WOODALL INTRODUCES FAIRTAX BILL ON DAY ONE WITH RECORD NUMBER OF ORIGINAL CO-SPONSORS

Washington, DC—On Wednesday, January 5, 2011, Congressman Rob Woodall (GA-07) introduced H.R. 25, the FairTax. The FairTax legislation eliminates the current income tax paradigm and replaces it with a system of taxation based on consumption. The bill was introduced on Wednesday with 47 original co-sponsors—the most original co-sponsors the bill has ever had for its initial introduction.

“I committed to the Seventh District of Georgia that my efforts in Congress would focus on reclaiming freedom for the American people. It is for that reason that I am proud to make the FairTax—the only bill that restores transparency and simplicity to our tax code—my very first action in Congress. I have said since its inception that the FairTax is not a tax bill; it is a freedom bill,” Woodall said.

Woodall, who was sworn-in to Congress earlier in the day, played an integral role in crafting the original text of the FairTax as former Congressman John Linder's Chief of Staff when the bill was originally introduced in 1999.

"Our current tax system is a bloated, convoluted mess that gives government power over Americans' pockets. With 47 Members of Congress and counting signing their names to the FairTax, we are closer than ever before to voting on legislation that eliminates the frustrating mess that is the IRS."

Although the FairTax was introduced with 47 original co-sponsors, Woodall anticipates adding many more Members of Congress to the bill. Once the FairTax is introduced with the original co-sponsors, Members are able to sign on to the bill as co-sponsors throughout the 112th Congress.

"The number of signatures on the FairTax this time around is a testament to the will of the people. It is clear that Americans do not want to have their hard-earned money taken away and they want to reclaim the freedom to spend their money how they choose and when they choose.”

As I read these posts, I see very little discussion of how much life would be simplified by the Fair Tax.
That's because you're wrong on most if not all points.

Wages, salaries and self-employment income are required to be reported.

If you want a (GAG!)"prebate" you'll have to disclose your dependants.

You are not "required" to disclose your charitable contributions now, what's your point?

How do you pay property taxes without the government knowing how much you paid?

If you have profits it means you sold something, you'll have to keep books on what and how much you sold it for, if they're taxable or not and if so remit 23% of your gross...including 23% of your self-employment income from services...How is that different again?

Savings and both interest paid and earned ARE taxable. There is a 23% tax on any amount over the basic FED FUND interest rate as well as a 23% (actually 30%) on any fees.

The Fairtax doesn't change banking laws requiring banks to report large deposits...so you could still hoard cash without the government knowing. But how is that any different?

You're naive if you think that the type of enforcement you'll get with a Fair Tax won't be far more intrusive than the existing system. The very assertion commonly made on this thread to that it captures everybody's expenses displays the level of comprehensive enforcement envisioned.

Why would the federal government care about anyone's expense patterns when people will have already complied by paying the tax at the point of sale?

Unfortunately, most of the evasion will be done by low-income people who now pay no income taxes. Paying nearly 50% on a transaction (as they would in California) is a LOT of money to them (the law of the diminishing marginal value of money being what it is). So this law will criminalize vast numbers of people who now face no such complications

Your statement might be accurate if it weren't for the fact the tax rate will be 23%, not 50% and that the prebate will reimburse people monthly for taxes paid on necessities up to the poverty level in order to lessen the burden on low income earners.

Worse, for you to make such a hand-wave assertion of "far less bartering," when I cited an existing example of bootleg cigarettes and alcohol, begs for an example. You offered none. I promise you, the majority of people in this country don't worry about 67,500 pages. They fill out a short form or an EZ.

People will be far less likely to bootleg any product considering their purchasing power will increase since federal income taxes will no longer be deducted from their paychecks or dividend checks. I promise you more people have become worried about the 67,500 plus pages as the Alternative Minimum Tax continues to lower the threshold for taxable income to include lower income earners who the ATM wasn't originally meant to target.

I was an NRST advocate long before there was a Fair Tax proposal. No more. Cut spending. That's the real problem.

