Posted on 04/04/2006 2:17:28 PM PDT by Eaglewatcher
The FairTax (HR 25 in the US House and S 25 in the US Senate) is a federal retail sales tax that replaces the entire federal income and Social Security tax systems, including personal, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security/Medicare, self-employment, and corporate taxes. The FairTax allows Americans to keep 100 percent of their paychecks (minus any state income taxes), ends corporate taxes and compliance costs hidden in the retail cost of goods and services, and fully funds the federal government while fulfilling the promise of Social Security and Medicare.
More FairTax benefits:
No tax on used goods. No tax on business inputs. With the FairTax, if you choose to buy any new good or service, the sales tax is charged just as state sales taxes are computed today. If you choose to buy used goods - used car, used home, used appliances - you do not pay the FairTax. If, as a business owner or farmer, you buy something for strictly business purposes (not for personal consumption), you pay no FairTax. So, in deciding what to buy, you get to choose whether or not you pay the FairTax.
No federal sales tax up to the poverty level means progressivity like today's tax system. Furthermore, to ensure that no American pays tax on necessities, the FairTax plan provides a prepaid, monthly rebate for every registered household to cover the consumption tax spent on necessities up to the federal poverty level. This, along with several other features, is how the FairTax completely untaxes the poor, lowers the tax burden on most, while making the overall rate progressive. However, the FairTax is progressive based on lifestyle/spending choices, rather than simply punishing those taxpayers who are successful. Do you see how much freer life is with the FairTax instead of the income tax?
All Americans take home their whole paychecks. Not only do more Americans have jobs, but they also take home 100 percent of their paychecks (except where state income taxes apply). No federal income taxes or payroll taxes are withheld from paychecks, pensions, or Social Security checks. Retail prices no longer hide corporate taxes or their compliance costs, which drive up costs for those who can least afford to pay. Did you know that hidden income taxes and the cost of complying with them currently make up 20 to 30 percent of all retail prices? It's true. According to Dr. Dale Jorgenson of Harvard University, hidden income taxes are passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices - from 20 to 30 percent higher than they would otherwise be - for everything you buy.
Tax criminals - don't make criminals out of honest taxpayers. Today, the IRS admits to 25 percent non-compliance with the code. However, this does not take into account the criminal/drug/porn economy, which conservative estimates put at one trillion dollars of untaxed activity. The FairTax taxes those engaged in the underground economy capturing their income at the cash register. The substantial decrease in points of compliance - from every wage earner, investor, and retiree, down to only retailers - also allows enforcement to concentrate on following the money to criminal activity, rather than making potential criminals out of every taxpayer struggling to decipher the code.
The income tax exports our jobs, rather than our products. The FairTax brings jobs home. Most importantly, U.S. exports are not burdened by the FairTax, as they are with the current income tax. So the FairTax allows U.S. exports to sell overseas for prices 22 percent lower, on average, than they do now, with similar profit margins. Lower prices sharply increase demand for U.S. exports, thereby increasing job creation in U.S. manufacturing sectors. At home, foreign imports are subject to the same FairTax rate as domestically produced goods. Not only does the FairTax put U.S. products sold here on the same tax footing as foreign imports, but the dramatic lowering of compliance costs in comparison to other countries' value-added taxes also gives U.S. products a definitive pricing advantage which foreign tax systems cannot match.
YOU are in charge! The FairTax moves us from a system that taxes what we earn to a system that taxes what we spend. Under the FairTax, you control your tax liability, not the government. The FairTax puts "we the people" in charge of our money, and puts us all on the path to economic freedom!
To enact the FairTax and unleash the full economic potential of the U.S., we must apply Vocal and Persistent pressure on Congress each week.
Email, call or fax your members of Congress today. Send them this simple message: "Please support replacing the federal income tax code and become a co-sponsor of HR 25 or S 25, the FairTax."
For all but a tiny fraction of the population (less than 1%) the HCA prebate will be money that they already paid to the government.What's your source for that?
With the FairTax it would take two people in collusion to cheat.No it wouldn't. There would be lots of ways for an individual to cheat the FairTax. A couple of examples: a business could collect the tax and not remit it or a buyer could provide a business-use certificate for the purchase of a personal use item.
Where you work, and what your compensation is, will still be info the government has in its database because it is necessary for the SS participation.
I get your point. I'm adding to the picture.
If I had a choice I would gladly forgo collecting socialist insecurity payments in favor of not telling the government what my compensation is and where I work. Nor will I sign up for the HCA prebate. I chose anonymity.
That said, for the purposes of SS and the HCA it's minimal privacy given up compared to the present system.
With a fast growing economy there is more GDP including increased retail-consumer spending. That equates to more tax revenue and people calling for reduced government spending. Call for reduced government spending that is already in motion from people feeling the 30% (23% inclusive) tax bite at the cash register.
As time goes by and the economy takes off evermore people will opt out of SS and the HCA. That further reduces government control. That's on top of the people having already taken back control of their income.
LOL! That's like saying that if everyone got paid under the table instead of having to suffer immediate confiscation that the present tax scam would not be affected.
No it isn't. I said if the illegal economy increased ten times -- an order of magnitude (your strawman) -- neither the present tax system nor the Fairtax would survive.
