When Taxes Start Sneaking Across the Border...(Fair Tax Endorsement)

Illegal immigration is an unsolvable problem. America should surrender now to the irresistible will of the leaderless gaggle of semi-literate busboys and landscapers who stumble northward with the unbeatable plan of “that way!” in their diabolical minds. Who can stop these master criminals? Not the poor little U.S. government!

With its limited resources and power, how can it do something as complex as watch to see if a confused mob of aspiring roofers walks across a line in the desert? Or enforce laws against hiring illegal aliens? Or most intimidating of all, how can it find illegal aliens already within America?

After all, they are so well hidden, standing there on the corner of McGrath and Broadway in Somerville, Mass., every morning from sunrise to lunch, waiting to be picked up by anonymous labor johns. Really, how does one capture people so cautious that they jump into the back of any truck that pulls up? I mean, this isn’t something easy like going to the moon or establishing Democracy in all the world.

I’ve often heard that you have to have a will to succeed, if you want to win. But in the case of the open borders lobby that has held sway over our immigration and borders policies for the last 30 years, all they need to win is a will to fail.

It is now national policy to fail to guard borders, to fail to prosecute those who bear forged documents, to fail to arrest illegal aliens even when found. It is our government’s policy to fail to notice the illegal labor pools operating openly in every major city in America. It is doctrine to fail to deport illegal aliens even when they are arrested for other crimes, and to fail to investigate corporations openly claiming they cannot function without illegal labor. It is protocol to fail to notice when “temporary” visa holders never leave, and to fail to pursue court decisions against cities that actively provide sanctuary for immigration criminals.

Never has a fringe political movement succeeded so well by failure, as the open borders wing of our bipartisan ruling class has by its willful sabotage of our nation’s immigrations and customs enforcement apparatus. Now the feigned incompetence and willful neglect that have been used to achieve a de facto opening of borders is being used as a major argument in favor of passing the Bush/McCain/Kennedy/Reid amnesty for illegal aliens—a formal opening of the borders.

Everyday we hear the whine of the willing failures in Washington, D.C: It’s just so hard…Can’t we just give up and start over? ... We tried to guard the borders but they’re soooooo big. … There are so many people to keep track of and it’s just not reasonable to try. … It’s crazy to deport people back to where they actually are supposed to be … so we win, ha, ha, give us open borders like we wanted all along.

By contrast, if you want to see what our federal government is capable of when it stands to benefit from law enforcement, just look at our tax system. The modern tax code is a Byzantine obscenity. It’s too large to be understood by any one person. Armies of lawyers, accountants, and computer programmers are needed just to figure what each individual owes.

Every paycheck in America is tracked. Every corporation monitored. Every home sale and stock trade and bank account in a country of 300 million people is watched for potential taxation. Employers are used as the primary collection and enforcement apparatus in the system, which understands well that a corporation that fears huge fines for small errors will obey the law carefully. Saving a few bucks just isn’t worth it, if you get the IRS on your back.

For many people, the Internal Revenue Service is the most feared law enforcement agency in the country. At the state, county, and city level, nearly every house, trailer, boat, car, truck, RV, and motorcycle in the nation is tracked year to year, assessed, taxed and monitored with rigorous enforcement by every clerk and traffic cop possible. Likewise, nearly every gas station, shopping mall, fruit stand, restaurant and bar in America is expected to collect sales tax on every stick of gum or pair of panties it ever sold.

This the government can do. But it can’t find the illegal aliens on the street corner or shut down the makers of fake green cards or prosecute the same businesses it expects to obey a million different tax laws when they knowingly hire a subcontractor to provide them with laundered illegal labor.

Clearly, if you want a law enforced by our government, you should make it a tax law.

Which brings me to one of the more interesting possibilities in the popular rebellion against the anti-nationalists in the Democratic and Republican leaderships (those who seek to totally open our borders and thus eliminate our nation as anything other than a free-enterprise zone for the world’s excess poor and their would-be employers): What if advocates of secure borders and controlled immigration sought to entangle immigration and border enforcement with tax enforcement?

This could be done by throwing our weight behind the “Fair Tax” tax reform movement that is already gaining steam throughout America. Allow me to explain.

For those of you that don’t know, the Fair Tax movement seeks to replace the maze of current personal income, capital gains, corporate, gasoline, and payroll taxes that the federal government has thrown up over time with a single, fair consumption tax. Every person in America would take home their entire paycheck, and pay only this one tax, which could thus be easily monitored by voters. Likewise, every business would be subject to it and freed from having to hire a flock of lawyers to figure out their tax burden each year. The IRS would be abolished.

The Fair Tax is a consumption tax—a sales tax—it would be automatically calculated and collected every time you or any other person or business bought any item at the retail level. No more W-2s or 1040s or schedules B, or IRS audits or multiplying the greater of either line 32 or 34a by the amount from the appropriate box on the table on page 92. When you buy, you pay.

