Posted on 04/04/2006 2:17:28 PM PDT by Eaglewatcher
The FairTax (HR 25 in the US House and S 25 in the US Senate) is a federal retail sales tax that replaces the entire federal income and Social Security tax systems, including personal, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security/Medicare, self-employment, and corporate taxes. The FairTax allows Americans to keep 100 percent of their paychecks (minus any state income taxes), ends corporate taxes and compliance costs hidden in the retail cost of goods and services, and fully funds the federal government while fulfilling the promise of Social Security and Medicare.
More FairTax benefits:
No tax on used goods. No tax on business inputs. With the FairTax, if you choose to buy any new good or service, the sales tax is charged just as state sales taxes are computed today. If you choose to buy used goods - used car, used home, used appliances - you do not pay the FairTax. If, as a business owner or farmer, you buy something for strictly business purposes (not for personal consumption), you pay no FairTax. So, in deciding what to buy, you get to choose whether or not you pay the FairTax.
No federal sales tax up to the poverty level means progressivity like today's tax system. Furthermore, to ensure that no American pays tax on necessities, the FairTax plan provides a prepaid, monthly rebate for every registered household to cover the consumption tax spent on necessities up to the federal poverty level. This, along with several other features, is how the FairTax completely untaxes the poor, lowers the tax burden on most, while making the overall rate progressive. However, the FairTax is progressive based on lifestyle/spending choices, rather than simply punishing those taxpayers who are successful. Do you see how much freer life is with the FairTax instead of the income tax?
All Americans take home their whole paychecks. Not only do more Americans have jobs, but they also take home 100 percent of their paychecks (except where state income taxes apply). No federal income taxes or payroll taxes are withheld from paychecks, pensions, or Social Security checks. Retail prices no longer hide corporate taxes or their compliance costs, which drive up costs for those who can least afford to pay. Did you know that hidden income taxes and the cost of complying with them currently make up 20 to 30 percent of all retail prices? It's true. According to Dr. Dale Jorgenson of Harvard University, hidden income taxes are passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices - from 20 to 30 percent higher than they would otherwise be - for everything you buy.
Tax criminals - don't make criminals out of honest taxpayers. Today, the IRS admits to 25 percent non-compliance with the code. However, this does not take into account the criminal/drug/porn economy, which conservative estimates put at one trillion dollars of untaxed activity. The FairTax taxes those engaged in the underground economy capturing their income at the cash register. The substantial decrease in points of compliance - from every wage earner, investor, and retiree, down to only retailers - also allows enforcement to concentrate on following the money to criminal activity, rather than making potential criminals out of every taxpayer struggling to decipher the code.
The income tax exports our jobs, rather than our products. The FairTax brings jobs home. Most importantly, U.S. exports are not burdened by the FairTax, as they are with the current income tax. So the FairTax allows U.S. exports to sell overseas for prices 22 percent lower, on average, than they do now, with similar profit margins. Lower prices sharply increase demand for U.S. exports, thereby increasing job creation in U.S. manufacturing sectors. At home, foreign imports are subject to the same FairTax rate as domestically produced goods. Not only does the FairTax put U.S. products sold here on the same tax footing as foreign imports, but the dramatic lowering of compliance costs in comparison to other countries' value-added taxes also gives U.S. products a definitive pricing advantage which foreign tax systems cannot match.
YOU are in charge! The FairTax moves us from a system that taxes what we earn to a system that taxes what we spend. Under the FairTax, you control your tax liability, not the government. The FairTax puts "we the people" in charge of our money, and puts us all on the path to economic freedom!
To enact the FairTax and unleash the full economic potential of the U.S., we must apply Vocal and Persistent pressure on Congress each week.
Email, call or fax your members of Congress today. Send them this simple message: "Please support replacing the federal income tax code and become a co-sponsor of HR 25 or S 25, the FairTax."
Once again, you're offering the Vichy response: we can't get rid of the Nazis, so we might as well collaborate.
Congress does not have the power to delegate legislative power to agencies. However...
However nothing.
Yeah right, it's already a given that previously taxed savings will be taxed again when spent.
Right, I've been trying to make you understand that there are very serious flaws with your tax scheme and you refuse to realize that fact.
Because they're on the receiving end of the stolen property.
Let them carry the load too and then more will care how heavy it becomes.
That isn't exactly how it works. Regardless of the tax structure, some people are net tax consumers, and some people are net tax producers. Welfare recipients will continue to be net consumers, and will still want taxes increased--after all a few pennies at the checkout lane from them, adds up to thousands more dollars per year to them. Likewise government contractors of every description.
While I'd like to see the "freeloaders" eliminated, as you're saying, I point out that the real "freeloaders" include some people who pay very high income taxes. Kennedy pays income tax--but he is still a net consumer of tax dollars, and would still favor raising taxes for that reason. Likewise any net consumer, form the lowliest welfare queen to the highest-paid CEO defense contractor.
Classic muddy thinking. You have no idea what anarcho-capitalism is, yet you imagine that it's been tried many times. Your statement is easy to understand: since you don't know the difference between a house-cat and a saber-toothed tiger, you see lots of house-cats, and leap to the conclusion that saber-toothed tigers are common.
Yes I want govenment to operate in a particular manner, that being the expression of the Constitution...
You aren't interested in following the Constitution. You're willing to continue over $1.7 trillion in completely unconstitutional spending, and would rather argue about the best place for government to get the $1.7 trillion that it isn't entitled to in the first place.
I keep seeing this argument. Get the fscts. when you spend your "already taxed" dollars today you are paying the imbedded taxes. Under the fair tax, prices of most things will be about the same, the Fair Tax replaces the imbedded tax.
