"As long as the government confiscates an unfair percentage of GDP, no tax system can be fair."
--- A well known fact once espoused by Neal Boortz
Posted on 08/28/2007 4:39:18 PM PDT by Bigun
The People Must Demand The Fair Tax
By Doug Patton
August 28, 2007
Last year, during the United States Senate race in Nebraska, Republican challenger Pete Ricketts suggested that every option must be considered when looking at ways to reform our federal tax system. Among the list of alternatives Ricketts said should be on the table was a national sales tax known simply as the "Fair Tax."
The Democrat incumbent, U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson, launched an attack on his opponent that was, at best, distorted and condescending, at worst, irrational demagoguery. One would have thought that Ricketts had suggested stealing all the assets of the poor and handing them over to Warren Buffet and Bill Gates.
Recently, the panel of pundits on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," discussing the apparent rise in popularity of former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee's presidential campaign message, scoffed at Huckabee's unabashed promotion of the Fair Tax.
George Will, the token "conservative" on the panel, brushed it aside with the disbelief of an elitist who cannot understand the burden of the average worker who would love to take home his or her entire paycheck, as the Fair Tax would allow him or her to do. Will opined that Huckabee's second place showing in the Iowa straw poll was even more amazing given the fact that "he supported a national sales tax of thirty percent, which means that if you buy a one million dollar house, you'll be writing a check to the government for three hundred thousand dollars." Of course, the others on the panel readily agreed.
The elites of this country, who buy those million-dollar homes, are not enamored with the Fair Tax. They would be if they took the time to understand its appeal.
The Fair Tax would replace all federal income taxes. No more federal withholding. No more Social Security withholding. No more Medicare withholding. No more stealing from the paychecks of American workers before they even see it and then pretending to give them a refund, without interest, at the end of the year. No more saving receipts for tax deductions. No more IRS audits. No more April 15th.
Instead, the Fair Tax would put us in control. All consumer items would be taxed. Business purchases would not. By allowing us to make the determination about what we buy and when we buy it, the ability of our legislators to manipulate our behavior is eliminated. That is why the elites don't like it. They can't control the public's spending habits under such a system.
The current federal tax system is broken. It cannot be fixed. Since the inception of the federal income tax with the passage of the 16th Amendment in 1913, federal corruption and control have turned it into a Frankenstein monster that torments the people and serves the special interests. A tax on a person's income is a tax on production, and as Ronald Reagan once said, "Whatever you tax, you get less of."
Because the poor are forced to spend a disproportionate percentage of their resources to cover the tax on necessities, the Fair Tax hits them the hardest. That issue can be addressed by simply issuing a "prebate" check each month to every household in the country. Unlike disingenuous tax credits, deductions, exemptions and other loopholes in the current income tax code, a prebate check is a clean, honest method of covering the sales tax on food, clothing and shelter - up to the poverty level.
Of course, removing the income tax on corporations will reduce the cost of everything we buy, since corporations don't pay taxes. They simply pass them along to consumers. The Fair Tax plan calculates that removing the corporate income tax will result in a reduction in the cost of virtually every consumer item on the market. In fact, it will just about offset the tax on those products. Imagine paying the same price for something but having your entire paycheck to buy it.
And then there are the billions of dollars that flow untaxed through our economy today: drug dealers, prostitutes, pornographers, foreign tourists. Imagine how much revenue could be raised simply by taxing the things those people consume.
There would be no more audits, no more justifying deductions, and April 15th would become just another spring day. But only if the people stand up to the elites and demand it.
Oh boo-friggin-hoo... insult every intelligent person on the thread two or three times over and now you’re playing the victim?? Please cry us a river.
Grow the hell up (seems you couldn’t read it the first time)
Okay Einstein, let’s see your math.
"As long as the government confiscates an unfair percentage of GDP, no tax system can be fair."
--- A well known fact once espoused by Neal Boortz
Her or his comments were over the top.
Also no intelligent people were insulted by me, just the delusional non-thinking gnats.
Yes you are definitely in that category.
The statement is true. The FairTax is fair because it taxes everyone at the same rate. But the level is not fair just as the present system of taxation is not fair.
Is it fair to tax everyone at the same rate? Yes.
Is the FairTax level of taxation fair? No.
Is the present level of Income taxation fair? No.
Got any more questions? Yes.
Got any intelligent questions? No.
Got any intelligence? No.
I'm not sure exactly what he is suggestingI think in his mind he isn't suggesting anything. I think he thinks it's a done deal that they are going to test the Fairtax in a few states.
So I guess the federal income tax code would be suspended/repealed for those states and anyone working in those states wouldn't have any deductions and somehow everyone selling anything in those states would, as if by miracle, be able to reduce their prices ( per the Fairtax mindset/mantra)
Bizarre huh?
were you answering my post?
Oh really? I am wrong? Says who? You?Simple wording in the bill (the one you've never read) proves otherwise.The NRST doe NOT tax existing federal excise taxes and state sales taxes
Enlighten me on the prebates, and the need for them as an integral part of the Fair Tax plan.The rate is inflated by about 23% to pay for it. Do you want to pay 23% more tax than what is actually needed to fund the government.
The (GAG!) "prebate" would just be one more huge entitlement.
I think it would be interesting to live in the state with no income tax, and shop across the state-line tax-free. I wonder how long before they put up barbed wire around the state and checkpoints at the border?
Beyond bizarre and into totally goofy territory. But then...
I wonder how the state(s) would be selected and over the state line buying would be controlled.
I wonder how long before they put up barbed wire around the state and checkpoints at the border?LOL. I know, they'll have to lock the sales tax state residents in to keep them from shopping across the state line...Or would it be the other way to keep everyone out of the free lunch state?
