The FAIRTAX: A TROJAN HORSE FOR AMERICA?

Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership ^ | October 14, 2004 | Claire Wolfe & Aaron Zelman

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

No such assumption exists, the legislation mandates the the total repeal of the taxes it replaces.

That's a good start. However, a repeal of the 16th Amendment would be in order to help short-circuit an "emergency" reimposition of an income tax.

[kevkrom]

That's a good start. However, a repeal of the 16th Amendment would be in order to help short-circuit an "emergency" reimposition of an income tax.

See HJR 45, which goes beyond repealing the 16th amendment, it also explicitly prohibits fedral taxes on income.

It has to be passed separately from the NRST bill because of that pesky litle Constitution thing (legislative bills and Constitutional amendments have considerably different ratification processes, and as such cannot be tied to each other).

[ancient_geezer]

However, a repeal of the 16th Amendment would be in order to help short-circuit an "emergency" reimposition of an income tax.

Agreed, which is why the the legislation also expressly finds:

 

H.R.25

Fair Tax Act of 2003 (Introduced in House)
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c108:H.R.25:

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SEC. 2. CONGRESSIONAL FINDINGS.

(f) FINDINGS RELATING TO REPEAL OF PRESENT FEDERAL TAX SYSTEM- Congress further finds that the 16th amendment to the United States Constitution should be repealed.

 

And lays the essential basis to provide conditions under which the income tax can be prohibited by constitutional amendment.

AFFT does not consider HR25, to be the end of the process but the beginning of a longer range strategy providing conditions where Sam Johnson's or similar amendment to the constitution has a chance at enactment & ratification:

H.J.RES.61
Title: Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to abolish the Federal income tax.
Sponsor: Rep Johnson, Sam [TX-3] (introduced 6/24/2003)      Cosponsors: 5
Latest Major Action: 9/4/2003 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on the Constitution.

The first step to sucessful proposal and ratification of an amendment to eliminating the income tax is to assure a viable system exists and is in place.

Proposals to repeal the 16th amendment and prohibit income taxes have been repeatedly before Congress ever since the 16th was ratified, to no effect as no ground work to provide an alternative has ever be put in place. The result has been just more income tax:

 

TAXES

 

100years of history under the income tax makes it clear that we will not get there (smaller government) from here (the income tax).

[ancient_geezer]

A Taxreform bump for you all.

If you would like to be added to this ping list let me know.

John Linder in the House & Saxby Chambliss Senate, offer a comprehensive bill to kill all income and payroll taxes outright, and provide a IRS free replacement in the form of a retail sales tax:

H.R.25, S.1493
A bill to promote freedom, fairness, and economic opportunity by repealing the income tax and other taxes, abolishing the Internal Revenue Service, and enacting a national retail sales tax to be administered primarily by the States.

Refer for additional information: http://www.fairtax.org & http://www.salestax.org

[mvpel]

The fallacy that the FairTax advocates are laboring under is that all of the revenue that the income tax generates must be replaced. While we're abolishing the IRS, let's abolish all the rest of the unconstitutional bureaus and departments that are sucking up this money, and we won't need to replace the revenue.

[n-tres-ted]

Can you believe the work this organization has invested in this piece of largely superficial and trivial argument? I find it hard to conclude that their motivation is the fear that guns will be subjected to higher, punitive tax rates under the Fair Tax.

[kevkrom]

While we're abolishing the IRS, let's abolish all the rest of the unconstitutional bureaus and departments that are sucking up this money, and we won't need to replace the revenue.

Fine with me. Any spending that can be cut would reduce the necessary NRST rate. Write a bill and get some sponsors, and I'll help you push it for passage.

[elbucko]

I think Everyone should pay a fixed dollar amount. Maybe $7,000 a year. No more, no less. Now THAT would be fair.

What if you are (God forbid) injured or unemployed. Do you owe $14,000 the next year? Or should another taxpayer pay your $7,000? I wish taxes were that simple , but they're not.

[ancient_geezer]

The fallacy that the FairTax advocates are laboring under is that all of the revenue that the income tax generates must be replaced.

Unfortunately that is the fallacy that Congress has operated under since '80's, when the Budget Enforcement Act and PayGo rules were implemented.

Until very recently (last spring IIRC) any revenue bill submitted before Congress was required to meet provision which required a replacement tax to be able to provide the same level of revenues as the tax system it replaced.

Hence the 23% rate of the NRST. Look for that to be lowered to reflect the Bush Tax cuts when they become permanent in a future re-introduction of the bill.

[Taxman]

One is hard pressed to understand why they expended so much effort replowing already plowed ground. The authors manufactured "link" to the Second Amendment and FReedom is tenuous and disingenuous.

Generally speaking, I like, aside FRom this article, the author's other works! They should stay with issues they have some knowledge of.

One has to wonder what their agenda is?

