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My biggest beef with the Fair Tax system is that at the end of the year most Americans won't have any idea how much they paid in taxes. With a Flat Tax the tax system will be simple, easy to administer, and every American will know exactly how much they are paying to the government.

I think knowing how much you're paying in taxes is a huge part of active citizenship and empowerment. The Fair Tax, while interesting, seems to me to be too much of a hidden tax. I live in Hawaii where we have a 4.5% VAT, plus a tax on our income, taxes on every hotel room, and so many more taxes it is ridiculous. We have a lot of hidden taxes built into everything we buy that other than our income tax, we don't know how much each of us is individually contributing in taxes.

Political participation in this state is limited to turning out to vote Democrat because that's what they've already done.

With the FairTax most Americans should have a very good idea of how much they've paid in tax otherwise they have only themselves to blame.

The tax amount will appear on each receipt in a specified form and things not taxed are pretty obvious. Actually, determining the taxes paid would be easier than at present as you hint at in your state.

In addition to the things you observe in HI that present obfuscation, in all states, the cascading, embedded tax costs that become part of the additional cost of everything we buy cannot be calculated with any degree of certainty - but they're certainly there and add unnecessarily to prices.

The same difficulty would be true under any income-based system such as a flat tax - which would also still present the taxpayer with payroll/withholding taxes just as at present (which many people do not presently realize are taxes. thinking they are just somehow due to the government for allowing them to exist). With the FairTax, each and every receipt clearly states the tax involved. If one does not know how much he has paid in tax it is only because he's not interested enough to find out.