Posted on 09/01/2007 6:18:37 AM PDT by Man50D
The Sunday Wall Street Opinion Journal published an article (8/26/07), "Fair Tax, Flawed Tax" (link below) by former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy (1988-1993). It is obvious that the Journal editors and Mr. Bartlett didn't do their homework.
Many citizens will dismiss the FairTax Plan out-of-hand by reading this distorted play on words from the pen of Mr. Bartlett. Dismissing his assertion of the FairTax being connected to the Church of Scientology — a gorgeous lie to behold — he proceeds to lambast FairTax supporters with so-called evidence that it will not work and will cost more at the cash register by tacking on a 30 percent National Sales Tax.
Mr. Bartlett's proclamation of "FairTax" facts lack the knowledge that millions of citizens know from reading the book by radio talk-show host Neal Boortz and Congressman John Linder (R.,GA), "The FairTax Book." And the fact that the IRS will disappear from our lives. Those citizens know that Bartlett is way off base on the FairTax Plan.
He gets into trouble right away by giving examples which do not represent the FairTax. Anyone familiar with how the FairTax would work knows that any product, right now, includes embedded corporate-business taxes. So much so, that we citizens don't really know for sure how many taxes we're paying on any one product and service. [Don't Rug Cleaner services and Doctors pay taxes in running their medical practice (business)? Aren't a few taxes passed on to consumers and hidden in the price of those services?]
Researchers and analysts, after years of study and exposing those taxes to the light of day, have ascertained that the estimated embedded taxes are around 22 percent. Folks, that's after withholdings from wages and before the state and local sales taxes are added to your purchase at the checkout. But you'll never know it.
What Bartlett failed to accentuate about the FairTax Plan is the fact that the hidden embedded taxes are eliminated from the price and then, only then, is the 23 percent included. He offers a weak example: retail product price tag, $1.00, adds a national sales tax of 30 percent to make it $1.30. His big Calculation Error exhibits an example unrelated to the FairTax plan at all.
The True FairTax Plan would subtract the embedded corporate tax of 22 percent and add 23 percent —
$1.00 - 22 % = $0.78 $1.00 x 23% = $0.23 + $0.78 = $1.01 OR $0.78 x 29.5 % = $0.23 + $0.78 = $1.01
Depending on how you figure the FairTax math, either way, it comes out about the same.
Another distortion by Mr. Bartlett: The prebate to "all" households is not based on amount of annual income, but on the number of people in a household.
Mr. Bartlett's warped article makes a mockery of the FairTax Plan but also exposes either his lack of knowledge or his complete and intentional distortion. Other FairTax opponents have weighed in with their own skewed versions of FairTax facts, but this article takes the cake when it comes to misrepresentation. It is a brilliant example of how to persuade people to be "anti-something without really trying," much like global warming.
The faithful to our current tax system, promoting class warfare and progressive tax exemptions, are going to fight against the FairTax Plan to the end. The present IRS tax code with its thousands of pages plus more added annually by Congress continues to obey the Second Law of Thermodynamics — order to chaos. Disorder is what we experience now. It is time to replace this monster.
A near-future "FairTax" book will respond to all the criticisms. Both Rep. Linder and Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R., GA) have introduced the FairTax bills (HR25 and S.1025) in Congress. You may see the content of the bills online at Rep. Linder's site or through the American FairTax Organization (links below).
Attacked from all sides, FairTax proponents must continue to hammer home to the public the facts versus the distortions. The mainstream media, lacking its own FairTax education, doesn't recognize the errors and distorted lies of those promoting other tax reform agendas and calling them "FairTax" as Mr. Bartlett has done.
We Americans must educate ourselves and understand this total replacement of the IRS plan so we may make informed decisions. Read the book. Explore the links below to truly understand the FairTax Plan and its simplicity. It will benefit all of us — government, citizens and the corporation-business sectors.
It seems fairly self-evident to me that some people would do much better under a Fair Tax than our present system, and others would do much worse.
However, the proponents (zealots would probably be a better word) generally claim that almost everybody will be better off. This is a lot like, “We lose money on every unit, but we make a profit on large volumes.”
This contradiction does not increase my trust in their projections.
What The FairTax Book fails to mention is that prices can only fall this sharply if companies cut wages.
WRONG! This has been explained to you over and over again, and you still stick by this piece of misinformation to the point of either nailing down the fact that you are a complete idiot, or that you are a hopeless liar.
Find a new one, will you? you're worn this one out.
Embedded taxes consist primarily of payroll taxes, do they not?
If the company keeps paying out this amount, just directly to the employee rather than to the government, how do their costs and prices drop?
If they stop paying this amount, won’t the employee’s top line income drop by 23% or thereabouts? (15% income tax + 7+% SS.)
