[Taxman]

Dutchboy88, I accept your apology. Please accept mine, as well. I, too, was snarky. I should have been more helpful.

Senator Cruz has good intentions, he just cannot think outside the income tax box. And to postulate that the flat tax will result in a less intrusive IRS is folly, IMHO. See my comments re: intrusive IRS in my conversations with foxfield, a CPA. He makes good points. HST, an income tax of every kind DEMANDS an IRS be in place to “administer” it.

The FairTax will be collected by the respective state sales tax agencies. A state can choose not to collect the federal sales tax, and either outsource the collection to another state, or opt to have the federal government collect it directly. Somehow, I believe the 5 states with no sales tax will set up their own agencies.

Each state sales tax collection agency, and each retail business that collects the FairTax will be paid to do so, to cover their administrative costs.

With respect to your comments re: airlines and service companies, there are roughly 5 million (best number I could come up with) retail businesses in the US. As you can readily understand, there are far fewer companies to monitor and audit than there are individual tax payers. Under the FairTax, an individual American who does not own a retail business, will never see a tax collector.

That, to me, makes the FairTax a no-brainer!

With respect to off-shore purchases, FairTax will be levied when the item in question is imported into the US. The mechanism is in place and is used today.

Hope this helps. For more information, go to http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer?pagename=FAQs

[Dutchboy88]

"Dutchboy88, I accept your apology. Please accept mine, as well. I, too, was snarky. I should have been more helpful."

Certainly, I will accept it. Very kind of you to offer some more info. I see some valuable things in your post and when I am not slammed at work, I'll spend some time digesting these. More when I can...regards.