Fair Tax? No thanks

I don’t trust congress to implement the Fair Tax as written and the 7 yr sunset is too long.

They will implement it with enough pressure from constituents. Anything less than seven years is not enough time for people to become familiar with The Fair Tax.

As a small business person, I don’t care to be the government tax collector. The Fair Tax is another burden on small business, especially start ups.

As a business person, you will be paid to remit sales taxes. It won't be a burden for businesses in the forty five states who already have a sales tax. The Fair Tax will be merely one more line on the state form.

I’d rather have a flattish tiered income tax of 5, 10 and 15 percent with a personal exemption of 50K and absolutely NO other deductions.

We've already tried that type of income tax. It's turned into the miserable failure we have today. People were taxed 1% on their first $20,000 of income and 7% on income over $500,000 when the 16th Amendment was enacted in 1913. It has evolved into the multi tiered, increasingly convoluted, oppressive fiasco we have today thanks to the lobbyists, who didn't exist in 1913 but now lobby on behalf of their big business clients. Another flat income tax will only turn the clock back 98 years but will still enable the same situation to arise in the future and will still maintain the IRS. The Fair Tax will eliminate the IRS.

John Leland 1789 wrote: "...'cause no matter what tax system is in place, government cannot be trusted..."

I share your concern. The FT is still a centralized tax scheme (a nice, still, big-fat target) that is ripe for modification after enactment and I bet it wouldn't be two years before lobbyists/congress started messing with it. Either raising the rate or messing with the pre-bate or adding modifications that wind up straying from the original intent. Who knows what sort of weird crap they can think up for a fat campaign contribution?

There is a market driven approach that I've heard of that insulates us from Washington: The federal govt no longer taxes individuals or business; the fed-govt taxes each state for a percentage of each state's GDP. How each state collects the revenue to pay that federal bill is left up to each state. People & Business would migrate to states with the most attractive tax-scheme and away from the most unattractive states. This would raise the GDP of the preferred states. With the ubiquity of computerization, business conducted between tax jurisdictions could be managed (just as it is today with differing sales taxes, tariffs, etc). Lobbyists would have 50 different targets to deal with, instead of just the single federal "Jabba The Hut" monstrosity. Plus it moves the "taxers" closer to the people and (hopefully) more readily accountable to the "taxed".

The FT is interesting, but I haven't yet heard how it is "meddle" proof by lobbyists, progressives, etc. And 23% is a sticker-shock figure. The Home-Depot 2x4 example is one thing; but when I think of buying a car -- Dang! Even if I bought used, I'd think the seller would try to recoup as much of that 23% as he could. So, I'd feel a lot better about the FT if the rate was permanently capped, or better yet, lowered to 10% and the Govt were forced to reduce spending (with no sacred cows) to live within it's means.

Ultimately, anything that gets the IRS off our backs will be welcomed. If we eventually vote the FT, so be it. I just hope it is heavily armored against the meddling of congress if/when it is enacted.

Used cars, used anything, are not subject to the FairTax. The FairTax only applies to NEW retail product and services.

Buy a new car the day after the FairTax is enacted and you won’t be paying a FairTax. That’s because the car was produced under the old tax system and is exempt from the FairTax. But buy a car that was produced from all supply and production chains when they were completely free from any federal income tax, then the FairTax is applied and the price should be the same.

The thing to keep in mind is that the FairTax is a code employing one collection point, at the consumer retail endpoint of all chains.

Whereas the Income tax code is a system that collects wherever and whatever is targeted, multiple numerous collection points.

So when you go to pay the FairTax rate, you will just be adding back on at one single collection point what was eliminated at many many collection points.

The FairTax is a replacement tax and it is revenue neutral. It is revenue neutral so that the FairTax code legislation does not get bogged down in spending arguments which could take a decade or more.

So you are saying Home Depot will keep a $2 2x4 on the shelf at $2 even thogh it wprocured without federal tax burden and then they will add an NRST of 59 cents at the cash register for a total of $2.59.
Whereas Lowes Home Improvement or any number of competitors will place a 2x4 procured under no federal tax burden on their shelf at $1.54 and then add 46 cents at the cash register for a total purchase of $2.
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Hostage #85:So when you go to pay the FairTax rate, you will just be adding back on at one single collection point what was eliminated at many many collection points.
The FairTax is a replacement tax and it is revenue neutral.
Nice try Hostage. See my tagline.

Adding back the so called embedded business taxes and compiance costs doesn't "replace" the personal income tax, the 15.3% FICA/self-employment tax, gift taxes or the (GAG!) prebate.

As usual there's no logic in Fairtax half truths and misinformation/rhetoric

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