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Tariffs ARE Taxes!! We cannot allow DT to control the narrative on this. (r.50501.chat)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Trump is intending to turn the tariffs into a sales tax to replace the income tax. This place a monumental amount of the tax load on poor and middle class Americans. The tariffs do not show up on your receipts or your tax return, but it is a huge economic burden nonetheless. If the republicans manage to make a case for getting rid of the income tax, it will be very difficult to reestablish it.

We cannot allow republicans to control the narrative on this. We need to stop talking about tariffs and taxes like they're two separate things. TARIFFS = TAXES. Repeat this over and over again on all media platforms.

Originally Posted By u/BeneficialNatural610 At 2025-04-27 02:04:23 PM | Source

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[–] [email protected] 68 points 2 months ago (1 children)

"We will build a wall and Mexico will pay for it" was not big enough a lie, so this time Trump thought of something funnier.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

No more jokes about social security plz

[–] [email protected] 43 points 2 months ago (2 children)

We can easily get rid of income tax with a wealth tax.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Tax wealth, not work.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

We don't even need to tax all kinds of wealth. Personal property shouldn't be subject to a wealth tax. Your primary residence shouldn't be taxed, even if it is a huge mansion.

A securities tax would be ideal. Tax stocks, bonds, and other financial assets. The tax itself should be paid in shares of the security, not dollars. Transfer the shares to the IRS, who can liquidate them over time, such that liquidated shares are never more than 1% of total traded shares. Exempt the first $10 million held by a natural person. Beyond that, the tax rate should be 1/2 the inflation rate to $50 million, the inflation rate to $100 million, and twice the inflation rate above. that.

The idea is to push capital investment to the working class, rather than concentrating it in the oligarchical Problem Class.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

If every billionaire was taxed however many billions they have minus.02, we'd be fine immediately.

Should probably be like .001, but we can negotiate. xD

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Can't have Income Taxes without Income

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

What ever happened to Republicans promising to eliminate income tax and replace it with a hefty sales tax? It was all people talked about for a while there.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That's literally what this is

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

No I mean specifically the Fair Tax Act (had to Google the name). Looks like there's been no movement on it since it was introduced.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Orwellian nonsense.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

I mean yeah, I think it's stupid too, but it's important to keep in the loop.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

The president bypasses congress to put in tax tariffs. This this is taxation without representation.

Time to rebel.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I can't make heads or tails of this one, it's complete jibberish

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago

Hes arguing that when tarrifs (functionally sales tax) go up, they can reduce income tax. But everyone knows that benefits the wealthy and hurts every day consumers

[+] [email protected] -35 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Tariffs first and foremost are a tax on corporate profit margins.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You must be smoking some good shit.

Corporations, if they can get away with it, will always pass the costs down to the consumer. If it costs $2 to import a $3 tomato from Mexico but now costs $2.50, they'll try to sell it for $3.75.

[+] [email protected] -18 points 2 months ago (3 children)

That's second order operation... They can try sure but profit margins will be squeezed which is the entire point of my original comment.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Not necessarily. Depends on demand. If demand is relatively inelastic for their good or service, they can and will reliably pass the cost of tariffs on to consumers and maintain their profit margin.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

They can try, sure. And when tariffs are applied to every single country, they'll likely succeed.

Corporations aren't altruistic, and their default position is growth. The ones that do pay tariffs will eventually have to increase their prices to compensate, and the ones that don't are free to increase their prices for profit while still undercutting their competition. The baseline price of goods will shift, which fucks over consumers far more than it will hurt corporations.

And suppose tariffs do eventually go away: are they going to pass the savings down to consumers? Hell no. That $3.75 tomato is the new normal, and now they get an extra $0.50 in profit for free.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago

When Trump introduced tariffs on washing machines in 2018, domestic makers not only increased their prices to match foreign made products, they increased the price of dryers too (since they are often bought together).

These policies are inherently anticompetitive (think of tariffs as a handicap applied to foreign corporations and products) but in practice they're more likely to favor large coporations over small.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Prices will go up at the announcement of tarrifs, and wont come down when they're halted, in reasing profit margin. After what the other guy said. Tarrif expenses will always be passed down to the end user

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yep, and I'm sure the corporations will just take that hit on their margins and not have any retaliation.

[+] [email protected] -12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

They are already charging highest price possible that's how market pricing works.

Sure if their entire profit margin gets eaten, they will up the prices but they won't be able to recover 100% of these tariffs from the broke pleb class. They will price people out, sales will drop, revenue drops and hence profit.

I am not saying that prices can't or won't go up, I am pointing basic economic premise of how tariffs actually work in practice.

I am doing this because people shilling tariffs are taxes on consumers are either being useful idiots or threat actors. This is factually incorrect.

Amazing how people never get butt hurt about corporate profits tho that's literally a tax on everyone and most mega corpos barely pay income taxes too.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Not necessarily. It depends on the specific market. Ferrari, for example, immediately increased their prices when auto tariffs were announced because they are a luxury brand and know that their customers will eat the cost.

For everyday products, you're right that the corporation won't recuperate the full cost of the tariff. So ultimately, the customer pays more, the corporarion they're buying from makes less and the foreign exporter also makes less due to reduced demand.

Who wins? Whoever is collecting the tariff ie. the US government. Which can be fine if they give it back to the people and certain targeted domestic corporate subsidies but I doubt that's how this government intends to pay it.

The fact that he used the phrase External Revenue Service tells me he doesn't know what he's doing. You can't replace income tax with economic leverage over foreign markets alone. Those markets would simply stop doing business with you.

The US garnered incredible economic leverage over the world due to the circumstances of WW2 but it is far from infinite or perpetual.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The fact that he used the phrase External Revenue Service tells me he doesn't know what he's doing.

I would be careful with thinking this. He doesn't understand or care, but the Heritage Foundation thinktank pulling the strings certainly does.

A large number of Americans don't understand it either, and they think it's the exporter (the other country) who is paying the tariffs. Calling it "External Revenue Service" seems like a deliberate choice to reinforce that misinformed narrative that tariffs aren't a tax.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Its certainly a thoughtfully constructed phrase to appeal to a type of greed and entitlement.

I don't doubt that the heritage foundation has a plan but they're essentially engaging in a gambit and hoping the rest of the world will blunder. There's no real precedent here to go off of. I personally don't think the US has 'the cards' to come out on top. I have a feeling that Trump is going to end up backtracking and facing legal challenges to the point that more moderate republicans will start to turn away. In the end, the overton window will have shifted which may likely be the long term goal.

We havent even seen widespread price increases yet. If the tariffs result in a decline in the US dollar, oil prices will go up and so will the price of gas. I don't see that going over well. He's not going to be able to increase domestic supply fast enough to soften that impact.

There's still a ton of room and time for him to lose public support here. The less support he has, the harder it will be for him to make the substantial moves he has in the first few months here.

Most of the rest of the world is looking at how to bolster their economies and defense to the exclusion of the US. That will ultimately be Trump's lasting legacy, in my view.