Its like this... how do you get a Heinz Kerry with a house in the Hamptons and only ends up paying $1500 a year in income taxes (or whatever the number is)...?
There is a huge portion of the economy that is NOT taxed because its not based around people's actual lifestyles. A lot of people simply set aside a few million (post tax) to live on aka "their play money" in the local bank...yet they invest such so they are only getting an occassional capital gains tax here or there...and they pay tax only on interest earned or whatnot...
So in reality the guy has $100 million bucks and lives a million dollar a year lifestyle, yet he only paid taxes on about $75,000...worth of "income" as its defined by the IRS and probably lots of local property taxes too... (thats the way it is now)...
Its not the illegal underground economy I am talking about... its the above ground economy thats perfectly legal but only accessable to the rich.
"Its not the illegal underground economy I am talking about... its the above ground economy thats perfectly legal but only accessable to the rich."
That is one of many problems with the current tax system that the FairTax would address. The myriad of loopholes that the wealthy avail themselves of is a disgrace. As a matter of fact, that is the very term that Jimmy Carter used to describe our tax system during the 1976 Presidential campaign and now, just under 30 years later, it is far worse in that regard.