Posted on 05/05/2006 1:35:32 PM PDT by RobFromGa
In my letter to Rep. Linder and Mr. Boortz of August 24, 2005, I pointed out a number of what I called “serious misrepresentations” of the Fair Tax plan contained in “The FairTax Book”. I specifically named many of these by page #.
Now that the revised second issue is out, let’s see what they did to these passages in the book:
First edition page 55, you go on to explain that these embedded taxes are “in addition to the money taken out of your check in income and payroll taxes.”
Second edition- this line was eliminated. This means that they are acknowledging that the 22% embedded taxes INCLUDE the income and payroll taxes which was one of my points all along.
First edition page 59, “Once the FairTax takes effect, you’ll be receiving 100 percent of every paycheck, with no withholding of federal income taxes, Social security taxes, or Medicare taxes and you’ll be paying just about the same price for T-shirts and other consumer goods and services that you were paying before the FairTax.”
Second edition- “Once the FairTax takes effect, you’ll be in complete control of your paycheck as nothing will be withheld and your purchasing power for t-shirts and all other goods and services will be almost exactly what it was before the FairTax.”
This means that they are acknowledging that “purchasing power” will remain the same, not a big increase in purchasing power as they previously asserted with their larger paychecks/same prices verbiage. They eliminated the “100% of paycheck” wording.
First edition page 83: “Remember that the poor, along with everyone else—will no longer have Social Security taxes or Medicare taxes removed from their paychecks. Whatever they earn, they get on payday. For most of those we categorize as poor, this would mean an immediate 25 to 30 percent increase in their take-home pay.”
Second edition- “Remember that the poor, along with everyone else—will no longer have Social Security taxes or Medicare taxes removed from their paychecks. Whatever they earn, they get on payday. If employers leave this money in paychecks instead of taking it out of price, most of those we categorize as poor, this would mean an immediate 25 to 30 percent increase in their take-home pay.”
Of course, this acknowledges that the employer has a choice to make—to pay the worker his current paycheck and not reduce prices (meaning prices with FairTax added go up 30%) or to cut paychecks to present takehome levels. They cannot both give workers more takehome pay and reduce prices. The Free Lunch described in the first edition is eliminated.
First edition, page 84, you make it clear though that even though the workers will keep all of their paychecks for a big raise, you still believe that because of “the disappearance of the embedded taxes, the total price paid for consumer goods will remain very nearly the same”.
Second edition—“when you factor in the combined lower prices/higher takehome pay caused by the disappearance of the embedded taxes” prices will remain about the same.
This again acknowledges that they money currently deducted as taxes can either be used to increase take-home pay or reduce prices but not both at the same time. If they were being more honest here, they would have referred to purchasing power remaining the same rather than prices, but they are trying to put the best possible spin on this major admission.
First edition page 111, you tie it all together with a Quick Review in which you erroneously assert that “Here’s what happens when we pass and implement the FairTax plan:
“We start collecting 100 percent of our earnings on our paycheck.
“We all get virtual raises, since payroll taxes are no longer siphoned from our checks.
“The prices of consumer goods and services remain essentially the same, with the removal of the embedded taxes compensating for the added consumption tax.”
Second edition:
“We start controlling our earnings in every paycheck” (whatever that means)
“100% earnings” line is eliminated from the second edition. "virtual raises" is likewise eliminated.
“Our purchasing power for buying consumer goods and services remains essentially the same, with the removal of the embedded taxes compensating for the added consumption tax.”
This is a MAJOR difference in the Quick Review! In the first edition, they promised larger paychecks and prices remianign the same—which means a major increase in purchasing power. Of course this was a ridiculous promise. In the second edition, they say our purchasing power will be about the same.
They still left a lot of wrong and misleading verbiage throughout the book, but they addressed most of the concerns that I sent to them and removed those claims in the second book.
That's ridiculous. No one understands the rule book and the rules are a moving target. Besides that, the rules are changed each year.