Wrong? Funny, the economist who did the study concerning embedded taxes says the same as I do. You guys have been pushing this lie for nearly 10 years now. The only response you guys can come up with is lying about how the plain truth has been discredited. It really does not help your case.
Oh puh_leeez. The man who the fairtaxers paid to do the story stated that.
And, just who might that be? and please give us you authority for sayhing so.
You keep talking about lying. When are you going to quote some of those lies -- and PROVE THAT THEY ARE LIES?
See my referenced post above.
I have, and it is as full of BS as you are.
As with any major restructuring of our tax code. Yes there will be winners and there will be losers. The fairtax proponents think they have to spin some fairtale result to win support. There is a reason why the tax commission who looked into major tax reform largely dismissed the analysis by the fairtaxers. It was just not realistic. For instance, a large part of the revenues raised under the fairtax is simply the government paying taxes to itself. Gee, I just made a million dollars by writing a million dollar check to myself.
Dr. Dale Jorgenson....and I gave a linked reference in post #9 on this thread. This has only been discussed 1000 times on this forum, and quite frankly, the few honest fairtaxers are embarrassed by those who continue to claim otherwise.
Can you once actually pose a logical argument?
Sadly, I'm afraid that's what this really is all about: pushing books.
I hear Boortz gives all his 'profits' to charity. And why not? He ought to have to PAY for the free advertising his show gets in this scheme!
Bless his heart, Boortz needs something to keep Miller and Levin off his back.
This brings up a good point. If the Fair Tax system has to be explained as much as it is..........If people have to lie about it as much as they do, something is wrong with it.
That reminds me of what Dr. Joseph Goebbels said: "Tell a lie often enough and someone will believe it." or words to that effect.
Looks like Always Wrong, or some other liar, has gotten to you.
And, if you will think about it I'm sure you'll remember that before the idea was 'sold', it took a lot of explaining to a lot of people to convince them that the world is round, not flat. And, there are still some hold-out idiots who insist that it is flat!!
True, but we already do. Getting rid of the 16th amdmt does not inhibit the states from charging existing or new income taxes, or property taxes or capital gains taxes.
There is zero historical evidence in the history of man to suggest that aggregate taxes charged by the State+Federal govt will go 'down' after reforming them.
Again, the only way to reduce government is by reducing overall spending, and cutting existing taxes. The only way to lose weight is to exercise and eat less. Who ever heard of going on a 'calorie neutral' diet?!?!?!
From Page 16 of A MACROECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF THE FAIRTAX PROPOSAL by Arduin, Laffer, & Moore
I invite all to read the entire document.
--- A well known fact once espoused by Neal Boortz
See: Questions 38 and 50 at
http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_faq
Here’s the problem with the Fair Tax: Congress will never abolish the federal income tax. I can easily see Congress slapping us with a national sales tax in addition to the income tax but I don’t think that they would get rid of the income tax. So we would just end up paying more in taxes. If the Fair Taxers could guarantee that the income tax would be abolished, then I would consider supporting their idea. Otherwise, no.
The FORM of taxation is HUGELY important to the long term health of a FREE society!
The trouble with a “flat tax” is it still requires the politicians and federal bureaucrats to determine the definition of income (through the use of devices such as deductions, exemptions and credits). That is where most of the hanky panky in the IRS code lies. The activity of congress, staff, lobbyists, accounts, tax lawyers, corporate staff and government bureaucrats related to income tax is in large part non-productive non-value adding activity in relation to the overall economy. The cost of all this non-productive activity and the actual cost of income , social security and medicare (payroll) tax taken from individuals and corporate entities anyway involved in design, production, marketing, transportation and sale of goods and services (imputed costs) comprise a significant percentage of the cost of such goods and services. This cost easily equals or exceeds the cost of the proposed Fair (sales) Tax. Most retailers already collect some form of state and/or local sales tax so the mechanism and concept is already in use. Yes, oversight and compliance will be necessary. Yes, there will be black market sales, lying and cheating. However, it cannot be more than what takes place under the current income tax system, including your friends and neighbors who fail to report cash income and who cross the line in taking credits, deductions and exemptions to secure a discount from many of their ordinary living and leisure time expenditures. If you believe in the reality of market forces and such complex concepts and elasticity of supply and demand, you will understand that these imputed costs will be wrung out of the cost of goods and services immediately. There will be disruption for those engaged in the non-productive activity specified above, but these are smart people and they will find something productive to do which will actually add to the overall economy. Those most negatively affected by the Fair Tax will be the politicians and lobbyists. It will significantly diminish their power (a very good thing) and this fact will be one of the main causes of opposition. Another significant cause for opposition will be “fear of the unknown”. For the ordinary citizen, the economy and the government (not the politicians) the Fair Tax would be a very good thing.
When the government spends 1 dollar or more for every 5 dollars of GDP, neither consumption nor income tax can be fair.
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