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."
Guess you didn't read the economic explanation - or understand it!
That's all your post shows.
This is why any change to a new system needs to be explicitly tied to the repeal of the 16th Amendment via a new amendment that outright forbids any return of the income tax.
Most people who have read the bill or looked into it via the FairTax website know that the income tax (and some other taxes) and the IRS are eliminated when the FairTax becomes law. In addition the income tax records are required to be destroyed and the 16th amendment is identified for repeal since it cannot be repealed by a tax law. A Constitutional amdndment has different requirements than a tax bill.
Removing the 16th, however, is very much the aim of the FairTax backers and once here is a workable tax law in place the repeal of the 16th becomes relatively easy since it serves no p[urpose - much like the prohibition amendment it is an anachronism.
In the meantime though, the FairTax will eliminate the income tax, the IRS and the income tax records. Restarting income tax again is no snap of the fingers task and would be impossible since if there is enough backing to pass the FairTax, there's enough backing to shoot down any new attempt at turning back the clock to an income tax.
Perhaps you need to consider the "gibberish" you keep repeating is no less incomprehensible to everyone, with a rational perspective, outside your propaganda group.
"Numbers skewing" is Nightie's pasttime - but you probably haven't noticed that.This is the part of our program where I ask you to provide an example of my "numbers skewing" and you are unable to do so.
Thanks a_g. Good reason for the government to pay the sales tax so as not to create an unfair competitive advantage for one business over another.
What??? Unable to do so??? Better pipe down Nightie lest I post one of your past examples where your numbers were "skewed" by over 400% - beating Looey, the former record holder.
With you, though, it's a profitless endeavor, since you'll just barf up some new numbers on a different ssubject and claim that's what was being discussed (or should be). Your stunts fool no one but yourself.
... and your next move will be to pretend you were never 400% or more in error.
What??? Unable to do so??? Better pipe down Nightie lest I post one of your past examples where your numbers were "skewed" by over 400% - beating Looey, the former record holder.What was skewed wasn't my numbers, it was your perception of reality. Pathetic.
Exactly as predicted in #607. Just like you were introduced for that exact purpose.
Thanks for demonstrating the correctness of my prediction. Trying to weasel out of the error won't help you, Nightie. A 400% (plus) error is still "bigger than Looey".
Thanks for demonstrating the correctness of my prediction. Trying to weasel out of the error won't help you, Nightie. A 400% (plus) error is still "bigger than Looey".Maybe you would like to show everyone my "error."
What??? Unable to do so??? Better pipe down Nightie lest I post one of your past examples where your numbers were "skewed" by over 400% - beating Looey, the former record holder. With you, though, it's a profitless endeavor, since you'll just barf up some new numbers on a different ssubject and claim that's what was being discussed (or should be). Your stunts fool no one but yourself. ... and your next move will be to pretend you were never 400% or more in error
"Numbers skewing" is Nightie's pasttime - but you probably haven't noticed that.
Sorry, eskie, you'll have to do your own searching for 20 words of explanation. everyone's tired of guessing what you intend the gibberish to mean.
Better pipe down Nightie lest I post one of your past examples where your numbers were "skewed" by over 400%Which one is the lie pigdog?----
Thanks for demonstrating the correctness of my prediction. Trying to weasel out of the error won't help you,
Do you have some crow handy, Lewis ? Once again you demonstrate that you don't really understand HR25.
Do you have some crow handy, Lewis ? Once again you demonstrate that you don't really understand HR25.Maybe y'all could share a serving of crow. You were wrong about Social Security payouts being increased by the FairTax and also about not-for-profits having to pay the FairTax.
taxable employers ..." would be the local government, and "... employees directly providing education and training..." sure seems to describe school teachers.You're right on that count now can you show where 3/4 of state's payroll is for teachers/educators? Or are you lumpimg education spending as "educator's" payroll?
We have school administrators ln some districts who are paid more than the president....administrator's don't "directly provide education and training".
Maybe y'all could share a serving of crow. You were wrong about Social Security payouts being increased by the FairTax and also about not-for-profits having to pay the FairTax.Not to mention tax on interest, Social Security bureaucrats adjusting the rates every year, increased spending on negative taxes(otherwise known as welfare), and 22% price reductions to name a few more.
I'll give up on the 3/4 of payroll issue. I've tried to find the source where I picked that up, and failed.
Without a verifiable source, I'll back away from the 3/4 figure. I still think my figure is close, but it is one I've put together from a variety of information and not a single study that includes the exact same conclusion.
California is spending $50B per year on public education out of a State budget of $84B. Of all educational spending in California, 65% is supposed to be spent directly in the classroom -- or $33B per year. Total non-education government payroll in California for 2002 was $18B, according to this
http://www.hjta.org/CGA.CA.County.Report.pdf#search='california%20government%20payroll'
If those numbers are roughly accurate, then in California teacher compensation is 65% ($33B of $51B) of all government employee compensation. California ranks 34th among the States in education spending, and spends only 91% as much as the national average.
http://www.ku.edu/~bdbaker/fipefsos/farwest05.pdf#search='california%20perpupil%20spending%20nevada'
So I bumped my figure from 65% to "3/4" as a ballpark for national averages. That still seems like a reasonable conclusion to me.
The study Nightmare pointed to says less than 1/3 of educational spending shows up in teachers paychecks. But 'paychecks' isn't defined very well. It doesn't appear to include benefits, which are very generous for school teachers. I still doubt it can account for such a difference. Most States have spending laws now for public education that requires more than 60% of all spending be "in the classroom", which implies teacher salaries, books, etc. as opposed to administrative overhead. I haven't found an explanation for the gap. 60% supposed to spent, but only 33% in this study ? Of course, the higher-education spending where salaries for teachers are higher can account for some of the gap, but it still seems too large.
I strongly suspect this "Research Department of the National Education Association (NEA)" has not counted all of the teacher compensation costs and they are pandering to their membership -- who, of course, want to believe they are underpaid. And only included K-12 and not compensation at college and university level. Remember that at the K-12 level, ALL of the money comes from the State budget. At public college and universities, there are student fees and tuition that are covering some of the costs. There are also donations covering some costs. That means the teacher compensation is a much higher percentage of the actual cost to the State than it is at the K-12 level.
Lewis, you don't like "inclusive" percentages but you might be interested to see that "FairTaxers" aren't the only ones that use them. In these figures from a Utah 1999 study on teachers' compensation compared to total eduction expenditure:
http://www.le.state.ut.us/lfa/reports/Data2001Book.pdf#search='teacher%20compensation%20as%20percentage%20of%20total%20spending'
where they show Salary $37K, Benefits $14K, and Benefits as Percentage of Total being only 27% -- they are showing the 'inclusive' percentage when it is really 38% as an 'exclusive' percentage of the Salary portion. And that doesn't include the employer FICA and FUTA tax payments as a "Benefit" so it is really $18K or roughly 50% on top of "Salary".
Later they show a "Total Teacher Salaries" of $113B on the same line as the Salary-without-benefits figure from earlier. They also show a "Total Education Spending" of $297B. So if we add the 50% Benefits figure, that is actually $169B in "Total Teacher Compensation", which is 57% of Total Education Spending. Much closer to the 60%-65% figure I recall. Which is what I assumed when comparing to total government employee compensation, and said "3/4".
Of course, this mixing of data from different sources and for different years can't provide more than a ballpark number. If 3/4 is wrong, then it isn't by much.
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