[Jacquerie]

You should read up on the fair tax before slamming it. Currently, massive taxes are built up in the chain of production by the time a product reaches store shelves. The fair tax would eliminate those taxes.

Is it perfect? No system is, but it is a heck of a lot better than the current system which the pols use to reward favored constituencies and punish others. No worry about the Gestapo, er IRS taking your assets without court order.

Investments would be made on the simple desire to make a profit rather than be distorted by the need to avoid taxes.

IMO, the fair tax would unleash a productive era the likes of which have not been seen since before the 16th amendment.

[Sarajevo]

the fair tax would unleash a productive era the likes of which have not been seen since before the 16th amendment.

Until some politician figures out a way around the "Fair Tax" to promote his own agenda. We see end runs around the amendments to the Constitution alll the time.

[Cheburashka]

At least with the income tax it has an upper limit. They can only confiscate 100% of your income.

What is there magic about a 23% tax rate? Why not 24%? Why not 50%? Why not 100%? How about 200%?

Answer: there is no magic, there is no limit. They can raise taxes incrementally until you wind up paying $20.00 in taxes to buy $10.00 worth of groceries. And they don’t have to stop there. The sky is the limit.

And the selling point will always be, “Oh, it’s only one more percentage point. How much can that hurt?”

I live in Illinois, and I already pay 8.75% in sales tax. So you’re talking 31.75%. Plus with the abolition of the Federal Income tax they will either abolish the Illinois income tax, or I will still have to go through all the April 15th gyrations in order to calculate my Illinois tax. No saving of my time then, is there? More likely they they would abolish the Illinois income tax and raise Illinois sales tax rates. What do you think the additional rate will be, 8%, 9%, 10%? Now we’re talking a 40% tax rate, and this is just at the introduction of our brave new tax world.

If you want there to be less of anything, tax it. And it will work with this as well. If you tax spending, people will try to avoid spending. Which will kill retailers, anybody who sells.

And the end of IRS audits? Forget it. Once over a third of their receipts are money that the retailer is collecting for the government, the tax audits will become worse, not better. Any mistake anybody selling anything makes on their sales tax returns will put them out of business. There's too much money involved.

I would suggest taking up the repeal of the 17th Amendment. That might actually improve things.