NC meeting (Fair Tax)

Our FairTax meetings are scheduled for the first Tuesday evening of each month at the Benjamin Library on Benjamin Parkway across from Nathaniel Greene School. I hope everyone will make plans to attend.

We have a small, but committed core group, so let's brainstorm and get some ideas flowing. Come alone or bring a friend and let's get some action going.

This event does not require an RSVP. Registered users can request event reminders.

If Kotlikoff is correct that a 31.2 percent rate is revenue-neutral, there remains some reason to doubt that the rate actually would be that low. The FairTax proposal assumes a 100 percent tax base on consumption. By way of contrast, most states that have sales taxes have roughly a 50 percent tax base. With the FairTax’s 100 percent base, consumers would pay taxes on a great many things that may not intuitively seem like consumption. The list would include:

* Purchases of new homes
* Rent
* Interest on credit cards, mortgages and car loans
* Doctor bills
* Utilities
* Gasoline (30 percent in addition to current taxes, which would not be repealed)
* Legal fees

At today’s prices, gasoline would cost almost $1 per gallon more. A $150,000 new home would run $195,000 – plus the 30 percent tax that the buyer would pay on the interest on the mortgage. In short, the FairTax taxes everything that one buys, with the one notable exception of education. Any exceptions to the tax base (for instance, eliminating rent or credit card interest from the tax base) would require an offsetting increase in the rate.

i don’t think the fairtax is being honestly presented.

there are inbedded taxes to everything we buy already... the fairtax puts it out in the open.

only new items are taxed... houses aren’t in that i believe...

i’ll dust off the book and check it out, plus the new book, the truth about the fairtax...

teeman

there are inbedded taxes to everything we buy already... the fairtax puts it out in the open.

The lions share of taxes embedded in the price of a product or service is employee withholding and payroll taxes. For those embedded taxes to be removed, the employee must see a decrease in gross pay; otherwise, what is deducted from paychecks now in taxes is added to the employees paycheck, prices remain the same and the 30% FairTax is added.

only new items are taxed... houses aren’t in that i believe...

The FairTax bill redefines "new" as previously untaxed.

New homes are taxed as are homes that were purchased as rentals and converted to owner occupied.

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