Replies

Taxes are not for controlling spending, that is a strawman. But, taxes continue to feed spending.

And, pray tell, what occurs during the 7 years we wait for ratification of repealing the 16th Amendment and Fair Tax is instituted?

When was that ratification clause added? It’s not in the original.

I didn’t say it before, but I will now, you ignored very relevant points of trouble with this and addrssed more minor points.

Typical of Fair Taxers and Ron Paulies (not saying you are a Paulie).

There are several problems I did not even address.

I’d rather see the IRS gone and a flat tax instead.

The simpler the better and Fair Tax is far from simple.

Taxes are not for controlling spending, that is a strawman.

Someone should have told that to founding father and first Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton before he wrote Federalist Paper #21. To quote an excerpt:

"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."

I’d rather see the IRS gone and a flat tax instead.

We already had a flat tax on income. It's the current income tax code. People were taxed 1% on the first $20,000 of income and 7% on income over $500,000 when the 16th Amendment was enacted in 1913. Less than 1% of the population earned more than $500,000 which means more than 99% were taxed 1%. It was essentially a flat tax on income. Another flat tax on income would morph into the same multi tiered, convoluted, increasingly intrusive and heavy progressive income tax we have today only faster thanks to the thousands of lobbyists that didn't exist in 1913.

There's a reason why Karl Marx included a heavy progressive tax on income as a plank in his Communist manifesto. He understood gradually increasing the tax on productivity will discourage people from being productive and then they will turn to the state for their subsistence.

"I’d rather see the IRS gone and a flat tax instead." The IRS would still have to be there to verify or audit returns for income so they would not be gone. The income tax started as a single rate and grew into the monstronsity that we have now. The FT is uncomplicated unless you try to make it complicated. One rate. New goods and services only. Paid at the register. Perfect? No. Cheating? Sure, but I doubt that it would be close to what we have now. My fundamental objection to the Income Tax is that it is fundamentally unamerican and unfair.