The tax has an enormous number of economic advantages that have been extensively analyzed by many economists and would spur growth, discourage corporations from moving offshore, and reward savings. These are too numerous and lengthy to detail here, but I encourage you to learn more by reading the Fair Tax Book .

The Fair Tax would neither raise nor lower your taxes, it would simply change the way they are collected—and that is how it might have an unintended effect on border security. When taxes are collected on retail sales, instead of income, the easiest way to avoid paying them is to try to buy your goods across a border, in a jurisdiction without the sales tax. This pattern is very familiar within America.

Just across the border from states with high gasoline taxes are clusters of gas stations. Just out of the reach of states with onerous liquor taxes are clusters of liquor stores. The southern portion of sales tax-free New Hampshire is one great cluster of malls and stores catering to shoppers from high-tax Massachusetts. States are prohibited from interfering with such activity under the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution. They really are powerless to enforce their borders (and properly so).

But imagine if Northern Mexico and Southern Canada became giant outlet malls catering to frugal shoppers from a Fair Tax America. How seriously do you think the federal government would become about inspecting every car and closing every isolated crossing point? If it were taxes sneaking across our borders, instead of illegal aliens, the government would have the Marines mining the fronteir with Quebec. Somebody sneaking in to take a job away from an American doesn’t bother Washington at all. But can you imagine the outrage and panic if that same person were sneaking in to try to sell Americans tax-free iPods?

The impossible-to-patrol border would suddenly become very, very patrolled. Or the government could choose to just forego all those taxes and get smaller and smaller. Which do you think would happen?

Now, the Fair Tax is worth implementing for other reasons, and would also discourage illegal immigration by fully taxing the underground economy for the first time (unlike an income tax, which is easily avoided by those who work off-the-books). But wouldn’t it be nice to have a byproduct of our tax system be secure, well ordered borders, adequately staffed and patrolled?

This year the Fair Tax bill (HR 25) has an impressive 57 co-sponsors in Congress and it gains support every year. The added support of millions of Americans opposed to open borders could push the bill into the realm of real possibility.

Most of life is the result of unintended consequences, and every once in a while they can actually work for you.

" "With its limited resources and power, how can it do something as complex as watch to see if a confused mob of aspiring roofers walks across a line in the desert? Or enforce laws against hiring illegal aliens? Or most intimidating of all, how can it find illegal aliens already within America?

"After all, they are so well hidden, standing there on the corner of McGrath and Broadway in Somerville, Mass., every morning from sunrise to lunch, waiting to be picked up by anonymous labor johns. Really, how does one capture people so cautious that they jump into the back of any truck that pulls up? I mean, this isn’t something easy like going to the moon or establishing Democracy in all the world. "

LOL! Exactly! We have laws that are totally ignored. On purpose I suppose with a wink and a nod. Illegal invasion by muggers stealing from taxpayers.

Somebody sneaking in to take a job away from an American doesn’t bother Washington at all. But can you imagine the outrage and panic if that same person were sneaking in to try to sell Americans tax-free iPods?

Don't know much about the Fair Tax proposal, but from what I've heard/read, this article now brings it all into focus, proper perspective and "common sense," attributes--none of which, of course, applies inside the Beltway.

This article hit home in that those of us who have that nasty habit of indulging in tobacco products (yes, smoking) have seen the results of the Gestapo-Tax-Zealots (led by New York's "Spritzer") as they threatened, cajoled, and ultimately "convinced" major credit card companies NOT to allow payments for tobacco products ordered online--primarily to Indian (sorry, native) controlled outlets.

It had nothing to do with smoking, health, cancer, kids, etc., it was all about THE MONEY (tax revenues) they were losing as a result of their own actions and the Billions of Dollars in lawsuit settlements which they received (and promptly deposited in the General Revenue and spend on whatever--and was apparently, not nearly enough for these money-grubbing-SOB's-Hacks)which led to higher prices; which led many of us to seek alternate and less expensive sources.

The IRS even forces employers to withhold a portion of wages earned by restaurant/bar/beauty salon, etc. employees, as it (IRS) assumes they (employees) earn tips, which they would not normally report.

Thus, if all were "forced" to pay their "fair share" thru a Fair Tax (including illegals) can anyone doubt who will be leading the charge and scream and holler the most AGAINST this proposal?

It will be demonized as "discriminatory," don't you know?

I don't think OTM terrorists sneaking across the border care a lick what kind of tax system we have.

The Point is that guarding the border would be ten times more effective including having ten times more border guards. All of which would make it ten times more likely that the border security would spot and stop terrorists. It's so obvious I only mention it because...

You already know it. And you know it doesn't fit your anti-FairTax agenda so you ignore it. You are soooo transparent. As Mark Twain wrote: "It's better to sit in silence and be thought a fool than to open ones mouth and remove all doubt."

For the unintended consequence of secure borders due to the FairTax, terrorists are anti-FairTax. You find yourself in such company, albeit for different reason. Then again, the IRS and income tax has terrorized hundreds of millions of Americans for decades. Thanks for injecting the terrorist issue as it relates to taxes.

