This is one of the aspects of FT that concerns me. SSA cannot distribute monthly checks accurately with some 9 million errors annually, and I don’t see how the government will be able increase a single income tax refund into 12 prebates, and ever at a reasonable cost to accomplish this task. More of a pure consumption tax without government payouts may be a better alternative.
The government will not be squeezing an ‘income tax’ refund into 12 rebates. Apparently you mispoke and meant to say 12 rebates derived from FairTax revenues.
The government keeps fairly good track of households now via income tax filing. It cannot be more difficult for households to pick up a monthly rebate card, check or sign up for direct deposit.
And a few million errors over several hundred million checks (number of Social Security recipients times 12 checks) is a small percentage. That’s not to say it can’t be improved.
The reasoning for the rebate is here in answers to various questions running from 3 to 18:
http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_faq
The rebate ensures the poor do not pay disproportionately more for necessities. It is an essential piece of the FairTax bill and is well worth the benefits and simplification that occur from abolishing the Income tax and IRS.