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."
I just finished Boortz and Linder's book several weeks ago. I'm definitely for the FairTax.
No one in their right mind would oppose this idea, Unless, of course, it is for nefarious reasons.
ABOLISH THE I.R.S. NOW!!
Oppose? No. Think its a pipedream with the dishonest powerbrokers in DC? Absolutely.
My main concern with the FairTax and taxes like it: In short order, some Democrap will institute a NEW income tax "just on the rich." Of course, that's how the original income tax was sold. In short order, it will then be the same thing as our current income tax, and we will simply have TWO massive federal tax systems...
DING DING DING! We have a winner!
"Are they just protectiong thier personal loop hole?"
Nope. Existing already taxed money [cash, savings accounts, Roths] which under the present tax regime can be spent without income taxation, and with minimum [or no] sales taxation, will become liable to 20+% sales tax under this so-called "fair tax" system. Double taxation is not fair in any sense, so to avoid it one would need to up-index by decree all aftertax money at the moment of transition.
There's the main problem with the idea right there. One of the worst features of the present tax system is the ability of some people to shelter their income using various legal pretenses. This "Fair" Tax would preserve and enshrine that basic concept.
Everybody needs to pay. Everybody.
Yes. It really is that obvious.
If anyone would like to be added to this ping list let me know.
John Linder in the House(HR25) & Saxby Chambliss Senate(S25) offer a comprehensive bill to kill all income and SS/Medicare payroll taxes outright and replace them with with a national retail sales tax administered by the 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.Refer for additional information:
Bingo... They all should like a bunch of raging liberals. Furthermore, they lack all the facts, and become non logical. Oh and then they will BS you that they have read the book. If they did, then they would not be saying what they are saying. Its just that easy.
Well then the fair tax would go away. The way the proposal is written is that you can only have one, and not both.
No. I do not approve of the fair tax because it is just a silly shifting game. Oh look I'm paying out of my left pocket instead of my right pocket.
A fair tax would be an equal tax where every one is treated equally under the law and is given the same tax bill. How one arranges one financial affairs, should have no bearing on ones tax status. Should one freedom of speech, be dependent on the amount one has to say?
Equal citizens should get an equal tax bill.
My main concern with the FairTax and taxes like it: In short order, some Democrap will institute a NEW income tax "just on the rich."
Intersting that they have not managed to do so over the objections of the American people in the 100yrs of income taxes we have had. This nation funded itself on consumption taxes prior to the income tax, a dual tax system, even though such has been floated numerous time over the last century, has never gotten onto a launch pad much less enacted into law.
One thing is for certain, to even have get to the point of replacing the income tax system with a retail consumption tax will require the full support of the American electorate, it isn't going to happen any other way. To re-instate an income tax ontop of a national retail sales tax is not something that will fly in any near future scenario. It is a political loser with the American people and always has been. You very objection to such a notion is a demonstration of how deep the objection runs, get rid of the IRS by turning tax collection over to the states through a retail sales tax system, destroyu the income tax system infra-structure as is required by the legislation, and there will be no turning around to get a national income tax back.
Fool us once has already been done, second time with the experience of the IRS and AMT fresh in the electorate's minds guarantees no income tax system will be ventured anytime soon. In fact the push will be all to the wall for prohibition of income taxation and repeal of the 16th amendment once the income tax is replaced with a viable alternative in the from of retail sales taxes.
It is important that individuals and aliens file a tax return and pay their share (notice I did not write "fair" as fair is not a legal term of art but only subjective) but fix the alien problem first and apply the law to individuals before changing the tax code.
The unintended consequence of this however is most likely a phasing in of a national sales tax, say, a few percent to pay down the WOT debt or to pay for prescription drugs. Because of the generational consequences of changing provisions for trusts and the like in the present code, the income tax will be retained. We will end up with an additional layer of taxation. We can't let it happen.
However, one of the predicates of the FairTax is an amendment to the US Constitution abolishing the Income Tax.
Whether that can be done or not is another question. Somebody will have to do a good job selling this tax (ice to Eskimos?) to the American people. I will support any system that abolishes the Income Tax. On the one hand, the FairTax is the only proposition on the table that does that and on the other is far superior to any income tax.
Of course increasing tarrifs and duties on imported goods isn't a bad way to raise revenue and protect certain critical sectors of the economy from ruin or outsourcing.
A fair tax is one that accompanies a lower cost of government and is not passed on to future generations. That one has not surfaced yet.
That's the part that won't go through. They'll claim to abolish it in phases, since of course they can't go cold turkey... but once both systems are in place side-by-side, that's the way it will stay.
They never claim that the FairTax will outright REDUCE taxes. However, there will be a more fair and equitable distribution of the tax burden, and theoretically, will lure businesses that have moved out of the US back INTO the US. Of course, it hasn't been tried yet, but it sure sounds a helluva lot better than what we have now.
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