So your alternative is to keep in place a tax code that has continues to be increasingly intrusive and oppressive, especially now with unconstitutional Obamacare adding 16,000 more IRS agents and requiring businesses to file 1090 forms for any transactions over $600, until spending is cut to some unspecified level? No tax code is designed to specifically cut spending. The Fair will reduce spending by eliminating the IRS and its $11 billion price tag.

I am going to respond to this, though I have read some of your posts, and it appears you, for some reason, are a slow learner. Your points seem to demonstrate a near total ignorance of the Fair Tax proposal.

Wages, salaries and self-employment income are required to be reported.

By whom? Certainly not the one that makes a purchase.

If you want a (GAG!)"prebate" you'll have to disclose your dependants.

This is the one point that separates you from demonstrating total ignorance of the Fair Tax. Obtaining a refund for overtaxation (prebate) does require disclosing some dependent information.

You are not "required" to disclose your charitable contributions now, what's your point?

You are "required" to do this if you want to pay the minimum legal tax.

How do you pay property taxes without the government knowing how much you paid?

I am sorry, I thought the topic was federal taxes. I do not pay property tax to the Feds. But, to get those wonderful federal income tax deductions, I have to tell the IRS how much I spent for the local property tax.

You are way off. Profits are not taxed or reported to the government. Business record-keeping would also be simplified--a lot. The partners or stockholders may require detailed books to be kept, but the tax bureaucracy has no legitimate interest in net profit. They need to know the total of retail sales. If your sales are all to other businesses to use in their product, your business owes no Fair Tax. Items or services sold at retail would indeed require record-keeping, with records very similar to records used to pay state sales tax.

Savings and both interest paid and earned ARE taxable.

Wrong. Interest or dividends from investments are not taxed when received by the consumer. When paying "interest" on a loan, the payment has two components--interest and service. Fair Tax is paid on the service portion. The tax on financial instruments is only on the service portion. Buy stock at a brokerage and pay no tax on the stock and Fair Tax on the broker's commission.

That's because you're wrong on most if not all points.

I do wish you would try to read and comprehend the Fair Tax bill. It must be tiresome spreading so much misinformation.

Wages, salaries and self-employment income are required to be reported.
By whom? Certainly not the one that makes a purchase.
LOL! HUH?

`SEC. 903. WAGES TO BE REPORTED TO SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION.

`(a) IN GENERAL- Employers shall submit such information to the Social Security Administration as is required by the Social Security Administration to calculate Social Security benefits under title II of the Social Security Act, including wages paid, in a form prescribed by the Secretary. A copy of the employer submission to the Social Security Administration relating to each employee shall be provided to each employee by the employer.

`(b) WAGES- For purposes of this section, the term `wages' means all cash remuneration for employment (including tips to an employee by third parties provided that the employer or employee maintains records documenting such tips) including self-employment income; except that such term shall not include--

`(1) any insurance benefits received (including death benefits);

`(2) pension or annuity benefits received;

`(3) tips received by an employee over $5,000 per year; and

`(4) benefits received under a government entitlement program (including Social Security benefits and unemployment compensation benefits).

`(c) SELF-EMPLOYMENT INCOME- For purposes of subsection (b), the term `self-employment income' means gross payments received for taxable property or services minus the sum of--

`(1) gross payments made for taxable property or services (without regard to whether tax was paid pursuant to section 101 on such taxable property or services), and

`(2) wages paid by the self-employed person to employees of the self-employed person.

