Fair tax proposal could unite country

Atlanta Journal Constitution ^ | April 25, 2007 | KEN HOAGLAND

[Wuli]

Our income tax system gives foreign manufacturers tax advantages over the "Made in America" label, makes debt more favorable than wealth, and — against all reason — costs taxpayers $265 billion a year in hours and money just to obey the law.

That average citizens are tirelessly inspired to organize and rally for an alternative that is simple, transparent and fair apparently makes Atlanta Journal-Constitution writer Jay Bookman so uncomfortable he resorts to comparisons with cults and misstates the actual tax-inclusive FairTax rate of 23 percent ("Fervent faith in Fair Tax defies reason," @issue, April 23).

In his cranky, contrarian quest to prove to the masses just how wrong they are, he asks how the Fair Tax can be revenue neutral if everyone pays less. First, some will pay more depending on how much they spend — this is a tax on consumption, after all. Secondly, he misses the larger point. Consumption is a far broader base for taxation than earnings and, therefore, generally requires less of each.

Dr. Laurence Kotlikoff, Boston University economist, finds that married couples earning from $30,000 to $50,000 with two children would have a lifetime average tax rate of from 3.4 to 11.1 percent compared to the current tax system's rate of 15.3 to 19.6 percent. This is such a fundamental concept; it is difficult to understand how Bookman missed this bedrock truth about the FairTax.

Under the FairTax, 10 million to...........

[SWAMPSNIPER]

Anyone who believes that money is the main motivator in my life, guess again!

[Responsibility2nd]

Fairtax.

Live it. Learn it.

[capt. norm]

Anyone who believes that money is the main motivator in my life, guess again!

Agreed. The old saying is that "money can not buy you happiness"....to which I add "but it can put you in a better bargaining position".

[Normal4me]

Ping

[Dick Bachert]

Folks, we CAN beat the entrenched mess in Malfunction Junction.

But it will take MASSIVE CITIZEN PRESSURE to fill this swamp.

The FairTax ain’t perfect – no tax IS – but it COULD serve as a vital waypoint back to a tax system the Founders MIGHT recognize were they to visit today.

Join the fight!

Every concerned citizen should go to as many Congressional Town Hall Meetings as possible if only because they are great theater. If you can go and PUBLICLY ask your congresscritter something like the following, so much the better:

"Except for several lapses in our national character and a brief period surrounding the War Between the States, for America's first 126 years – statistically, perhaps the most prosperous and free period in our history -- we funded the legitimate and Constitutional functions of government with INDIRECT taxes on consumption. For our first 126 years we held to the tax system the Founders intended here.

“Explain to these good folks why you (do/do not -- as the case warrants) support the Fair Tax (HR 25/S25) which seeks to REPLACE the UNFAIR and INCOMPREHENSIBLE income tax with a FLAT, FAIR national retail sales tax which would eliminate the IRS, one of the most dangerous agencies in government and, not incidentally, require that 12 million illegals pay for some of the welfare and other services they’re currently sucking from the rest of us?"

Remain at the mike and DON'T LET HIM GET AWAY WITH THE OLD POLITICAL TRICK OF ANSWERING SOME OTHER QUESTION.

A few thousand of us doing this on a regular basis will send 'em the message.

[Mark was here]

The only fair tax is to charge everyone the same amount.

One man, one vote, one tax bill.

Once you pay your tax you are free to keep what you earn.

With one tax bill, the politicians can not divide and conquer the people, with schemes to tax the other guy.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

Been broke, many times, damn near am now, ain’t a big deal!
If I get hungry I can always go trap a mess of crawdads or shoot a fat squirrel.
Thing is, if I’m not free, I can’t do anything but beg, and starve!
Hell, folks, Rudy couldn’t likely open a can of corned beef hash, without a Redneck to show him how.
If I’m going to call someone a “leader” they should know everything I do, and more!
Hell, if Rudy’s foot caught fire, and 911 didn’t respond, he would burn slap up, when all he had to do was pick which leg to piss down!

[KarlInOhio]

The FairTax is S 1025 this session. I guess the Dems didn't like it getting a small easily knowable number.

[Savage Beast]

Politicians use tax money to get themselves elected and re-elected. They’re not about to change anything.

[LibKill]

Durn near anything would be better than the current cluster——. I could live with the fair tax quite easily although I prefer the simplicity of a flat tax.

[Dick Bachert]

Thanks for the correction.

[Wuli]

“Anyone who believes that money is the main motivator in my life, guess again!”

Who pays your bills?

[Man50D]

Thanks for the ping. It’s amazing how many times I read someone attempting to rip apart The Fair Tax with misinformation and no alternatives.

[capt. norm]

You nailed him.

His view of the world has to go through the MSM, to whom he is heavily dependent at this stage of the game.

