No that was exactly my point. Use the business infrastructure to collect taxes. Get the govt out of individual homes. Simplify and streamline the process. No targeted breaks. No exemptions or credits.
Just my thoughts.
One thing that is clear ... the current system is unmanageable, corrupted, and completely inefficient. I’m open to new ideas that focus on simple, manageable ideas that take away the power of this single agency to cause fear and loathing from the public.
THAT is PRECISELY what the Fair Tax does and I don’t think we’re that far apart.
During my tenure on the national board of CATS (Citizens for an Alternative Tax System) the precursor to the current Fair Tax group, during an after hours D.C. social event with the tax guy of one of the co-sponsors of the first iteration of the plan, I told him that in my state businesses retained 3% of the amount they collected each month as a “vendor compensation fee”. He excused himself to make a phone call and the next week, the provision for vendor compensation, omitted from the first bill, was inserted.
Like too many of the folks up there, this otherwise nice young man had little or no real-world business experience.
And now that nearly ALL vendors are on computers, the national sales tax would simply involve a minor tweak to the codes to include it — along with code to PRINT IT IN BOLD, RED TYPE so EVERYONE walking out of a business could see how much was paid while asking “Hmmm, am I getting my money’s worth?”
That said, in the 90s, Matt Fong, the Treasurer of California, studied the breakdown of the sources of THEIR sales tax revenue and found that around 70% came from a handful of retail outlets: The big box stores like Walmart, Home Depot, Kmart, Target, etc. etc.
With retail businesses collecting and remitting both state and federal SALES TAXES to the state, the IRS could be reduced to maybe 3 guys in each state to see that the states aren’t cooking the books and not ponying up the collected amounts, (that’s 150 guys!) maybe another 150 folks in DC to keep THEIR books, make coffee, go out for sandwiches, watch porn (or whatever the hell else they do on OUR dime), etc. That’s a drop from 110,000 to 300 or so, leaving us 109,300 to send to the border! Works for me!!
Is it PERFECT? Hell no!!
After 100+ years of SOCIALIST and a ENTITLEMENT TRAINING in the GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS, do you REALLY think these obozo voters could even be DRAGGED kicking and screaming BACK TO A FULLY CONSTITUTIONAL SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT LET ALONE CONSTITUTIONAL TAXATION BASED ON THE COMMENSURATE REDUCED SPENDING?
Personally, I shall continue to beat the drum for such a return.
In the meantime, I’ll support the Fair Tax as a WAYSTATION — something we MIGHT be able to achieve before I leave the planet — back to a system the Founding Fathers MIGHT recognize if they were to return. It will fall to some future generation to carry us back to a fully restored system if, after yet MORE government indoctrination, they have the intellect and motivation to do so.
And I must tell you that MY reading of the writings of some of the Founders persuades me that THEY would not be all that opposed to the Fair Tax as it is based on CONSUMPTION.
If you’d like some of those cites, ask and ye shall receive.