I can’t agree with Ted Cruz on this.
We need lower tax rates, flatten it out.
The FAIR tax is over-complicated, doesn’t reduce rates and the “prebate” is the most retarded thing ever devised.
Can we please get rid of the IRS once and for all.....just abolish it..... that will save billions in and of it self.
FLAT TAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not “FAIR” Tax- with its pre-bates and guaranteed vote buying.
Just take to any “fair” tax zealot and ask them to try to explain the “tax-inclusive” rate and listen to them try and justify it.. You will realize it is a liberal dream
The current tax code is controlled by the fat, slovenly, incompetent leeches that currently control the country. They can pass whatever taxes they desire and the IRS will enforce it. The leeches then use the code and the money to buy themselves votes from the welfare, entitlement and humanist crowd so that said leeches can continue to stay in a job where they don't have to work, don't have to think, and simply get a paycheck in spite of the fact they're too stupid to work anywhere else.
You think they're ever going to close down their gravy train?
Link?
If you’re going to post that Cruz supports something you better include a link.
I’m all for the Simple Tax. You pay Uncle Sam 10% of what you make. The other 10% goes to the states and municipalities. Overall tax burden for all citizens is 20% max.
Prebate not withstanding (it’s the only detractor, IMHO):
FAIR, not flat. The latter does not ensure everyone pays ‘their fair share’; the former is the only voluntary payment system.
Flat would still require an IRS, fair would be a ‘tiered’ payment system...user -> biz -> State -> Fed. and thus, no need for ‘tracking’.
Fair would also encourage thrift and ‘home grown’ (baking, sewing, trade, barter, etc. to reduce taxes even farther)
We need to STARVE the beast, not find alternatives to feed. Sad that is even talk about ‘the poor poor’...when they come out ahead of those working 40hrs.+/wk (IE: Leave charity up to those whom voluntary do so, not by the power of the gun of gov’t)
I totally agree with Sen Cruz... the Fair tax eliminates the onerous IRS which has been shown to be as corrupt an agency of the Federal Government as you can get. The Fair Tax eliminates the underground economy that for all too long have paid no taxes, it does away with tax laws that are incomprehensible by the average person, and further does away with the need for reporting income to the government (which has no real right to know how much anyone makes anyway!!)
The Fair Tax also takes away the ability of the crooks in congress to engage in social engineering by using the tax code !
I agree that the prebate is an unworkable situation, but they could exempt certain items like food, housing, medication from being taxed as states currently are doing. Certainly no one can think a “Flat Tax” would stay flat for very long given the propensity of Congress to use tax code to pick winners and losers.
I am not dumb enough to believe Congress will ever pass either the Fair or Flat tax however!
For those unwilling to do research and click the link:
SUMMARY AS OF:
1/23/2013—Introduced.
Fair Tax Act of 2013 - Repeals the income tax, employment tax, and estate and gift tax. Redesignates the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 as the Internal Revenue Code of 2013.
Imposes a national sales tax on the use or consumption in the United States of taxable property or services. Sets the sales tax rate at 23% in 2015, with adjustments to the rate in subsequent years. Allows exemptions from the tax for property or services purchased for business, export, or investment purposes, and for state government functions.
Sets forth rules relating to: (1) the collection and remittance of the sales tax, and (2) credits and refunds. Allows a monthly sales tax rebate for families meeting certain size and income requirements.
Grants states the primary authority for the collection of sales tax revenues and the remittance of such revenues to the Treasury. Sets forth administrative provisions relating to: (1) the filing of monthly reports and payments of tax; (2) accounting methods; (3) registration of sellers of goods and services responsible for reporting sales; (4) penalties for noncompliance; and (5) collections, appeals, and taxpayer rights.
Directs the Secretary of the Treasury to allocate sales tax revenues among: (1) the general revenue, (2) the old-age and survivors insurance trust fund, (3) the disability insurance trust fund, (4) the hospital insurance trust fund, and (5) the federal supplementary medical insurance trust fund.
Prohibits the funding of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) after FY2017. Establishes in the Department of the Treasury: (1) an Excise Tax Bureau to administer excise taxes not administered by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF); and (2) a Sales Tax Bureau to administer the national sales tax.
Terminates the sales tax imposed by this Act if the Sixteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (authorizing an income tax) is not repealed within seven years after the enactment of this Act.
My main objection to this is the following provision:
“Allows a monthly sales tax rebate for families meeting certain size and income requirements.”
It would be less expensive and eliminate potential cheating and fraud to instead:
Exempt food products, residential rents and utitilities, gasoline, and medical services.