You are "required" to do this if you want to pay the minimum legal tax.
No, you choose to do it, no one requires you to do it...were you saying someting about ignorance?I am sorry, I thought the topic was federal taxes. I do not pay property tax to the Feds. But, to get those wonderful federal income tax deductions, I have to tell the IRS how much I spent for the local property tax.
Property taxes are public information. Even your neighbor can know how much you pay. The fact YOU CHOOSE to voluntarily tell the IRS is your problem...ignorance is bliss.
You are way off. Profits are not taxed or reported to the government.
The Fairtax law is NOT written for the consumer. The 23% rate is what the business pays, not the consumer. The 23% tax is a percentage OF the (taxable) gross including profits, so the Fairtax does indeed tax profits...Yet more ignorance of the concept
Wrong. Interest or dividends from investments are not taxed when received by the consumer. When paying "interest" on a loan, the payment has two components--interest and service. Fair Tax is paid on the service portion.
`(3) IMPLICITLY CHARGED FEES FOR FINANCIAL INTERMEDIATION SERVICES-

any underlying interest-bearing investment, account, or debt.>

`(B) GROSS IMPUTED AMOUNT- For purposes of subparagraph (A), the term `gross imputed amount' means--

any underlying interest-bearing investment or account,

`(I) the excess (if any) of the basic interest rate (as defined in section 805) over the rate paid on such investment; and

`(II) the amount of the investment or account; and

any underlying interest-bearing debt,

`(I) the excess (if any) of the rate paid on such debt over the basic interest rate (as defined in section 805); and

`(II) the amount of the debt.

I do wish you would try to read and comprehend the Fair Tax bill. It must be tiresome spreading so much misinformation.

If it is possible, the flat tax - a single-rate Income Tax - is even more deceptive than the Income Tax. We passed that in 1985. Being an Income Tax, though, it still had a Tax Code, and Congress was still able to change it.

Over the next 25 years, Congress added FIVE tax rates and more than 18,000 Amendments to the Tax Code (so it is no longer “flat”), at an average of more than FOUR Amendments PER DAY it is in session. Each of those Amendments gave a TAX BREAK to a friend or contributor of someone in Congress, shrinking the tax base incrementally. The result is that we are worse off than we would have been if Congress had done nothing.

American retail prices still have a 26% average federal tax component in their product pricing, imports are still not taxed, Americans still spend more than $400 billion per year on compliance costs, we still have our $1.5 trillion trade deficit, production lines and jobs continue to migrate overseas, the funding for Social Security and Medicare are still Ponzi schemes (soon to be broke), and the IRS collects less than 49% of the Income Tax owed - that figure keeps shrinking and collection costs keep rising, as the Tax Code grows. No, we do not need to try the flat tax again.

Conclusion: we HAVE to get rid of the Income Tax AND its Tax Code. The only tax bill that does that is H.R.25, The Fair Tax Act. It has 48 co-sponsors already. How many does the flat tax have, this time around?

Why would the federal government care about anyone's expense patterns when people will have already complied by paying the tax at the point of sale?

Point of sale times the number of transactions equals the degree of intrusion. With the combined load of the Feds and the States adding half-again the purchase price, you can bet your bottom dollar that people will avoid paying it. Cash and barter transactions will become more common. In order to enforce their take, the Feds would have to engage in not only illegal searches and seizures, but massive sting operations to get their cut. If you think the IRS is intrusive now, just wait until your "FareTax" induces a police state with revenue collectors everywhere deeming what constitutes barter or not.

Your statement might be accurate if it weren't for the fact the tax rate will be 23%, not 50% and that the prebate will reimburse people monthly for taxes paid on necessities up to the poverty level in order to lessen the burden on low income earners.

Typical FAREtax duplicity. There isn't a single other sales tax anywhere that isn't calculated as a fraction of the base transaction. Not one. Yet your FAREtax advocates calculate its impact as the fraction of tax AFTER it is assessed, a duplicitous practice at best. The actual rate is 0.23/(1-0.23) = 0.30 or 30%, as I said. Your second failing is failure to read: I said "(as they would in California)," meaning that the total sales tax would consist of the FAREtax hit, PLUS California's existing sales tax of 8.5% of the base transaction, PLUS the amount California would need to ADD because the lack of a 1040 would make a State income tax untenable. Hence, California would need to bump its State 8.5% sales tax to make up for lost income tax revenue. Given that the average marginal State income tax rate in California is now 12.5%, I swagged that the sales tax rate would have to rise to nearly 20% to cover both the existing sales tax plus the rate needed to make up for the now defunct State income tax. Hence, 30% Federal NRST + 20% SRST = 50% total sales tax, which is what I said above. Even if it was 5% less, it's still too much to keep people from cheating.

