Posted on 12/24/2007 7:55:05 AM PST by Alex Murphy
WASHINGTON — Mike Huckabee, one of the most conservative Republicans in the 2008 presidential race, has embraced one of the most radical ideas on the campaign trail: a plan to abolish all federal income and payroll taxes and replace them with a single 23% national sales tax.
The idea -- dubbed the "fair tax" by proponents -- has been a political asset for Huckabee; its well-organized backers have helped catapult him from the back of the presidential pack to its top tier.
Sales tax proponents have tapped into seething voter hostility toward the Internal Revenue Service to become a below-the-radar political force, popping up at campaign events and candidate forums in Iowa and elsewhere.
The efforts on Huckabee's behalf by sales tax advocates helped spur his surprise second-place showing in an August Iowa straw poll -- the breakthrough that marked the beginning of his rise in the state and nationwide.
He is the only major presidential candidate to make the idea central to his campaign. "The first thing I'd love to do as president: Put a 'going out of business' sign on the Internal Revenue Service," he said at one debate.
Some wonder, however, whether his embrace of the plan eventually could turn into a liability.
The sales tax proposal has been around for years but languished on the fringes of practical politics and policy. Tax professionals generally regard the idea as impractical, regressive and even "crackpot," as one critic puts it.
It has gone nowhere in Congress. The 2005 Presidential Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform soundly rejected the idea. And many politicians shy away from it because it is easy for opponents to portray it as a huge tax increase -- as Democrats did in a 2006 Senate race in South Carolina.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
I simply think the fair tax will be worse for many americans and be a drag on the economy. It isn’t a liberal-conservative issue, it is a commonsense issue
How about crossing the border and buying in Canada or Mexico? Will there be a 30% tariff on imports?
I don't think it implies that at all. Ron Paul has some good ideas too, but I would not want to see him as President. That Mike Huckabee recognizes our tax system is a mess is to his credit.
Whoever we ultimately choose will need to exercise their leadership and make policy decisions about how and from whom taxes are collected. I would prefer a saner system than what ours has evolved into. Otherwise, honest, hardworking citizens will continue to be enslaved by stuff like this.
Although I dont like the Huckster..this is the issue that is driving his campaign.
We are headed for times like the UK is in. A complete socialists government with people at the hog feeder.
And I see a lot of those people are on this thread.
Dumb dumb dumb.
I am retired and pay no income tax. I will vote for Hillary before I would vote for a 23% tax on consumption.
excellent point. Plus, I forsee a huge rise in underground black market sales (including cheaper products smuggled over the borders) to avoid such a massive sales tax
Yeah, I stopped right there.
I stopped reading after the first sentence. Huckabee is far from conservative with his tax record, support for socialized medicine (See SCHIP), his support for closing Gitmo so we can make the muslim extremists happy, his Global Warming© support, and the MoveOn.org style attacks on President Bush.
there is nothing fair about a regressive consumption tax
Twenty-three percent is B/S. Since we are told this is now a Service Economy, tax services as well - every stock transaction, wire transfers of money, legal and other other professional fees, etc. Bet we could get the tax down to single digits. Exempt food and medicines - everything else gets it, including home purchases.
The approach should be that “we don’t care how you got it, we’ll get you when you spend it”. Money recouped from the Underground Economy would regain a big chunk also.
I live in Oregon and we have no sales tax but we do have an income tax. (tourists come free) Next door is Washington that has sales tax but no income tax. Oregon has long put out the idea of getting a sales tax but we won’t go for it because no one believes they’d really eliminate the income tax in return - and even Oregonians aren’t buying the promises to keep the sales tax low.
I sort of like the idea of changing from the income tax IF only a final sale to the end user is taxed. At least individuals wouldn’t be audited anymore. Hard to imagine our upstanding “leaders” ever giving up their ability to buy favors with our money though.
I also had a business...and I know what it’s like to deal with the IRS - but this wouldn’t go away with this sales tax.
Could it be that you are expressing an uninformed, knee jerk reaction rather than common sense?
He’s off my Christmas list. A whole life of working and paying massive income tax and he want me to now pay tax again when I use my savings to enjoy retirement. Taxed twice. Wonderful.
You’re both right, of course, that the govt will figure out another way to control us should the fair tax pass. My thinking for the post was a little more short term. My angst was more about folks who buy the headline at face value and don’t read even the short excerpt. I do have a clue - it’s small, but I have one ;-)
no. a 23% sales tax is madness.
As long as I’m collecting it then its fair. ;-)
At the end of the day a move to a national sales tax to replace the income tax will only succeed in giving us both an income tax and a national sales tax.
I did not read anything in Huckabee tax that said 23%
http://www.mikehuckabee.com/?FuseAction=Issues.View&Issue_id=5
There are 535 in Congress that LOVE the IRS & the power of the income tax!
Research before deciding. It is the end of the IRS, you get thousand or so back every month according to income and status.
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