Prebate “checks” will be electronic direct deposits, similar to federal, state and local retirement checks, SS checks and the like. Done by computer-to-computer communication.
I’ll grant that there is the opportunity for FRaud inherent in ALL government programs. Witness the continuing EBT, disability, unemployment, etc. etc. FRaud we are daily told about. HST, the potential for FRaud is not, IMHO, a serious enough problem to be a FairTax show-stopper. In any event, there are provisions in the law to “handle,” and ultimately, imprison, those who try to cheat the system.
With respect to employees, it will not take 100,000 feds (the rough IRS body count today) to operate the new agency. The IRS WILL BE ABOLISHED and a new agency created to monitor the states tax collection efforts after FairTax is implemented. If the number of IRS types decreases by 50-75%, that is a hellofasavings!
When the FairTax proposal was being written, I argued (I was there) for the lower rate/no prebate you speak of. I lost the argument (I was not the only one arguing for a “no prebate plan, BTW). HST, the arguments for including the prebate were persuasive, and the prebate is in the legislation.
The architects the FairTax believe that including a prebate to pay for the necessities of life would accomplish three essential purposes: (1) the prebate would help defuse the “regressive” argument, because the it effectively makes the FairTax “progressive;” (2) the prebate would increase the appeal of the FairTax to low and middle income taxpayers who were used to paying lower tax rates, and; (3) the prebate would obviate the “requirement” to have certain classes of goods (food, rent, medicine, etc. etc.) untaxed. The prebate totally eliminated the argument that if certain goods were not taxed, then other goods should not be taxed. (Under FairTax, ALL new retail goods and services are taxed; there are no exemptions and loopholes. The idea here is to eliminate the “rent seeking” lobbyists industry.)
Finally, the flat tax is still an income tax. The Flat tax does not abolish the IRS; the FairTax does. The flat tax does not release the American citizen FRom the slavery of an income tax; the FairTax does.
In fact, I can make a strong argument that under a flat income tax, the IRS will become even more intrusive, abusive, intolerant and disrespective of the Constitution than it is now. I’ll save that discussion for another thread.
Fundamentally, what we have here is an argument for FReedom. We will never be a truly FRee people so long as we have an income tax and an IRS!
I rest my case.
The only way we will be free of the slavery of taxes is to put the government beck in its Constitutionally delineated (original intent) cage.
So long as the Federal Government is in my light sockets, toilet tank and my kid's lunchbox, we are subjects of abject tyranny, and no matter how you collect the money, it remains what it is.
Put lipstick on a pig, you just have a fancy high-maintenance pig.
As for: "With respect to employees, it will not take 100,000 feds (the rough IRS body count today) to operate the new agency. The IRS WILL BE ABOLISHED and a new agency created to monitor the states tax collection efforts after FairTax is implemented. If the number of IRS types decreases by 50-75%, that is a hellofasavings!"
When has the government ever, and I mean ever, retired or done away with an agency it that didn't find a less efficient and more expensive labor intensive way to do things?
I have absolutely no faith that anything would be reduced in size or scope by a government that expanded (against the 4th Amendment) its monitoring of "terrorists" to include every communication in the country, including, no doubt, this one, regardless of who or what.
When the ministry of blanket electronic proctology shuts its doors, maybe we can think about downsizing.
I am fully in support of eliminating the income tax, after all, how is an exchange of my time, labor, and expertise "income"? I am trading, even up, for some pieces of paper or inconvenienced electrons to say I have another, more widely accepted medium of exchange--but have I gained anything? No, I traded, value for value, even up. No "gain", no "income" involved.
You still have to keep track of who has what account, changes of accounts, address, etc. You will still have a leviathan. Ever belong to a book club? (Do you thin the Federal Government is capable of operating at even that level of efficiency?) If not, it is going to be a mess, to put it mildly.