The short of it: do you really think the imposition of a national sales tax will be accompanied by the removal of the income tax? I tend to doubt it. Where has a VAT actually replaced an income tax, rather than add to the tax burden?
Best I can see, eliminating the FICA/MedCare payroll tax and replacing it with a sales tax may make sense, especially as retirement benefits start to exceed payroll tax revenues.
But I bet you’ll never get rid of the income tax.
And we’re supposed to trust Huckabee on this one? Please.
If the fair tax is so great, why do I need to buy a book to understand it?
Flat tax.....I understand that.
You are right to think that way because Canada imposed the GST and kept their income tax.
And Canada has suffered for it.
The FT isn't graduated yet, it has a lot of work to do yet to be fair and at the current rate of improvement of deficiencies is not likely to ever graduate.
But I bet you’ll never get rid of the income tax.
Read the bill (which is readily available and easy to read) and you'll quickly see that it does remove the income tax provisions from the tax code, eliminates the IRS (defunds it), and requires the destruction of the income tax records.
Also the FairTax is not a VAT at all but greatly different in that it does not tax business to business transactions causing tax to be embedded in the products involved. It is a little like a VAT (collected at point of sale) with no applications for refunds (which is an administrative nightmare and manipulation problems) and has all of the benefits of a tax free IRA with no cap on savings and any earnings not taxed.
And the FairTax has been around in written form much longer that Huckabee (and other candidates) who have begun picking up on the fact that is has many supporters and is worth supporting.