Replies

If you think for one minute that this country won't then incur all the inefficiencies of a barter economy and a black market, I've got news for you

It already does with the federal income tax whose overall tax burden keeps increasing with the corresponding number of pages that have been added onto the tax code over the last 98 years. You're naive if you think there isn't bartering and a black market system with a tax code in excess of 67,500 pages. There will be far less bartering and a far smaller black market with a consumption base tax that will increase people's purchasing power and eliminate the increasingly intrusive IRS along with their multitude of tax forms.

A "Fair Tax" is no panacea. Focus on cutting spending instead.

No tax system is a panacea but The Fair Tax will be far better than what we have today. We can focus on cutting spending and reducing taxes at the same time since The Fair Tax will eliminate the IRS's $11 billion price tag.

You're naive if you think there isn't bartering and a black market system with a tax code in excess of 67,500 pages. There will be far less bartering and a far smaller black market with a consumption base tax that will increase people's purchasing power and eliminate the increasingly intrusive IRS along with their multitude of tax forms.

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.

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.

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.

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