If the *Fair Tax* was passed into law today, would the illegal immigration issue be put on the back burner? To me, it's only a fraction of the problem. The security and health issues, I hope, are at the top of most people's concern.

Time and money both have opportunity costs. For example, I want to go to the movie and I want to play golf but I have only three hours. Which will I chose? That's opportunity costs. Here's another: the movie costs ten dollars and golf costs ten dollars, but have only ten dollars. Which will I chose?

Without awareness of opportunity costs many people -- with regard to federal income tax -- think they can have it all. Security, health, etc. 47% of the population pays no income tax. They think they can have it all. What they don't know is that 22% of the price of goods they buy is embedded tax and tax compliance cost. They only think they aren't paying any federal tax cost because they are kept unaware of the 22% embedded tax cost.

They, and for that matter the 53% that pay federal income tax, are unaware of the opportunity cost because they are unaware of the real tax cost.

Empower people with acknowledging at the cash register via the FairTax just how much government is costing them and their opportunity cost awareness kicks in. That will move them toward how much government costs and what exactly their tax dollars should be used for. Then health and security issues that you want at the forefront have a chance of getting their with beneficial ends the target. Certainly national security will increasingly become the primary focus because the primary function of government is to protect individual rights against initiation of force, threat of force and fraud.

I've got a lot to listen to on this subject, as I've only begun musing about it.

What about my concern that creating a significant consumption tax creates a significant motivation to black marketeers, large and small, nefarious and seemingly innocent?

Also, I'm sure this is addressed, but how do you handle the inherently regressive impacts? No taxes on essentials?

Further, what to do with the new class of unemployed IRS and CPA minions who now will doubtless roam the streets in gangs, menacing our peaceful poulace with forms, charts and leftover gobbledygook?

I've got a lot to listen to on this subject, as I've only begun musing about it.

Spend some time perusing the Fair Tax web site. Lot of good info there.

Also, I'm sure this is addressed, but how do you handle the inherently regressive impacts? No taxes on essentials?

Excellent question. And the answer is here. Spend some time and read the entire FAQ.

Fair Tax BUMP!

YES -BUT

it is NOW we must act.

If we lean heavy on DC - with our support and DEMAND that this get done THIS year, it will take effect next Jan. - never again a 'tax day' no more IRS.

But if we don't get this done now - we may never get another chance. The dimRAts are not going to want to loose their 'brown shirt' division, the IRS.

The FAIR TAX and the abolishment of the IRS will bring the greatest freedom any of us have ever known. And it will turn the control of gov't back to US the People.

the only 'reporting' will be a post card size form every year to report - sent to the social security office - the name and SS# of those in our household.

No reporting of who we work for, how much money we make, nada...

Zon: The Point is that guarding the border would be ten times more effective including having ten times more border guards. All of which would make it ten times more likely that the border security would spot and stop terrorists. It's so obvious I only mention it because... You already know it.

xcamel: I know no such thing to be true. Simply taxing illegals does not make the problem go away.

That's your straw man. I never said nor implied the problem would go away, merely implied that the problem would be lessened. You attempt to put your words in my mouth. Doing that so that you could follow it with this:

xcamel: Again, all you can do is impugn the character of the person making the statement...

You do know that with ten times the amount of border security and guards that they would spot and stop more terrorists. Then again, maybe you don't and should take Mark Twains advice as posted at 7.

For more information see fairtax.org

NO but our CongressCritters would care to listen to US when we control the purse strings.

Why would they ever listen to US now? when they get an unlimited amount of money (power) no matter what they do.......they don't listen about the border b/c they don't have to. He who controls the purse strings will be listened to.

Our system, as is stands now, is one big conflict of interest.

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. P. J. O'Rourke

FairTax does not equal border security. Period.

"." PMS got the best of you? So you think increased border guards won't increase border security. As explained in the article, an unintended consequence of the FairTax will be increased border security.

It would however allow illegals to send 35-37% more money to mexico, but who's counting.

Why? Because illegal aliens wouldn't have payroll taxes withheld? Most aren't being withheld now!! Please do argue that the illegal aliens will go back to Mexico for each meal and go back to Mexico to sleep at night only to re-cross the border the next day. That way the will avoid paying the FairTax on food, rent, clothes and other things. Yeah that's the ticket, illegal aliens are going to routinely traipse back and forth across the border every day.

Again: "It's better to sit in silence and be thought a fool than to open ones mouth and remove all doubt." -- Mark Twain

For good information see the FairTax and the FairTax faq.

Fairest tax of all -- update (Fair Tax)

Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee,
Rep. Bill Archer (R-TX)
August 12, 1996

"A recent survey was done, in Europe and Japan, of the major corporations and I was astounded at the results. They were asked, 'If the US abolished its income tax and went to a sales tax, would that have any impact on your decisions?' Eighty percent of the corporations said they would build their factories in the United States of America. Twenty percent said they would move their international headquarters to the United States of America."

For more information see FairTax and the FairTax faq.

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