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Brilliant, no why hasn't any one been able to do that in the last 92 years the income tax system has been in place?

At least I did something to design a system whereby much of that need will be eliminated. What's your contribution?

As I said, I have no problem with an NRST in principle, but the enforcement requirements in a nation that can't seem to stem the flow of illegal drugs scare me. California already exempts many goods from its sales tax and the machinations around what is "food," for example, and what isn't are amazing. What makes anybody here think that a sales tax will be any less subject to patronage, complex tweaks, byzantine accounting, and outright corruption when the difference is an automatic 25-35% advantage for your product (when state sales taxes are factored in) I don't know.

State sales taxes are an altogether different beast than the FairTax. the present state sales taxes are composed of huge numbers of exemptions and exceptions and are (much like the present federal income tax) the playground for rent-seekers and political mischief makers.

With the FairTax there are none of these sorts of exemptions and exceptions and only a single rate. Attempting to carve out special benefits affects all taxpayers and the law has no provisions for that. In fact it clearly states just the opposite.

If the FairTax were to pass right now he rate would be about 19% rather than 23% and if states conformed their sales taxes to the FairTax their tax base would be greatly expanded and their rate would drop from, say, 7% down to 2% or even less due to the removal of exemptions, etc. and the taxing of services (which state sales taxes do not now do).

The point of that is that the advantage would be much less than you state in your apparently automatically-assumed "corruption" which is unidentified is more like 20-21% if any at all. And keep in mind that "corruption" under the present system yields more benefit to the corruptee since the marginal rates are higher. In addition, one is more likely to be detected breaking the FairTax law that at present.

Also, the Canadian and Australian GSTs are actually VATs and not a true sales tax imposed a single time upon final consumption. A VAT is quite a different type of tax in its effects on the economy.

the enforcement requirements in a nation that can't seem to stem the flow of illegal drugs scare me.

And the enforcement requirements of the current income/payroll tax system that can't seem to extract a penny of income or payroll tax from that illegal drug traffic doesn't?

At the least, under a ubiquitous retail sales tax, income from illegal trade or the underground economy expended on consumer products from legitimate retailers get fully taxed.

. California already exempts many goods from its sales tax and the machinations around what is "food," for example, and what isn't are amazing.

Realize the National Retail Sales Tax implemented under the FairTax legislation does not exempt products or services. Instead it provides a sales tax rebate mechanism paid to all legal residents equally to provide for payment of the sales tax on expenditures at the HHS poverty level defined for size of household. This avoids the necessity and problems of making such definitions and specific exceptions as you mention which obviously are the source of much manipulation and political wrangling in the state sales taxes.

What makes anybody here think that a sales tax will be any less subject to patronage, complex tweaks, byzantine accounting, and outright corruption when the difference is an automatic 25-35% advantage for your product (when state sales taxes are factored in) I don't know.

When you clean the slate it becomes more difficult to favor a specific group without raising the hackles of everyone else. Especially where everyone is treated precisely the same to begin with and there are no exceptions to the tax. Touching one point visibly affects everyone, making machinations much more dangerous for politicians to engage in.

Of course we have a perfect example in what doesn't work to control such machinations that you speak of in the current income/payroll tax system repealed under the implementation of the FairTax (H.R.25):

"As a matter of fact, what the income tax does — and this is the debate that I think we always try to get into in order to let you and him fight, see — and the people of this country are led down a path where the actual control of their resources, which in the end is the control over their will, is handed off to the government."

. . .

"The government then manipulates that will in order to destroy the freedom of our electoral system through the income tax structure, and we call the resulting slavery a free system."

"In point of fact, it is not as the founders understood, and the only way to restore real freedom is to give people back control over the income that they earn so that they won‘t, at the voting booth and in other phony issues, be subject to that manipulation."

- KEYES TRANSCRIPT (01/28/02)

At least I did something to design a system whereby much of that need will be eliminated.

Interesting, now where is it implemented and providing this reduction in government you speak of?

Or at the least what legislation in Congress is even proposing to use your brainchild?

What's your contribution?

At present advocacy and support of an actual implementation of a replacement tax system that breaks the income tax paradigm, introduced into both the House and Senate of the United States:

H.R.25,S.25
A bill to promote freedom, fairness, and economic opportunity by repealing the income tax and other taxes, abolishing the Internal Revenue Service, and enacting a national retail sales tax to be administered primarily by the States.