Mercy, Mercy.
Your post covers a lot of ground. I was a skeptic and started with Boortz's book. I continue to research the details both for and against the system.
Best I can tell you is to start where I did. The tax burden part is the one that is most obvious and if you pay taxes and "...can not see how this would reduce, rather than increase, the tax collecting bureaucracy," than nothing I can tell you is going to be comprehendible to you.
As far as stopping cheaters, it is again obvious to me that it is very easy to cheat our system today and is done legally and illegally to the tune of about 20%. I don't know how much worse it could get, but if you only need to look in one place (retail), then it has to be easier to police. That is just my ridiculous opinion.
Well, I will have to read the book, as soon as possible.
Not having done so yet, here are some of my thoughts:
Having been a retailer, I have envisioned the sales tax divisions of state bureaucracies as being somewhat larger than the income tax divisions. They have to have people in every county, dealing with the retailers on a pretty extensive basis.
Then there is the consumer side - if everyone is having to file for refunds every month, that seems to be a lot of manpower. How will this work? The FAQ section of the (www.fairtax.org) website makes it sound like an assumed poverty level amount of spending will be pre-rebated to the individual every month. Why collect it (other than to keep the interest)?
Methinks that HR Block and others will have expanded markets, rather than decreased ones, as some posters have imagined, but I have yet to fully grasp this scenario. My overactive imagination worries that if it is not an assumed "prebate" that we will end up essentially turning over records of all purchases - not a good idea IMO.
The "Cost of hidden taxes due to the income tax system" upon which things at the website seem to be base will require a lot of study before I can make a valid judgement, but for now, I have to say that there are some generic caveats that probably apply regardless of who is calculating the sums, and what side of the debate they take.
Quotes like:
"(3) paying the collection fees to retailers and state governments" - make me assume that Walmart will be happy.
- "Yes, the Fair Tax is fair, and in fact, much fairer than the income tax. Wealthy people spend more money than other individuals." - this sounds fair all right, an appeal to stick it to the wealthy?
"...would take $23 out of your paycheck for every $100 you made. With the FairTax, if the federal government gets $23 out of every $100 spent in America, the same total revenue is delivered to the federal government. This is revenue neutrality." This is true only if the amount of money spent equals the amount of money made. I suppose the 23% rate so high because people are so good at finding ways on not being taxed on income. In fact, consideration of this point makes me woner if some number crunchers have come to the conclusion that the current system can not continue to sustain our tax needs. Even so, the assumption that this will take a big chunk from the underground economy strikes me as based on a lack of understanding of organized and unorganized crime, and of regular people who will seek to have the advantages of not being taxed on income, and avoinding the 23% markup in the store. I expect that American spending habits may adjust more quickly than corporate cost determination habits.
Mind you, I see certain principles in this that are sound - excise taxes and tariffs were the original constitutional method of raising money. But I am not convinced that the numbers will add up the way people think, or that all the hidden costs of this system are accounted for. Anyhow, another load of questions.