I think the liberal media has already selected him as th GOP candidate, mainly because they have a whole arsenal of crap they can rain down on him when the time comes.

Only if it has boiled down to between Rudy and Hillary would I vote for him.

[Man50D]

The FairTax ain’t perfect – no tax IS – but it COULD serve as a vital waypoint back to a tax system the Founders MIGHT recognize were they to visit today.

Right on the money DB! One founding father was Alexander Hamilton, first Secretary of The Treasury. he stated the following about consumption taxes:

It is a signal advantage of taxes on articles of consumption that they contain in their own nature a security against excess. They prescribe their own limit, which cannot be exceeded without defeating the end proposed-that is, an extension of the revenue. When applied to this object, the saying is as just as it is witty that, "in political arithmetic, two and two do not always make four." If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so great as when they are confined within proper and moderate bounds. This forms a complete barrier against any material oppression of the citizens by taxes of this class, and is itself a natural limitation of the power of imposing them.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

“Who pays your bills?”

---

Don’t have a mess of them to pay! I worked my ass off for close to 50 years, managed to hide a few bucks here and there.
I run around on a $1500.00 Chinese motorscooter, and take pictures with a couple of refurb cameras from Ebay. Not a month goes by when I don’t get word of another government handout I qualify for, if I am willing to stand in a line with a bunch of big fat HO’s! I’m not!
Hell, I could haul my old ass to the “clinic”, and a whole bunch of “doctors” who look amazingly similar to the bastards who flew into New Yorks towers, could just glance at me, and claim compensation!
Wuli, there have been a couple of times in my life when I may have been “scared”, but I had to get over it, or die!
Hell, I started dieing the minute the Doctor slapped my ass! So did you!

[EternalVigilance]

FairTax BUMP!

[Bigun]

The FairTax ain’t perfect – no tax IS – but it COULD serve as a vital waypoint back to a tax system the Founders MIGHT recognize were they to visit today.

AMEN Dick Bachert! AMEN!

One thing is for sure! The founders would certianly shake their head in bewilderment at the current mess we call a tax system in this country!

We will never again be a truly free people so long as we have the income tax and the IRS!

[CMAC51]

Durn near anything would be better than the current cluster——. I could live with the fair tax quite easily although I prefer the simplicity of a flat tax.

The flat tax is an improvement over the graduated income tax, but it would not produce the windfall in tax revenue that the Fair Tax would (Without any additional burden to the American Taxpayer I might add.) Most people who discuss taxes generally get it wrong because they confuse taxes with tax collection. Under any system, no matter how you structure it, the end consumer pays the tax. It is built into the cost off the goods or service. If there were no taxes, the end price would be lower. When you buy a car, the taxes burden of everyone involved in its finance and production are built into the final price, all of the taxable elements along the way from the shareholders dividend, to the component suppliers to the people who build and sell it. The taxes they pay, all come from the final price paid for the car. Changing the system doesn't change that.

The tax rate in the United States is roughly 20% of GDP. So when you spend money on something, you are paying 20% in taxes. Set up any tax system you want and it will end up working the same. The only way you lower or raise taxes is when the government changes the percentage of GDP they take in. To demonstrate with a simple model, consider if you were to hire a piano teacher for your child. The piano teacher charges a competitive amount for their services plus what is necessary to cover the tax bill. You can have a system where you pay the total amount to the teacher and the teacher sends the tax portion to the government or you can pay the teacher their part and send the government theirs directly. It's the same either way. the consumer is paying the tax. There are only two types of taxes; consumption taxes and wealth taxes. The estate tax and property taxes are examples of wealth taxes. Almost all other taxes are consumption taxes, irregardless of how they are collected. Go ahead and try to define a system where it isn't the end consumer that pays the tax. You'll fail. Under close examination, the real tax payment will always trace back to the consumer.

There is, however, a compelling reason for the fair tax. In the US, roughly 20% of the price of everything is built in tax burden. However when an imported product is sold, that 20% or a large portion of it goes out of the country. The current tax system allows foreign imports to compete against US products which have a 20% tax burden built into them. The fair tax would lower the sticker price of the US product and tax revenue to the government would be the same whether a domestic or import product was sold. It would go a long way in correcting our trade imbalance. Right now foreign companies get nearly 20% bonus revenue vs their domestic competitors. If union members understood how taxes really work, they would take to the streets demanding the fair tax.

The current trade deficit is over $700 billion a year. The Fair tax would trap 20% of that in the country as tax revenue. It would be well over $100 billion a year in additional tax revenue to the government without the American Taxpayer paying one cent more than they do now.

The Fair tax proponents say a rate of 20 - 23% would be necessary to produce the same revenue as the current tax system. They forget the lost revenue leaving the country. By trapping that revenue in the country, a tax rate of more like 17% - 18% would produce the same revenue as the current system.