[taxtruth]

A direct tax must go through the states.Case closed.The incometax is dying in America and will be gone soon and nothing should replace it.Congress needs to tax only what is Constitutionally allowed.Case closed again.

[taxtruth]

A direct tax must go through the states.Case closed.The incometax is dying in America and will be gone soon and nothing should replace it.Congress needs to tax only what is Constitutionally allowed.Case closed again.

[EternalVigilance]

This piece is so full of arrant nonsense, it is difficult to know where to start.

But here in a little while I will point some of it out...

[ancient_geezer]

One has to wonder what their agenda is?

Considering that a very large portion of the support for JPFO in my area of the country comes from those that are also strongly into the Tax Protest movement I'm not surprised at all. What does surprise me is that JPFO would allow their 2nd Amendment message to be blurred in that way.

It detracts from the primary concerns and brings in an element that opens them to attack on the legitimacy of their 2nd positions through association with the TP'rs.

TP'r : One who's tax evasion sales pitch has the substance of used toilette paper.

Wages-of-Sin: An employer pays a tax on wages for the sin of hiring you, You pay a tax on wages for the sin of working, and a second tax on your wages so some another guy can go fishing, drink, and sin some more.

"The IRS has created more liars than fishing and golf combined."
--Will Rogers

[EternalVigilance]

He rightly says:

...indeed the income tax is a horrible Marxist system.

Followed by this foolishness...

Here's our alternative: Nothing.

In between these two conclusions the writer has filled space with misrepresentations, misnomers and misstatements of fact.

Worse than worthless.

[ancient_geezer]

A direct tax must go through the states.

Hmmm,

Federalist #21:

"Imposts, excises, and, in general, all duties upon articles of consumption, may be compared to a fluid, which will, in time, find its level with the means of paying them. The amount to be contributed by each citizen will in a degree be at his own option, and can be regulated by an attention to his resources. The rich may be extravagant, the poor can be frugal; and private oppression may always be avoided by a judicious selection of objects proper for such impositions. "

"It is a signal advantage of taxes on articles of consumption that they contain in their own nature a security against excess.

They prescribe their own limit, which cannot be exceeded without defeating the end proposed - that is, an extension of the revenue."

When applied to this object, the saying is as just as it is witty that, "in political arithmetic, two and two do not always make four."

If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so great as when they are confined within proper and moderate bounds.

This forms a complete barrier against any material oppression of the citizens by taxes of this class, and is itself a natural limitation of the power of imposing them.

Impositions of this kind usually fall under the denomination of indirect
taxes, and must for a long time constitute the chief part of the revenue
raised in this country. . Those of the direct kind, which principally relate to land and buildings, may admit of a rule of apportionment." (Emphasis added).

 

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Hylton v. United States(1796), 3 U.S. 171

"A general power is given to Congress, to lay and collect taxes, of every kind or nature, without any restraint, except only on exports; but two rules are prescribed for their government, namely, uniformity and apportionment: Three kinds of taxes, to wit, duties, imposts, and excises by the first rule, and capitation, or other direct taxes, by the second rule. "

"[T]he DIRECT TAXES contemplated by the Constitution, are only two, to wit, A CAPITATION OR POLL TAX, simply, without regard to property, profession, or any other circumstance; and a tax on LAND."

Springer v. United States(1880), 102 U.S. 586

"[W]henever the government has imposed a tax which it recognized as a direct tax, it has never been applied to any objects but real estate and slaves."

[Zon]

After an NRST is implemented and income taxes eliminated it will open the way to reign in government spending. Since we know what ABC bureaucratic agency costs it can be extrapolated to decreasing the NRST. For example, eliminate HUD and OSHA means the sales tax will be reduced from 23% to 22%. 

When the benefits of the NRST are realized citizens will demand their states to eliminate their income tax and implement a SRST (state retail sales tax).

[Zon]

One has to wonder what their agenda is?

Their agenda is premised on the myopia that government will always have power over it's master. Thus they see armed confrontation as the best and only certain defense. ...And possible armed conflict as a last resort. 

That plays into government hands. Many politicians and bureaucrats would prefer armed rebellion rather than an Internet driven honesty revolution that exposes their frauds for everyone to clearly see.

It's brute force versus honest reason. 

The big lie versus honesty. In the long run honesty always wins. It always has and always will.

[Knitebane]

Why replace the IRS at all?

Let each government agency have a NPR-like pledge drive every year. What ever money citizens send in, they get to spend.

[taxtruth]

Ag,
Put your hat on a post and hang tight while we fight out the nonsense the government has put the people through since 1913.You haven't seen the evidence and I have.It's pretty much a nobrainer and the federal courts are going to be packed over this for years.Funny,you should be pushing for a new tax on FR when the government used fraud to get the US citizens money from the onset of the incometax in 1913.I wonder if you work for Uncle Sam because your agenda is always to start a new tax when we are dealing with a fraud of a present tax which is in federal court.