Posted on 01/27/2023 8:32:51 AM PST by Taxman
The FAIRtax- The lady doth protest too much, methinks!
Today’s Chairman’s Report is written by Jade Walle. Jade is a partner of a CPA firm and is on the board of Americans For Fair Taxation. [AFFT]
The FAIRtax is once again in the mainstream news given the insistence from certain lawmakers that the FAIRtax Act of 2023, H.R. 25, get a vote on the House floor. This of course will be a red-letter day for the FAIRtax because since its first introduction in 1999, it has never received a House floor vote. Until now, it has languished and died in the House Ways and Means Committee in every previous Congress. The obvious question is why is the vast majority of press the FAIRtax receives negative? Why are “news stories” about the FAIRtax often accompanied by swarms of misinformation or the reaction that the FAIRtax is a pipe dream and not feasible? This sounds like the equivalent of the age-old adolescent argument of it will not work, “just because”.
Let’s examine a foundational truth. When there is a gargantuan problem, and the problem has persisted for a significant length of time but no solution to the problem is ever implemented or truly considered, there is usually a common thread at play.
Of course, we allude to the debacle that is the IRS and our current income and payroll tax system. Its grossly inefficient, regressive to our working poor, impossible to understand, and rife with illegal evasion amounting to at the very least, $1 trillion every single year.
No rational argument has ever been put forth in support of the IRS and the income and payroll tax system, its processes or bloated budget of approximately $12 billion per year (before the Inflation Reduction Act’s IRS funding explosion). So why then does the current system persist? Why does the IRS continue to survive and even grow year after year given that it is hopelessly outdated, punitive, and a major drag on the U.S. economy?
The simple answer is that entrenched interests continue to make two things off of the status quo. What are these two things? It’s not hard to guess that the first one is money—and lots of it. Think K-street lobbyists six-figure incomes, members of Congress receiving a continual cycle of campaign contributions to amend the Internal Revenue Code at its fringes, and a perpetual political tool of demagoguery (e.g., one class of people are greedy and need to pay their “fair share,” etc.).
The second is power. The political establishment has an insatiable desire for power over peoples’ lives, and the US tax code gives them enormous power to influence our behavior and our decisions.
Think about the power to confiscate hard earned income and wealth and think about the power and privilege-garnering tool to redistribute U.S. Treasury receipts for runaway government spending that benefits our politician’s friends, family, and business interests.
Lastly, the power to attack, persecute, and silence one’s political opponents is an insipid temptation that the income tax continually offers up to the weakest of our leaders.
So, when you read mainstream media articles about how the FAIRtax could “never work,” or how the FAIRtax is regressive, or that the rate is too high to be feasible, ask yourself what is really at play here?
Why are the political elites so adamant about keeping a failing system that’s spiraling out of control as $1 trillion a year goes uncollected? What’s stopping them from changing to the simple, efficient, visible FAIRtax system with its regression-protecting prebate mechanism? Why do they insist on taxing people’s hard-earned income?
Just as in Hamlet, when Queen Gertrude responds with her famous quip that “the lady doth protest too much, methinks” when the opposite Hamlet player appears insincere in her overly emotional overreaction to a marriage, so too is the mainstream media’s persistent refrain that the FAIRtax just couldn’t work, the FAIRtax is regressive, or the FAIRtax rate is too high.
WHAT CAN EACH OF US DO?
We can write letters and make calls to our elected representatives demanding that if the government really wants to eliminate the burden of filing income tax returns, they should enact the FAIRtax and do away with tax returns altogether. The great 18th century Irish statesman Edmund Burke made a statement that applies in many ways,
“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.”
Remember, if we don't continue to tell the truth and demand a change, then this quote from George Orwell's 1984 may foretell our children's future:
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”
Take back control! Help us PASS THE FAIRTAX!
The IRS will be gone and we will pay our taxes when we make purchases.
WE and not the Ruling Class and their minions in D.C. will decide how much federal tax we pay!
If you have friends who don’t know about the FAIRtax, send them to FAIRtax.org. Have them watch the white boards under “How It Works” and, if they agree, ask them to please join us.
Then contact your Members of Congress and the President and demand that Congress pass -the FAIRtax—the only fair tax.
Is it hopeless? When confronted with a seemingly impossible problem, remember the statement attributed to the author George Bernard Shaw who wrote, You see things; and you say “Why?” But I dream things that never were; and I say “Why not?”
Isn’t it time for us to ask, “Why not?”
Help us replace the income tax with the FAIRtax and abolish the IRS!
Go to https://www.fairtax.org to find out how you can help.
FAIRtax ping!
While I agree with everything said about the current tax scheme/IRS a new law establishing a new federal sales tax is not going to cure the ailment.
Without first repealing the 16th Amendment your law is useless.
Even if your law dissolved the IRS any future congress can reestablish the IRS and income tax.
I also feel compelled to mention that income tax is a small part of congress’s taxing ability.
Deficit spending by far the most burdensome tax imposed by congress not only on the American people but every holder of US currency in the world.
What we need is an Article 5 convention to repeal the 16th Amendment and put constitutional restraints on congress’s ability to spend amongst other limits on federal power.
Thank you for referencing that article Taxman.
With all due respect to the FAIRtax movement, please consider the following.
The real constitutional goal concerning taxes is not fair taxation limo, but putting a stop to unconstitutional, unaccountable, post-17th Amendment ratification federal taxing and spending.
"Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
“If the tax be not proposed for the common defence, or general welfare, but for other objects, wholly extraneous, (as for instance, for propagating Mahometanism among the Turks, or giving aids and subsidies to a foreign nation, to build palaces for its kings, or erect monuments to its heroes,) it would be wholly indefensible upon constitutional principles [emphases added].” — Justice Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution 2 (1833).
”Simply this, that the care of the property, the liberty, and the life of the citizen, under the solemn sanction of an oath imposed by your Constitution, is in the States and not in the federal government [emphases added]. I have sought to effect no change in that respect in the Constitution of the country.” —John Bingham, Congressional. Globe. 1866, page 1292 (see top half of third column)
Pelosi: "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it." (non-FR; 6 sec.)
“Cherish, therefore, the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, judges and governors, shall all become wolves [emphasis added]. It seems to be the law of our general nature.” - Thomas Jefferson (Letter to Edward Carrington January 16, 1787)
The bottom line...
All MAGA patriots need to wake up their RINO federal and state lawmakers by making the following clear to them.
If they don’t publicly support either a resolution, or a Constitutional Convention, to effectively "secede" ALL the states from the unconstitutionally big federal government by amending the Constitution to repeal the 16th (direct taxes) and 17th (popular voting for federal senators) Amendments, doing so before the primary elections in 2024, that YOU will primary them.
If the proposed amendment was limited strictly to repealing 16&17A, relatively little or ideally no discussion would be needed before ratification of the amendment imo.
With 16&17A out of the way, my hope is that Trump 47 is the first president of a truly constitutionally limited power federal government.
A con-con will not solve ANY of our problems - it will, OTOH, create far more problems than we can even begin to comprehend.
HST, the 16th does not need to be repealed before the FAIRtax is implemented. The plan is to pass the FAIRtax and then repeal it.
Our belief is that the FAIRtax economy will be so good that there will be no support for reinstituting an income tax.
Tax legislation does not address deficit spending. Talk to your “public servants” about that one!
The FairTax is only fair in somebody's subjective sense. it is not objectively fair.
The FairTax IS progressive.
Get rid of the pre-bate.
the prebate is a poverty level refund of taxes paid by those under that level...
the rich pay more taxes by buying more new and expensive stuff.
the fairtax is not progressive.
The pre-bate is a “feature” for some, and a “bug” for others.
If the pre-bate were eliminated, it would lower the rate FRom 23% to 17 or 18%, initially.
Certainly a worthwhile discussion item!
“...the fairtax is not progressive.”
Without the prebate, it would be objectively fair.
With the prebate, it is unquestionably progressive. By definition.
However it is viewed by others, it is the aspect which makes the FairTax another progressive tax scheme.
The switch to consumption based tax and zero income tax would be great. No need for Sleepy Joe to even know how much I earn.
The prebate concept is just a different way of sheltering some from federal taxes. Probably as many as today eventually. There will be people paying varying rates of net fed taxes - from zero to whatever sales tax rate. Progressive.
More people, all people, should feel the pain of higher spending or it will never stop.
The people who consider the awful prebate idea as a 'feature' are well-meaning but misguided. The feds should NOT be involved in welfare or philanthropy - at all! That is for states to do if they so choose.
Welfare is at least not unconstitutional at the state level like it is at the fed level. Even at the state level, though, taxes should be simple and objectively applied. Welfare should be a spending side issue only. Not something that entirely mucks up otherwise simple and objective tax plans.
Your beliefs do not reflect reality.
Good economies have never stopped Democrats from passing destructive legislation.
And in todays world of fake news, the Left can create news that shows that 2% inflation and 3% unemployment is a horrible Sh!t Storm.
Nothing less than changing the Constitution is going to put an end to the Income tax and rampant government spending.
There is too much power and wealth wrapped up in the tax code and uncontrolled government spending.
You can bet that people will kill to protect the flow of money coming out of Washington.
Here’s an idea:
The federal government sends out 50 bills, one to each state. The amount of the tax is based on the latest census. The IRS is completely abolished. TOTALLY!
Each state figures out how to collect from its citizens. Eventually, given 50 experiments the best tax collecting systems will emerge.
I like it!
How you gonna get it done?
Have you legislation in Congress?
Have you a national organization backing your idea?
The way to prevent the Shit Storm you refer to is to get engaged in the process!
A “con-con” will not do it!
Well, then, join with us and help get the FAIRtax passed without the pre-bate!
Well, I'm not opposed to that.
Despite knowing full well that, soon after all the hard work of passing it, future Congresses will pass something analogous to a prebate. They are not going to stop trying to buy votes.
What do you tell folks to do in support?
It’s just an idea.
However....ideas are the most powerful things in the universe. That we exist at all began as an idea in the mind of God.
The truth of the matter is, as long as the Evil Inside the Beltway Establishment (The “Swamp”) controls the country, nothing will get done to improve the lives of We the People.
WE MUST TAKE AMERICA BACK!
Welcome to the FAIRtax!
Go to https://www.fairtax.org and find out how to get involved.
There are many ways, but the first and most important is to study the legislation, H.R. 25 and become knowledgeable about the FAIRtax.
Once you do that, you can decide how best to become involved.
“WE MUST TAKE AMERICA BACK!”
We should do it early in the morning. The Left likes to sleep in.
Also, thanks for the link.
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