Just a question that I wonder about: Do you know approximately how much in income/payroll taxes you pay each year? Do you know how much in sales taxes? How about gasoline taxes. I argue that it is actually easier for the government to take more of your money without you knowing it in sales/consumption taxes than in income taxes.
I don’t keep every receipt for bread/coffee/gas that I buy each year so I can calculate how much the government has taken. At least with income taxes I file a return and know to the penny what they confiscate.
The problem is that although you know approximately how much you pay directly you CANNOT know how much you pay indirectly and that is not an insignificant amount.
Any nation claiming to be a FREE society ought, in my humble opinion, to have a tax system that is simple, not easily manipulated behind the scenes for political purposes, completely transparent, and one that does not require a large administration for its enforcement. The income tax fails on all points! The Fairtax would not.
Do you know how much in sales taxes?
As a matter of fact yes I do to the penny! Anyone who wants to know that can easily do so. I am also reminded of the high cost of government with every purchase I make under the sales tax and, unlike the income tax system which takes whatever portion of the fruits of my labor it currently wants before I actually see a penny, I get to decide whether or not I am in a position to pay the tax with the sales tax! If not I simply make do with what I have and fore go the purchase until I AM in the position to make it.