If you think for one minute people won't do everything they can to avoid a 50% sales tax rate, I've got news for you. As I said, look at the market for bootleg cigarettes and booze.

People will be far less likely to bootleg any product considering their purchasing power will increase since federal income taxes will no longer be deducted from their paychecks or dividend checks.

You people are something else. Never in human history have people been so overjoyed to know what they're actually paying for government that they take their fattened paychecks and willingly go find a government agent to pay at a kid's lemonade stand. You seem to think that the entirety of retail is at electronic cash registers.

So, how are they doing collecting that existing Federal tax on marijuana?

So your alternative is to keep in place a tax code that...

So, not only are you dishonest, but putting words in my mouth as a straw-man will get you ignored from now on, that is, unless I feel like rubbing your sanctimonious nose in your BS numbers again. G_d's system was an income tax, but it was only a 10% flat tax. Nor am I totally opposed to tariffs. I think sales taxes are fine as long as one can keep the real rate, State and Federal included, below 15%. Beyond that and people will cheat, in droves, no matter how much cash they've got. Hence, the real problem is the scope and cost of government, not the tax system. My focus is cutting spending and regulation for those operations not specifically listed in the Constitution because that is where our focus must be.

Point of sale times the number of transactions equals the degree of intrusion.

What intrusion? There will not be any forms to fill out detailing every aspect of your personal life to the feds. The IRS will no longer be looking over your shoulder since the agency will no longer exist. You won't have to worry about fines, penalties or imprisonment since the tax will already have been paid.

With the combined load of the Feds and the States adding half-again the purchase price, you can bet your bottom dollar that people will avoid paying it.

Let's see. The Fair Tax rate will be 23% per the bill. States impose a sales tax rate of no more than 8.5%. You must be using some type of new math to reach 50% by adding those figures together. That ignores the fact people's purchasing power will increase as they will no longer have federal tax deductions from their paychecks or other sources of income.

If you think the IRS is intrusive now, just wait until your "FareTax" induces a police state with revenue collectors everywhere deeming what constitutes barter or not.

If you think there will be an IRS then you haven't read The Fair Tax Act(HR25). The IRS will not be intrusive at all since The Fair Tax abolishes the IRS by defunding the agency. Even if the IRS would still exist, they would not be policing consumers since they will have already paid the tax at the point of sale and will not have any forms for people to file for the IRS to extract any personal information. Businesses will be more inclined to remit the tax due to being paid 1/4 of one percent for the taxes they remit.

The actual rate is 0.23/(1-0.23) = 0.30 or 30%, as I said. Your second failing is failure to read:

Nothing like spreading misinformation with only a partial truth. There are already embedded corporate income taxes in all items people purchase today. They amount to almost 23% of the price. A $100 item actually costs $77 with $23 in tax. It is known as the tax inclusive rate. In this case it is 23%(23/100). The fair Tax removes the inclusive tax by eliminating corporate income taxes and applying that same rate separately at the point of sale. it is the tax exclusive rate. The same item will cost $77 with a $23 tax (23/77=30%). The dollar amount collected will be the same regardless of which rate is quoted.

California's existing sales tax of 8.5% of the base transaction, PLUS the amount California would need to ADD because the lack of a 1040 would make a State income tax untenable.

You really need to get past associating state sales taxes with The Fair Tax since the it only addresses federal sales tax. However The Fair Tax Act will permit states to replace their sales tax with The Fair Tax. States maybe inclined to do so as The Fair Tax will have a much broader tax base.

If you think for one minute people won't do everything they can to avoid a 50% sales tax rate, I've got news for you. As I said, look at the market for bootleg cigarettes and booze.

Don't look now but you are contradicting yourself. You keep quoting a 50% tax rate despite citing in your previous comment the Fair Tax rate will be a far lower rate of 30%, which in itself is erroneous and despite that fact the 23% rate is written the Fair Tax Act legislation!