I certainly apoligize for my “sophmoric” posts or questions “packaged in sniping comments”....and I’m sorry if I’m not a Fair Tax kool-aid drinker. My position is what’s behind door #3, #4, #5, or #6? As it is proposed, Fair Tax has no chance, IMHO, in this country for political and legal reasons. Repealing the 16th amendment would take longer for 38 states to ratify than we will be debating this proposal. I looked at it 3 years ago, and did not come to any conclusions and let the debate take its course to learn more and to give the proposal a fair chance. It should not be written in stone and proponents would be wise to look at some of the ideas presented that may make a good thing better. If I had 2 choices: Fair Tax or the current income tax, I would choose the former, but I do NOT have only 2 choices. Last post to you.
From your byline, I can say that it really is the spending, which is precisely why I would not support Fair Tax with the current prebate system. It is huge amount of paperwork and administration in a time that we need to reduce government spending in our fiscal policy to generate better velocity in the economy, more private investment, and LOWER taxes.
Another intelligent soul saved from the evils of snake oil
Should I say it? I think Fair Tax will cause excess global warming! LOL
It sure generates a great deal of hot air..
When you boil it down, the tougher questions the ones they always avoid. Anger is the last line of defense, and when you’re angry you pretty much have nothing of value left to say.
They are convinced that they are right, and that everyone that is not buying their utopian vision of how the FairTax would work, is not to be trusted and must have hidden, possibly illegal, motives for the opposition.
They combine arrogance and ignorance into one quite unpleasant reformist cult. It drives people away in droves.
Fervent Faith in Fair Tax Defies Reason
by Jay Bookman (April 23, 2007)
I wouldn’t want to accuse Georgia’s Fair Tax movement of being a cult, but it does have a disturbing number of cult-like attributes. Among other things, its adherents display an almost religious fervor for their cause, to the point that they become blind to the obvious irrationality of claims that are made on its behalf.
The prime advocate of the Fair Tax in Congress, U.S. Rep. John Linder (R-Ga.), claims the tax will do away with “all personal income taxes, corporate income taxes, payroll taxes, self-employment taxes, capital gains taxes and gift and estate taxes.” Instead, those taxes will be replaced with a retail sales tax of 30 percent on all services and new goods.
Among other benefits, Linder claims that adopting the Fair Tax will drive down retail prices by 20 percent to 30 percent. That price drop would almost completely offset the Fair Tax’s 30 percent sales tax, meaning that in effect, we could run the federal government for free.
But wait! If you act now, Linder will also throw in a 10.5 percent increase in the nation’s gross domestic product the very first year the Fair Tax is in place. And as a special bonus, interest rates would also fall by 20 to 30 percent.
Linder and other Fair Tax advocates, including talk radio host Neal Boortz, make two other promises as well. First, they say, the Fair Tax will be revenue-neutral, generating just as much money as the current system.
Second, they promise that the Fair Tax will not shift the tax burden onto low-income households, as sales taxes usually do. To their credit, they make an honest effort to achieve that goal, using a monthly check to compensate low-income households for the higher sales tax they would pay.
But let’s review. Under the Fair Tax, low-income Americans won’t pay taxes; corporations won’t pay any taxes either. Yet the Fair Tax is guaranteed to generate the same amount of revenue as today’s system. Basic arithmetic requires that somebody’s taxes increase. Who will that somebody be?
For example, would it be a typical middle-class two-income Georgia family with two kids, a mortgage and college tuition payments? As it happens, I have access to the tax returns of just such a family.
At www.fairtax.org, the main Web site of the Fair Tax movement, I plugged the Bookman family financial data into the FairTax calculator. The model reported that the Fair Tax would save me $7,500.
Suddenly, the Fair Tax didn’t seem such a bad idea.
Still, the mystery remained: If the middle class pays less, and corporations and poor people don’t pay anything at all, who pays more? The rich? That didn’t seem likely given Republican enthusiasm for the Fair Tax, but again I turned to the FairTax calculator for help.
As it happens, I also had access to the 2006 tax return of a rather wealthy couple who reported an adjusted gross income of $765,801 and paid $203,021 in federal taxes. What would this couple, a certain George and Laura Bush, pay under the Fair Tax?
Plugging their data into the calculator, I learned that the Fair Tax woud cut their federal tax burden by $74,596.
I then began to punch invented numbers into the model, determined to find somebody, even a theoretical somebody, who would pay more. A family with $1.5 million in income, with a $4.5 million mortgage? Nope. Under the Fair Tax, they would save $436,624.
Finally, I hit paydirt. It turns out that a married couple with two children who rented their home and made $40,000 would, under the Fair Tax, pay $860 a year more in taxes than they do today.
Somehow, I doubt that will be enough to make the concept revenue-neutral.
In 2005, a panel appointed by President Bush to study proposed changes in the federal tax system reached the same conclusion, though its process was more sophisticated. It found that eliminating just the federal income tax — leaving payroll taxes, estate taxes and gift taxes in place — would require a retail sales tax of at least 34 percent. As it noted, “no state or country has ever levied a retail sales tax at a tax rate that even approaches the 34 percent required to replace the federal income tax system.”
The panel also reported that replacing the income tax with a 34 percent sales tax would reduce taxes on just two groups — households making more than $200,000, and those making less than $30,000. For everyone else, the tax burden would increase.
Unfortunately, such data don’t seem to penetrate the cult. A core of Georgia Republican Party activists has completely embraced the Fair Tax, and GOP elected officials have done so as well. Every Georgia Republican in Congress is a co-sponsor of Fair Tax legislation, as are both U.S. senators. The fever is spreading to the state Legislature, where House Speaker Glenn Richardson is touting his radical tax-reform measure as a state version of the Fair Tax.
Anybody have the number of a cult deprogrammer?
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