If she thought she was paying nothing under the current sales tax, three times nothing is still nothing. I'm guessing she doesn't think of sales tax as an actual "tax". She no doubt just thinks of it as an annoying little extra calculation she has to make when buying something.
But if you were able to make her aware of it, then she'd be aware of it regardless of whether or not businesses have to pay it for what they buy as well. And any increases in the tax would be noticed by her either way.
You aren't interested in following the Constitution.
I certainly am, I just recognize that it takes more than words to get there from where we are no. And anarchy is not following the Constititution in any case.
You're willing to continue over $1.7 trillion in completely unconstitutional spending, and would rather argue about the best place for government to get the $1.7 trillion that it isn't entitled to in the first place.
Always nice have have one tell you what you believe and think. Once more you choose to set up the strawman rather than address the issue of a viable plan to return to the bounds of Constitutional government.
I see a first step in changing the tax system to assure the entire electorate is exposed to the burdens of largess. Change and return to the boundries restrained govenment will not happen until the American people choose to take the necessary steps and perceive the costs that largess imposes on all. Won't happen when most have a false impression of the burdens of govenment on their lives due predominately to misdirection that is implemented in the current tax systems which hide much of the burden from the majority of the electorate.
One can hardly be expected to exercise that "eternal vigilance" so necessary to the preservation of liberty when most run around with horse blinders on looking for that next pail of oats to be handed to them.
Your formula and a siren call for representation without taxation is a formula that got us where we are at today. The ability to hide or disguise the financial burdens from the view of large sectors of the electorate allows the Congress to get away with the creation of the evergrowing monster that such fosters.
Liberty and freedom have a price, responsibility. If the perception of burden laid by government is interfered with or avoided there are no brakes on the growth of government, the ultimate result is the end of freedom through creeping socialism.
All the facts you seem to refer to appear to be guesses and estimates.
Your "imbedded taxes" would depend on the producer's product, sales volume, margins, overall profitability, capital reinvestment plans, labor force required, etc., etc. Could be only 10 to 12 percent.
Your guess as to how producers will price their product is simply that, a guess.
You are right though about the tax replacing those costs. Replacing an additional 10% of cost of goods with an additional 30% is going to mean everyone using the product pays more.
You've made assertions based on anecdotal evidence within a small group.
The FairTax people spend over $20 Million dollars of their own money researching and studying this proposal.
Is the plan perfect? No.
Are there some things that I might think should be different? Yes.
Is there a better proposal out there anywhere? No.
Is there ANY proposal that has a chance of passage? NO.
We don't have enough support in Congress yet, but there are more cosponsors than most bills get.
You simply refuse to acknowledge the good that will come of this plan and focus on your perception that we're all going to go to hell in a handbasket if this passes.
You are simply wrong and refuse to acknowledge it.
Look, in 2003 the bill had 56 sponsors, as of March, 15, 2006 the legislation has 51 sponsors. It has never made it out of committee since 1999. There has to be a reason for that and that reason may be that the flaws are just too serious to even ammend in the eyes of many.
You seem to have come to this discussion awfully late.
Those of us advocating this plan want to minimize taxation. We want to shrink government. My preference is for both to be at about 10% of what they are now.
But we are realistic. There would be ZERO support for ZERO taxes. It has no chance of getting more than a handful of votes. There isn't any way to get a 10% cut right now. There are too many special interest groups demanding monies from the public treasury.
Most people have no concept of the true cost of government for themselves. Something like 40% of people no longer pay income tax for one reason or another. If that gets to 50.1%, what chance do you think that those who do pay them will ever be able to effect a change?
So our best chance of reducing spending and government and taxation is to expose the true cost. Only when enough people see the cost will there be enough pressure to enforce a change.
It's not that we don't want what you want. We are just more realistic about HOW to get it done. We didn't get into this mess overnight and we won't get out that way either. We have to take this a step at a time. The FairTax is the first step in that it does take power away from DC.
How, you ask? Half of the lobbyists in DC are there to ask for, buy, or bribe Congress for changes in the income tax code. When they don't have the power to make those changes many of them will no longer enjoy the perks and power that they now have. Remember 1994? The GOP took power and many Dems stepped down or retired. The same thing will happen here. No power. No fun. No stay.
Then it's up to us, as always, to elect good people to replace them -- people who will abide by the Consitution.
Since then one or tow more have signed on.
Every session supporters come and go. Some die, some leave, some retire.
The Dems who were on the bill were intimidated into not signing on again by their leadership.
Again, you make assertions and jump to conclusions that are not rooted in facts.
Nonsense, I asserted nothing in my previous reply to you, I merely suggested what the problems might be. You do realize that some problem must exist, I hope. Bogus conclusions on your part and the complete dismissal of common sense concers others have for the serious flaws with this legislation do nothing to fix the problems.
Demonstrated preferences, Geezer. You spend energy backing a tax-code change that does nothing to address the real problem, and mock people who point out what the real problem is.
Liberty and freedom have a price, responsibility.
Right. For now I'm trying to convince people to shoulder their responsibility. If enough people decide to go ahead with it, I'm ready to march on Washington with them, muskets a-blazing.
You noticed! There's a reason you're been specially selected: I only call idiots idiots. I don't call non-idiots idiots. If it makes you feel special, then congratulations.
Then why are you spending your energy on this shell game? Work on what really matters: eliminating the unconstitutional spending.
So our best chance of reducing spending and government and taxation is to expose the true cost.
You're mistaken: the true cost is negative for many, many people. Shuffling the tax code around won't affect that in the slightest. Recipients of entitlements and other government largesse will still realize that, whether they like taxes or not, it's where their bread is buttered.
Ad hominem, no. Insult, yes. I will stop replying to Zon.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.