However, the 1st paragraph of the above summary MUST be paramount in any reform effort.
Since I’m having trouble with links today, here is Boortz’s article:
MICHELLE NUNN AND THE FAIRTAX
By Neal Boortz
There are many verbal or written cues that can identify someone as a person with little knowledge of the subject at hand, but a great penchant for demagoguery. Perhaps one of the greatest of such cues would be the use of the “R” word. Yup … you got it … calling someone a racist. People who use that word seldom (if ever) know what the word actually means. They say it because they’ve heard other people say it, and it seems to be an effective and proven way to bring any conversation to a screaming halt.
There is one particular conversation that Democrats simply don’t want to have, and that is conversation about the FairTax. When the subject is broached, as it was by Republican David Perdue in his campaign for the open Georgia Senate seat, Democrats have to find a way to shut it down. The more people learn about the FairTax – the TRUTH about the FairTax – the more likely they are to support it; and that goes double, maybe even triple, for those on the lower end of the economic scale.
Well … that brings us to Michelle (Nunn) Martin. (Her real last name is Martin, you know). She heard David Perdue express support for the FairTax. She lives in Georgia, and she knows that for some unexplainable reasopm support for the FairTax in Georgia is high. She had to come up with an argument that would convince the voters her campaign is targeting, big government liberals and people voting for a living, that the FairTax is a bad idea.
So … Michelle Nunn strikes during a GPTV debate on October 17th. From the statement she made during that debate it is absolutely clear that she did not one ounce of research on the FairTax on her own. She relied on the Democrat Party and her 0bama Administration handlers for her FairTax talking points and, as so many before her have done, proceeded to exhibit her ignorance on the subject to everyone with an actual clue.
First … though you probably don’t need to be told … let me ‘splain to you why Democrats hate the FairTax so intensely. Now I’m sorry I don’t have the time to completely explain the FairTax to you; for that you can go to www.FairTax.org, or you can actually read the two books I wrote: “FairTax” and “FairTax, the Truth.” When you understand the FairTax you will understand that Democrats despise and fear this tax reform plan because they KNOW that it would be the largest transfer of power from government to the people since our Constitution was ratified. Democrats live, eat and breathe government power. They obtain this power by making huge segments of the American population dependent on government. The FairTax would take literally millions of Americans dependent on government and make them self-reliant citizens with private sector jobs and strong economic growth.
Did I just say “private sector jobs?” Why yes, I did. And I used that phrase less than a week after Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democrat presidential candidate in 2016, warned us not to let anyone tells us that corporations and small businesses create jobs. Well just imagine what businesses could do in this country if there were no corporate income taxes, and if there was no tax component added to labor or capital! America would become the biggest job creating economy in history … and Democrats would lose millions of voters who once voted for their living but who now earn that living in the private sector.
So just what did Michelle Nunn say about the FairTax?
Well .. the first thing out of her mouth is the 30% nonsense. She said “The FairTax would mean a 30%= tax on things like groceries, milk, everything.”
The FairTax is an inclusive tax … just like the income tax it is designed to replace. It’s this simple. If you earn $10,000 and you’re in the 28% tax bracket, you will pay 28% of $10,000, or $2,800. Under the FairTax if an item costs $100 and the FairTax rate is 23%, $23 of that $100 would be the tax, not $30.00. So where does Michelle Nunn come up with the 30% distortion? Well, as I said, she didn’t come up with it at all. She did NO research. She got that number from her Democrat Party – the party that is desperately fighting this tax reform plan that would free millions of voters from government dependency. Here’s how the Democrats came up with that number: You buy something for $100. Of that sum $23 goes to the government, and $77 goes to the merchant and the producer of that item. You divide the $23 in tax by the $77 that goes to the merchant and you get 0.2987 or 30%. Now if you went back to our example earning $10,000 and paying $2,800 in income taxes because he’s in the 28% tax bracket and figured the tax rate the exact same way, by dividing the $2,800 paid to the government by the $7,200 kept by the taxpayer you would come up with an income tax rate of 38.9%, not 28%. Democrats like Michelle Nunn like to keep with the false 30% claim for the FairTax, but refuse to apply the same formula to their precious income tax because the income tax is their baby, the FairTax is a grave threat.
There’s another key to understanding that Michelle Nunn knows NOTHING about the FairTax and is merely relying on talking points from Obama and the Democrat National Campaign Committee. Nunn is being widely quoted as saying that 50% of Georgians would end up paying more in taxes under the FairTax, and that the rich would pay less.
Blatantly untrue.
What did Michelle Nunn miss?
