A 23% Federal Sales Tax!! But Wait!Written by Terry J. Rigg
We are so used to having our federal income tax, social security and medicare taxes withheld from our paycheck, most of us don't realize there are efforts to change this dramatically. There is a group going around saying that we should pay 23 cents on every dollar we spend in a federal sales tax. They must be crazy!Wait a minute. If we are going to pay a sales tax to cover our income and social security tax, we won't have anything except our state and local taxes coming out of our pay. Even that doesn't add up to 23%. What are they talking about? What if they told you that, not only would you not have federal and social security taxes withheld from your paycheck, you would see following things happen: ~Elimination of Internal Revenue Service, saving an estimated $420 billion annually ~April 15th would be just another day ~You would not have tax records to keep BECAUSE YOU WOULD NOT HAVE TO FILE INCOME TAXES ~And, no forms, no deadlines, no prepayments, no penalties, no audits, and never again an abusive IRS that can claim your assets without due process! ~Even illegal income would be taxed when it is spent ~Only new items will be taxed ~No American will pay taxes on necessities ~Cost of goods and service are estimated to decrease by 20% to 30% because manufactures and other companies will not be required to pay taxes (TAXES WILL ONLY BE PAID ON NEW MERCHANDISE AT THE RETAIL LEVEL) ~No tax on ANY investments ~Each taxpayer will receive a rebate equal to taxes paid on necessities such as groceries and medicine, in advance of those purchases ~Seniors and low income families would be protected
| | Why Have A Budget AnalysisWritten by Terry J. Rigg
Let's start by defining a "Budget Analysis". This is simply a breakdown of your budget (income, bills & expenses) showing how much money you have coming in and how much you have going out. It will show how your budget category percentages compare with what is recoginized as ideal percentages. The most important aspect of Budget Analysis is recomendations for improvement.The first part of your analysis will list your income and breakdown your bills and expenses by category. At Budget Stretcher I use only four categories, Housing, Other Bills, Household Expenses, and Savings. The three expense categories allow 30% of your take home for each category with 10% going to savings. Next, your expenses percentages will be compared to ideal percentages that will show you what areas of your budget need improvement. The percentages above are simply targets. If you exceed recommended percentage in one category but you do not exceed 100% of your take home pay for all categories, then you would not normally have a problem. The recommendations for improvement are based on sound financial practices. There isn't anything complicated about this, it is pretty much 2+2=4. However, there are some tricks that can be recommended to help make figures add up a little easier. As an example, if you have say 40% of your income going to Other Bills category because of credit cards, it may be recommended that you try consolidating your credit cards to lower your payments. This can be done by either a consolidation loan, home equity loan or by using an existing credit card to pay off all of others.
|
