choice to their current schemes of finance.

I would expect that the wisest of the states would repeal all their other taxes. Those states who wished to stay in the stone ages would see a flight of capital.

I heard forex mentioned. That was the original target of the Tobin Tax, which has seen a resurgence of late. It is very similar to APT or T-fee, but originally conceived to fund the UN.

We should most definitely charge a fee for any transaction that is measured in USD. That should be the standard.

Fee evasion by means of barter is not an issue. The solution is simply that any transaction that is not measured in USD, and therefore for which no fee was paid, cannot find recourse in the courts if there is some contractual issue involved. IOW, those transactions which are not measured in dollars are not part of the monetary system, and as such are not entitled to the normal legal protections for which that fee is partially funding.

ScottT