The prebate.
The truth is nobody – not one individual – not one American household – would pay one single penny to the federal government in taxes until they had met the basic and essential needs of their family. How does that work? The federal government develops a figure every year of just how much a family of a certain size has to pay to cover the family’s basic necessities … food, clothing, shelter, transportation and the like. Right now that figure for a family of four is $31,020. So if you go out and spend $31,020 to support a family of four, just how much of that total is going to end up in the hands of the federal government? At a FairTax rate of 23% that figure would be $7,135. Now divide that figure by twelve. You’ll come up with $595 per month that family would be paying in FairTax. So, under the FairTax plan, that family would receive a monthly prebate of $595. It’s called a prebate because it’s paid at the beginning of the month, not at the end after the consumer has spent the money. The prebate would come in the form of a credit to a bank checking account, a debit card, a credit card … you get the idea.
So why did Michelle Nunn completely ignore the prebate? Easy. Because she had no clue it existed, that’s why. You could jam what Michelle Nunn knows about the FairTax up an ant’s hiney and it would rattle around like a BB in a boxcar. She didn’t know about the FairTax prebate because she did absolutely NO research on her own … NONE … and simply relied on talking points supplied to her by the Democrat Party.
Now I have to assume that there are people reading this who are learning something about the FairTax for the first time. First let me say that over $22 million dollars went into research and development of this tax reform plan. It’s not just a wild harebrained idea. It is easily the most researched piece of legislation that has appeared before the Congress of the United States in our lifetimes. For instance, do you think for a minute that anywhere close to that amount of money was spent developing and designing Obamacare?
One more point .. that 23% FairTax rate. If you’re not familiar with the plan that figure may horrify you. In fact, Michelle Nunn said that the 23% figure would mean that 50% of Georgians would end up paying $4000 more in taxes. Now I’m not going to call that a lie. You have to know something to be untrue when you say it for the statement to be a lie. Michelle Nunn didn’t know that statement was false because, again, she did no research and asked no questions on her own. She just parroted Democrat talking points. So here’s what she didn’t tell you, and what she probably doesn’t even know.
The FairTax gets rid of personal and corporate income taxes, estate taxes and payroll (Social Security and Medicare) taxes. Put together these taxes represent an average of about 22% of the cost of all goods and services sold in the United States. Again .. those taxes disappear. They are replaced by the FairTax. The competitive pressures of the marketplace will prevent any merchant or producer from trying to reap a windfall by adding the FairTax to the price of their product without a compensating reduction in product costs to reflect the disappearance of income and payroll taxes. We have seen instances where businesses have tried to keep prices at current levels when tax components are eliminated, and it has never worked. The prices come down. So … under the FairTax consumer prices for goods and services will remain virtually unchanged.
Now there’s not much time left before the vote next Tuesday. I’m out of town. In fact -— rather far away in Hawaii. As I type these notes I can hear the surf crashing on the waves below. But I do have a working telephone – and I make this challenge to Michelle Nunn. You chose the venue. You chose the radio talk show – the news program – the press conference – and you allow me to patch in by telephone so that you and I can debate the FairTax. Think you can handle that Michelle? Think you could survive in that debate without your Democrat/Obama talking points?
Let’s give it a try. You people know how to reach me.
Ping.
Well all I know is that a couple of weeks ago Ted Cruz came out with a tax plan for two rates; 15% and 35%. That was for an income tax. I have never heard him talk about the Fair Tax.
Flat Tax or Fair Tax, in either case you’re going to have a lot of people at the lower end of the earnings spectrum that are going to see their taxes go up. And a lot of people at the upper end of the earning spectrum who are going to see their taxes go down. How are you going to sell that to the ones getting hosed?
God all you Christians out there.
God stated a tithe, which comes out to be 1 in 10 of everything you make.
Why do you allow others, to make a ‘required tithe’ of MORE THAN THAT, to a ‘government’??
I could see, if any at all, between 5 and 8 in 10. I would rather see none, but the Constitution doesn’t see that, so ok.
a consumption tax is a deal breaker for me for any politician
stephenjohnbanker:
The IRS has become a thug, left wing unionized bunch of criminals. Abolish the IRS!
OneWingedShark:
A flat-rate, no credit, no write-off/deduction, no exemption, no exception system would allow that.
Arthur McGowan:
As long as there’s a 16th amendment and an income tax, the next Congress can always make it more “fair.”
GeronL:
If it doesn’t CUT TAXES, make taxes less complicated, and it is “revenue neutral” and keeps taking from some taxpayers and giving it to non-tax payers… what is the point??
