[JaneNC]

Boooo

Fair tax is not good.

FLAT TAX is equitable.

[rrrod]

Fair tax is just that... fair...it would force the underground economy shoppers, illegals, drug dealers to PAY. Plus say good buy to the IRS. Flat tax has its benefits but keeps the power in DC...

[Bigun]

Income tax, flat, round or square BAD!

Fairtax GOOD!

[PubliusMM]

First, NO tax on income is equitable. Especially with the uneven playing field we are on.
Second, ANY tax on income is an invitation to the Congress to tweak and fiddle, just as has happened with the current tax code.
Third, taxes on CONSUMPTION are more equitable because they give you (the individual) the option to say NO. You are not obligated to BUY anything.
Fourth, the argument that the FairTax is the first step to a VAT is true to the extent that the sheeple MAY LET IT HAPPEN. IF the American people are as vigilant and demanding as they should be, it will never devolve into a VAT.

The Fair Tax, as embodied in HR25 is an excellent idea, worthy of serious consideration. Please encourage your elected officials, AT ALL LEVELS OF GOVERNMENT, to study it closely.

[CMAC51]

Boooo Fair tax is not good. FLAT TAX is equitable.

Unfortunately you are incorrect. The cost of income tax is embedded into the cost of the goods and services. That is where the money to pay the tax comes from. So, in the US, typically 20% of the price of something is actually the tax burden of the people making or providing the good or service. The flat tax does not change this. The cost of taxes are still built into the price of the good or service being consumed.

When the good or service is provided via import, a large potion of that 20% leaves the United States and goes back to the country of origin. This gives foriegn competition within the United States a huge advantage over domestic suppliers. If the tax were no longer embedded in the price but added on at the time of sale, then it would not matter if the good or service was imported or not, the 20% would stay in the United States. Imports would lose a large part of their advantage and the US economy would boom. Just look at the current trade deficit. What would it do for tax revenues if 20% of that deficit stayed in the United States as sales tax?

The Fair Tax is the single greatest step the US could take to bolstering our economy and stop the flow of jobs out of the country.

[Defend Liberty]

FLAT TAX is equitable.

Our current federal income tax code began as a flat income tax when the 16th Amendment was passed in 1913. People were taxed 1% on the first $20,000 of income and 7% on income over $500,000. Less than 1% of the population earned more than $500,000 in 1913. That also means more than 99% of the population was taxed 1%, making it a flat income tax.

Over the last 98 years it has evolved into the multi tiered, increasingly convoluted and oppressive mess we have today. Another flat income tax will morph back into what we have today only faster thanks to the thousands of lobbyists, who get all sorts exemptions for their big business clients, that didn't exist in 1913. Also the IRS will still exist! There is certainly nothing equitable about what has become of the federal income tax code.

All that ignores the fact The Fair Tax is a flat tax but on consumption instead of productivity since the Fair Tax will impose only one rate at the point of sale.

[jla]

To 4 - Wrong. Thru myriad ways income can be hidden, not reported in its entirety, not reported at all. Everyone pays a consumption tax, unless of course they never buy anything.

[84rules]

Of course you said this realizing that the current tax system orginally started out as a Flat Tax, right?

[Neidermeyer]

Boooo

Fair tax is not good.

FLAT TAX is equitable.

****************************************

The income tax was originally a “flat tax” and it’s pretty “flat” now with only 3 rates ... How’s that working for you? Continuing the Income tax is a losing bet ...

The “Fair Tax” is equitable and cannot be gamed easily by the Pols.

[wastedyears]

The only thing I don’t like on the Fair Tax is that the percentage is designed to support the current size of government. It should be cut to slash the size of government.

[teeman8r]

our current tax code started as a FLAT TAX, only on millionaires....

fairtax is the way.

[Pete Malone]

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?