[Pontiac]

The only fair tax….is to have a national sales tax.

I think it is immoral to make every retailer in the country a tax collector.

The idea is this: after sending in your 2001 tax return to the IRS, take your 2001 tax booklet and write "I want a 10% flat tax implemented by 2004,"

I don’t believe sending the tax booklet to the IRS is going to get us much. However if a Senator was to get a few hundred tax booklets it might draw some attention.

Now if we could all agree on which Senator to send them to.

[DennisR]

The original suggestion was: "...mail it to one of your federal representatives," just as you suggest. Sending it to the IRS will not do any good. We each have two Senators and a Representative, so if it comes down to choosing one of these three, it should probably be the senior Senator. The news would obviously get to the other two in short order. Based on this, I will send mine to that illustrious senior Senator from the State of Washington, Ms. Patty Murray.

[ancient_geezer]

I think it is immoral to make every retailer in the country a tax collector.

It's immoral to put every individual in the country under legal jeopardy and coercion of the income tax.

Taxation is going to occur and in fully under the Constitutional authority to levy and collect such taxes. It is up to us to assure that a proper mode is selected:

Thomas Hobbes from Leviathan

• It is fairer to tax people on what they extract from the economy, as roughly measured by their consumption, than to tax them on what they produce for the economy, as roughly measured by their income.

[Montesquieu wrote in Spirit of the Laws, XIII,c.14:]

• "... [A] duty on merchandise is more natural to liberty, by reason it has not so direct a relation to the person."
  --Thomas Jefferson: copied into his Commonplace Book.

Patrick Henry, Virginia Ratifying Convention June 12, 1788:

• "the oppression arising from taxation, is not from the amount but, from the mode -- a thorough acquaintance with the condition of the people, is necessary to a just distribution of taxes. The whole wisdom of the science of Government, with respect to taxation, consists in selecting the mode of collection which will best accommodate to the convenience of the people."

Alan Keyes lays out a solid moral case for a retail sales tax replacing the current system:

Alan Keyes refers to the income tax as the slave tax that should be abolished as a moral imperative, and replaced with a National Sales Tax:

Keyes on Taxes & Government Spending:

• "The income tax in effect makes us vassals to the government – the politicians decide how much income we can keep. No mere “reform” of this slave tax, such as flattening the rate, can correct its fundamental denial of control over our own money. Only the abolition of the income tax itself will restore the basic American principle that our income is both our own money and our own private business - not the government's."

• "Replacing the income tax with a national sales tax would rejuvenate independence and responsibility in our citizens. True economic liberty and moral revival go hand in hand."

• "A national sales tax would also put the American citizen back in control of national fiscal policy. The best way to curtail government spending is to cut taxes, because they can’t spend what they don’t get. But with a sales tax, we could deny funds to a spendthrift government – and give ourselves a tax cut – whenever we make the private choice to alter our spending and saving habits."

Alan Keyes Interview with Des Moines Register:

• Conservative commentator Alan Keyes said Thursday one of the first things he would do as president would be to replace the federal income tax with a national sales tax.

• The Republican presidential candidate said he favors a national sales tax of about 23 percent that would also replace the payroll tax that pays for Social Security.

The intent of the structure of the individual income tax is for political and social control not revenue collection. The Individual Income tax is maintained to establish and hold every person in the country perpetual legal jeopardy. A properly designed NRST removes that jeopardy and provides increase liberty & financial privacy for all individuals.