Arthur McGowan:
If the 16th Amendment is not repealed, the “progressive” tax rates will come back. Envy and avarice are always on the prowl. There will always be a large constituency for soaking “the rich.”
Here's how I'd do it:
| Tax Reform Amendment |
|---|
| Section I No tax, fee, fine, or judgement —federal, State, or subdivision of either— shall ever be withheld from any wage. Section II No property shall be seized for failure to pay taxes until after conviction in a jury trial; the right of the jury to nullify (and thereby forgive) this debt shall never be questioned or denied. Section III The second amendment is hereby recognized as restricting the power of taxation, both federal and state, therefore no tax (or fine) shall be laid upon munitions or the sale thereof. Section IV The seventh amendment is also hereby recognized, and nothing in this amendment shall restrict the right of a citizen to seek civil redress. Section V No income tax levied by the federal government, the several States, or any subdivision of either shall ever exceed 10%. Section VI No income tax levied by the federal government, the several States, or any subdivision of either shall ever apply varying rates to those in its jurisdiction. Section VII No retrospective, retroactive or ex post facto tax, fee, or fine shall ever be valid; nor shall the Congress delegate the creation of any tax, fee, or fine in any way; nor shall Congress give any credit, exemption, or deduction to any person or class of persons whatsoever. Section VIII No federal employee, representative, senator, judge, justice or agent shall ever be exempt from any tax, fine, or fee by virtue of their position. Section IX Any federal employee, representative, senator, judge, justice or agent abridging, attempting to abridge, or otherwise circumventing this amendment shall, upon conviction, be evicted from office and all retirement benefits forfeit. |
I have a few more ideas for amendments here; note that the above version is the working copy
of the amendment and not yet published to the PDF.
I fully support the Fair Tax as it is written in HR 25 and S122.
However, once that sucker gets sent to committee, it will be corrupted into a VAT tax on everything. Income taxes will not be overturned.
Be very careful what you wish for.
The FAIR tax is over-complicated, doesn’t reduce rates and the “prebate” is the most retarded thing ever devised.
Income taxes are inherently Tyrannical, for a very large number of profound reasons.
It is simply indefensible to argue for the preservation of the income tax in any form whatsoever. It was ostensibly justified as a way to make the rich "pay their fair share", then it was promptly and increasingly fomented upon the American middle class, and has been destroying it ever since.
Consumption-based (sales) taxes are far easier to administer, require no bloated bureaucracy to enforce, and are intrinsically more fair (e.g. those who consume the most pay the most tax).
Most importantly, sales taxes don't by their very nature necessitate the routine trampling of fundamental concepts of Liberty, whereas income taxes obviously do.
Claiming that the Fair tax is over-complicated or that the "pre-bate" is retarded is hardly enough reason to preserve the Marxist abomination known as the progressive income tax.
The Income Tax is a central plank of communism. It is, in a word, slavery.
Nothing conceived by the twisted collective authoritarian mind of man could be worse than imposing income taxation on supposedly free citizens of a supposedly free country.
1. We get rid of most of the 30,000 tax lobbyists in Washington, DC and their corrupting influence.
2. We get a tax code so simple that anyone who can read the first Harry Potter novel could figure it out.
3. The simplicity of FairTax means 90-plus percent reduction in the yearly compliance and economic opportunity costs of the taxation, a cost that has reached US$1 TRILLION per year.
4. It means millions of jobs, thousands of factories and hundreds of corporate headquarters return to the USA because it is tax advantageous to do so.
5. It means most of that US$15 TRILLION in American-owned liquid assets now sitting in foreign financial institutions for tax avoidance reasons return to the USA.
6. It means a WAY stronger stock market, since capital gains and stock dividends are no longer taxed.
7. It means people can save for retirement and/or serious medical bills completely tax-free, since bank account interest is not longer taxed. And that means way less financial pressure on both Social Security and Medicare.
8. The very way the prebate is structured could become a very effective tool against illegal immigration, since only citizens, legal resident aliens, aliens with legal work permits and foreign college students with student visas can get the prebate payments.
9. By not having to file tax returns with intimate details of your personal finances, it also means vastly improved personal privacy.
10. The government can't use tax code to favor or punish any political constituency.
In the end, it would be the most liberating thing to happen to the USA since the American Revolution. And it will trigger off the biggest economic boom in American history because many companies would want to be locate their operations in the USA due to very fact we no longer impose taxes on the very process of earning money.
The Prebate is part of the concept that has become the Brand that is Fair Tax. You can’t discuss Fair Tax without getting tangled up in that. Call it something else.