Employers' payroll systems calculate withholding rates automatically too. The Fair Tax doesn't remove companies requirements to report earnings, savings, capital and all those things to the SEC and shareholders. Once they do all the accounting that have to do anyway, conforming to the current income tax isn't a big step. There are definitely a lot of tax rules they work to follow to provide some tax benefits for research and depreciation of capital assets, but those aren't huge tasks by any means.
With a sales tax the added number of transactions doesn't really add a lot of work for retailers. But it makes it a lot harder for auditors to audit the system to make sure that the retailer is really collecting all the taxes, because there are far more transactions involved that just withholding income from each employee every two weeks.
The Fair Tax also adds to the problem of auditing by not taxing the sale of used items, so auditors have to make sure that the retailer isn't claiming that new goods it sells were purchased used and then resold, and there will be a big market for used goods since they avoid the 30% sales tax.
They really want you to believe that the same person who can’t charge you corectly for a CD at the music store is now in charge of federal tax collection....
Well gee I guess you were led to believe the accounting profession would go away with passage of the FairTax.
Baloney!
Accountants have come out for the FairTax. They make more money in business planning and forecasting than they ever do in tax filings.
And as for all the accounting functions to generate financials, you don’t have to be a publicly traded company to realize that basic accounting forms the backbone of every successful business.
As for your comments on ‘making it harder’ for auditors, I will leave that gem untouched and send it to my contact list as I am sure it will get more than a few chuckles from those that actually do audits.
As for used items, if Home Depot, Walmart, -insert favorite retailer here-, try and sell products as ‘used’, I think their managements will be replaced in the time it takes to turn the lights out.
But there will be a transition period for existing inventories so I’ll give you a quarter point for mentioning the subject.