While I agree in principle that a shift from an income tax to a consumption tax would be good policy, I have a question for all of the fair-taxers:
How, if the ‘Fair Tax’ is adopted, will the federal government keep faith with all of us who took our Roth IRA’s in preference to traditional IRA’s? We were promised our earnings would not be taxed, and I know I, and I suspect everyone else, with a Roth IRA expected to spend those earnings during retirement. If the ‘Fair Tax’ is adopted, suddenly we get taxed on earning that we were promised would not be taxed.
A similar question applies on behalf of low income retirees who expected their Social Security benefits to be untaxed.
I’ve not heard this issue addressed by the advocates of the ‘Fair Tax’, and would like to hear it addressed. (An adequate way of addressing it and similar issues surrounding the shift from the income tax to the ‘Fair Tax’ might make me a supporter.)
Most SS recipients have 1/2 of their SS taxed. The FairTax gets rid of that.
I do believe that some change is necessary in the write up of the bill to address the issue of the individual who saved up after tax dollars all of his life.
There’s an ongoing debate over here too:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1958093/posts?page=532#532
Nobody seems to address it. And some of the FT supporters are downright condescending of anyone who made major decisions based on the government’s PROMISE of not being federally taxed again on Roth funds once they paid the tax up front. See my post for an argument on why the responses of “no more embedded tax” are BS and not relevant to the Roth issue.