And what innuendo and insinuations do I keep throwing out? That you're a life insurance salesman? I'm sorry, maybe you sell little income tax kits, I don't know. I can't for the life of me see any rational argument against the fair tax. None of the SQL's here have ever offered an alternative except the occasional flat tax, which we already have, or a VAT which is eating Europe from the inside.
If you guys have no alternative, no plan of your own, then your attacks on the fair tax can only be construed as job protection.
Flatten a cowpie, and it's still a cowpie....and it still stinks to high heaven. The income tax is a loser.You obvious are ignorant of the Flat Tax, too. It doesn't tax income - it taxes consumption.
The Flat Income Tax is a complete political nonstarter.LOL! Unlike the FairTax....
The major rules are not that difficult to understand. Sure maybe there is some arcane stuff in there but for the most part it's pretty easy. I use TurboTax each year and I just fill in the blanks it tells me. Takes a couple of hours but I keep my record organized throughout the year, I have a file called Current Year taxes and when something comes in, it goes in the folder. At tax time it is all there. Do you have a similar system, groanup? It might help you figure all this out.
Besides that, the rules are changed each year.
Don't you think CHANGE, even radical change, is a good thing? You sure sould like you embrace change with every fiber of your being. You like change so much that you want to change the entire game in fact.
And what innuendo and insinuations do I keep throwing out?
Come on, you know? The ones where you state that we are all evilly profiting from the present system. It's a tired old form of argument but you keep throwing mud against the wall.
There is nothing you can do about politicians being elected to make laws subject to the desires of those that elected them. You FairTaxers don't get to pass some sort of super-laws that never again get to be tampered with.How soon after the FairTax was implemented would it be before some little girl dies because her parents couldn't afford the FairTax on her life saving surgery and then you would have a unanimous vote the next week to exempt life saving surgery from the FairTax. And then preemptive health care. And then...
Of course, they will find all sorts of exemptions. The actual tax on legitimate above the board non-exempt transactions will be 50% and they'll re-enact the emergency income tax on rich people earning more than $50,000 per year, say a flat 20% or so.
Yep, we'll end up with the worst of both worlds.
Okay, I'll concede. Rob LIKES the income tax, would like taxes to be lower, but otherwise embraces this creature. At least you're honest about it.
BTW, my system is much more efficient than yours and I don't even have to waste money on Turbo Tax. LOL. We PAY money to figure out how to PAY money to Uncle Sam. Gotta love it.
Oops, sorry, you DO love it.
what a hell of a sad way to go through life, being a legend in your own mind, and becoming obsessed with selling snake oil.
Yeah, it obviously bothered you and Rob a lot more than it did YNYou're right, we should have followed his lead and just cast it off as just another example of your ongoing idiocy.
Sometimes snake oil has value. Your Kool-aide never does.
There you have it folks. The above sentence consists of about 99% of the anti fair taxers arguments.
That argument being: 'everybody but me is an idiot'.
I don't even have to waste money on Turbo Tax. LOL. We PAY money to figure out how to PAY money to Uncle Sam. Gotta love it.Oh yea, Turbo Tax, there goes all that "compliance cost" BS.
Some people choose to pay for all kinds of time saving ideas and others of you just don't know how to follow simple instructions.
Paying for tax prep software is almost as stupid as paying someone to purchase your investments.
(other than your ad hominem ad nauseum)
And here we have more. Again folks, the anti's religiously call the fair taxers "stupid", "fanatical", "cultish". I leave it to the audience to decide who the shrill ones are.
You just don't pay attention to the arguments since you don't understand them obviously.
That argument being: 'everybody but me is an idiot'.
No, we're mainly just pointing out that the FairTax true believer are incongruent and make stuff up. Not everyone else is an idiot.
Golly.
I disagree with this, I think Turbi Tax is well worth the $35-40 a year.
I disagree with this, I think Turbi Tax is well worth the $35-40 a year.I was being sarcastic.
have fun, I'm off to watch Kournikova, McEnroe, Courier and Novotna play tennis.
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.