You people are something else. Never in human history have people been so overjoyed to know what they're actually paying for government that they take their fattened paychecks and willingly go find a government agent to pay at a kid's lemonade stand. You seem to think that the entirety of retail is at electronic cash registers.

The growing number of grassroots Fair Tax supporters are supportive of a tax system that will fundamentally shift power away from the federal government and back to the people by giving people the power to decide when and how often they are taxed based on when they choose to make purchases thereby dovetailing with the limited government principles the founding fathers instilled in the Constitution.

So, how are they doing collecting that existing Federal tax on marijuana?

Try using a little common sense for once. It is a federal crime to possess marijuana. The Feds will arrest and confiscate any proceeds from the sale of marijuana in the future as they have in the past along with any physical property purchased with money obtained through those sales.

So, not only are you dishonest, but putting words in my mouth as a straw-man will get you ignored from now on

I'm assuming you can read. That statement you are referring to was in the form of a question, not a declaratory comment. Note the question mark at the end of that remark. You respond as if I made a claim even though there is clearly a question mark at the end of the comment and you call me dishonest? LOL!!!!!

G_d's system was an income tax, but it was only a 10% flat tax.

Oh really? If that is the case then God has already failed miserably. The current federal income tax code began as a flat income tax. People were taxed 1% on their first $20,000 of income and 7% on any income over $500,000 when the 16th Amendment was enacted in 1913. Less than 1% of the population earned more than $500,000 in 1913. That also means more than 99% were taxed just the 1%. We've all seen how that simple flat income tax has evolved into the increasingly intrusive, oppressive and convoluted mess we have today. Another flat income tax will only turn the clock back 98 years but will morph back into what we have today only faster thanks to the thousands of lobbyists that didn't exist in 1913 and it will maintain the IRS!

If your contention God intended for a flat income tax then he must also be a Communist since one of the planks in Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto is a heavy progressive tax on income. Marx understood by gradually increasing the tax burden on productivity would eventually discourage people from being productive and consequently depend on the state for their existence. I doubt that is God's intention given his experience with the Romans.

Hence, the real problem is the scope and cost of government, not the tax system. My focus is cutting spending and regulation for those operations not specifically listed in the Constitution because that is where our focus must be.

It that is your intention then why do you support a flat income tax that will maintain the single costliest agency in the federal government. The Fair Tax will abolish the IRS's 11 billion dollar price tag.

I’m a bit late to see the thread. I travel all the time, its my job.

National sales tax is actually the singular thing that could destroy the progressive movement. When all citizens become ‘vested’ in the taxation issue, it will destroy the class warfare card played by progressives, and make pleas for “investing” in progressives little communist programs very unpopular because raising taxes means EVERYBODY pays more taxes. Kind of takes the fun out of massive wasteful spending.

If phased in incrementally, while fed withholding is phased out also incrementally, there should be limited impact on economy. If the process begins with phase out of withholding first, there could actually be a small uptick in economy seems to me. Since the idea of a ‘tax holiday’ to spur economy has already been floating around, it seems possible.

What we need are some pres candidates to push this. If they wwin they can claim a mandate for it. Fairtax sounds like a step in right direction but National Sales Tax is better . Neal Bortz has been pushing it for years.

Even illegals and tourists would have to pay a national sales tax, another bonus.

Not a problem — you have kept the thread alive and added new perspective.

The reason there is so much difficulty in getting Congress and many Americans to support FairTax is PRECISELY BECAUSE FairTax will destroy the Progressive movement.

That is one of the major reasons I and many other Real Americans support it — Progressives have been attempting to destroy America since roughly 1900. They have very nearly succeeded.

It is likely that Real Americans will spend the next 100 years rebuilding America.

And, it starts with the FairTax.

For the sake of my children and grandchildren, and my countrymen and women, I hope and pray (and am working diligently to ensure that) we succeed.

If the bright light of FReedom is extinguished in the USA, as the Progressives are attempting to do, it will be hundreds of years before it is relit.

I would not wish a 21st Century Dark Ages on anyone!

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