It's exactly like saying "an illegal economy of services and black market goods that has the very real potential to increase by, at least, an order of magnetude" -- eskimo@ 101
Yeah right -- NOT! An order of magnitude (correct spelling) -- ten times increase of the illegal economy. And you think people are going to take you seriously!?
You're hoot!
The "Fair Tax" certainly doesn't change that situation.
Just a rough estimate, but here is what I came up with.Not only is it a rough estimate, it's wrong.
It's completely irrelevant: government checks are always bad.
...
After all, a government check is a government check, right?
End strawman. You created a closed loop where government checks are always bad. You said it and will be back tracking, claiming that you didn't mean government checks are always bad and that there are exceptions. I see no reason to continue debating your hypocrisy.
Even if the "prebate" check were completely legitimate, which it isn't, it would still be bad.
The HCA prebate is legitimate and treats each person equally by the fact that they are a human being. Not treating them unequally because incomes differ, age differs, special minority status differs as it is with the present tax system.
It sets the stage for poiltically popular efforts to increase the "prebate", until it equals a handout for the bottom third or half of Americans.
DUH! The stage is already set and is where we are at now with a multitude of K street lobbyists clamoring after prostituting politicians. It's the main reason the tax code is 60,000+ pages. Because the HCA is pegged to the GAO numbers it would be very difficult to change the prebate. The Faitax bill (H.R.25) is just 132 pages.
I'll give you credit though -- you know that the FairTax (H.R.25) would never pass without the prebate. Your argument on this issue is shallow at best..
Seriously, you can't be that naive. Talk to some who lived through WWII or even some of their children. I may be "hoot" to you but I'm not foolish enough to laugh off history when deciding what is best for our republic.
Yawn the premise is that maintaining same revenues as today is not a necessity. Rates under that condition are lower with concequent growing economy.
To merely make a static calculation such as yours is even more out of the ball park that the lower rates estimates of my table.
However the key factor and point is not the absolute value of the rate of taxation per-se. It is the point that participation in the tax system at all economic levels is key to gaining control over government growth. A retail sales tax system assures that all voters are perceptually exposed to the tax burdens of government fostering a change in electorate behaviour and demands with respect to government.
The ultimate achievement can be rates substantially below 10% tax inclusive rather than the 20% tax inclusive rates of taxation we see today through the income/payroll tax system which hides much of the burden from large sectors of the perceptions of the electorate.
Begin remedial education in logic...
A "strawman" is an argument that I put in your mouth, for the purposes of refuting it. My argument was not a straw man: I put nothing in your mouth. Instead I put some words in MY mouth. Namely, the claim that all government checks are always bad, precisely because it desensitizes people to accepting payout of tax dollars.
End remedial education in logic.
That's a bastardization of the word "voluntary". If you don't want to pay income tax, you can choose not to earn income, too.
Yawn the premise is that maintaining same revenues as today is not a necessity. Rates under that condition are lower with concequent growing economy.It's nice to know you have no concern for accuracy in your calculations. I'm sure if you had over estimated you would take the same lackadaisical attitude...
That's a bastardization of the word "voluntary". If you don't want to pay income tax, you can choose not to earn income, too.This crap about the FairTax being "voluntary" is too typical of FairTax supporters. It would not be voluntary. Voluntary would be if they asked me when I bought a new car "Do you want us to add $10,000 in FairTax to the price?" That would be voluntary.
Actually, under the FairTax legislation, one can choose to not purchase new concentrating on used items, as well as grow one's wealth through investment not taxed.
Under your scenario for the avoiding an income tax by not earning income, one merely becomes poorer without the option of being better off overtime that is inherently present with a retail sales tax system.
Under a sales tax system one may defer consumption of services and new products in favor of saving, investing and adjusting one's consumption habits for greater future potential not sacrificing today earning but redirecting them into more productive venues.
For all but a tiny fraction of the population (less than 1%) the HCA prebate will be money that they already paid to the government.1% of the population is 3 million people. 3 million people each receiving their $732 "prebate"(gag!) would be $2.2 BILLION dollars a year...Where would that extra welfare money come from?
The pre-bate is an advanced "re-fund" of the sales tax paid.I get the money I paid before I pay it...Pure idiocy!
It's nice to know you have no concern for accuracy in your calculations. I'm sure if you had over estimated you would take the same lackadaisical attitude...
Actully the 15% with no SS/medicare system is based on the Billy Tauzin's NRST that replaced income taxes but not payroll taxes with a NRST structured like the FairTax legislation.
Franky your assumption as to how the tax rates were derived for that table is as way off mark as your computations for lack of considering the economic growth potential that goes hand in hand with repeal of income tax systems and moving to broader based taxes with lower marginal rates.
Actully the 15% with no SS/medicare system is based on the Billy Tauzin's NRST that replaced income taxes but not payroll taxes with a NRST structured like the FairTax legislation.In one paragraph you say it was based on Tauzin's NRST rate and the next you say the rate is lower due to "economic growth potential." Which is it?
Franky your assumption as to how the tax rates were derived for that table is as way off mark as your computations for lack of considering the economic growth potential that goes hand in hand with repeal of income tax systems and moving to broader based taxes with lower marginal rates.
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