Survey: Do you like the FairTax?

Question

The fairtax abolishes all taxes and replaces them with a 23% national sales tax.

-The rich pay their fair share, rich people spend more and pay more taxes

-Businesses who left America because of the tax burden would return

-Criminals, drug dealers, hookers, pimps, illegal immigrants all pay the tax

-A check is sent home to every citizen with the amount depending on the number of people in your household. This prebate is makes up for the taxes paid on items necessary for life. So that helps out the poor.

For more info go to fairtax.org.

So would you want the FairTax implemented?
And why?

Answer 1

The Fair Tax has no exemptions, no loopholes and no way to ignore from it.

The WEALTHY have the money to figure ways to avoid paying income taxes. They have tax shelters, tax attorneys and tax accountants to help them avoid paying income taxes. My guess is they spend more money paying to avoid paying taxes than the amount of taxes they pay. Take a look at the taxes paid by John Kerry or Ted Kennedy over the last few years or longer. Their tax rate is well below the vast majority of "middle-income" tax payors. But, how much do they spend? (Plenty) Do they buy used items? (No Way). They would end up paying more taxes under the Fair Tax is my guess!

Under the current income tax system it takes one person to cheat, the one filling out the form. But, under the Fair Tax it will require two to cheat, the buyer and the seller! When you consider that over 85% of all retail sales in the country are done by less than 5% of the businesses ( major box stores etc), they are not going to cheat. A business cannot exist without income. If someone claims to have a business in order for business to business transactions (no taxes) they will be required to file a sales tax report to justify their income. Cheaters will get caught! There will be much less "black market or unreported sales" fraud under the Fair Tax than there is under the current income tax system.

The Fair Tax is a FLAT SALES TAX. Everyone pays the same percentage, but each person has the control of how many dollars they pay under the Fair Tax. You pay based upon how you spend your money. If you buy designer jeans, you pay alot; if you buy named brand jeans, you pay more; if you buy store brand jeans, you pay less; but if you buy used jeans from garage sales, thrift stors or consignment shops, you pay no sales taxes! If you refuse to buy used items, you pay more taxes. Do drug dealers buy fancy new cars and clothing? They will be paying the sales tax when they spend their money. But, are they a business selling drugs and might they want to avoid paying these taxes on business expenses. OK, they only need to collect the Fair Tax on all their sales and report it to the Feds. So, they will be paying the Fair Tax either when they buy things or when they sell in the black market. Either way, they will be paying more under the Fair Tax than they are paying under the current income tax system.

The Fair Tax is a progressive sales tax due to the Prebate
The Prebate system is set up to catch cheaters. Each household must provide SS number for each member. These numbers will be checked against the main SS database. When two individuals provide the same number, it will be obvious which one is invalid. That household will then be investigated for incorrect filing and may not get the prebate. Computers will be doing the number checking, not people. It will be much faster, more accurate, less cheating.
If you do not have a valid SS number, there will be no Prebate.

The Fair Tax treats everyone the same. If you spend for new goods or services, you pay the Fair Tax to the seller, the seller forwards it to the State who in turn forwards it to the U S Treasury. Both the seller and State get paid to do this based upon how much Fair Tax they collect. They lose if they do not report the taxes. If they collect it but do not file, they will be caught.

People that critize the Fair Tax either do not under stand it or have too much invested in the income tax system (loopholes or other tax avoidance measures) that they do not want to lose1

Answer 2

I LOVE The Fair Tax as presented by www.FairTax.org and various related State websites.

Every current proposal based on the existing Income Tax code -- including the deceptively named "flat tax" -- hides or ignores the simple fact that every tax is ultimately paid by consumers. The tax on a mine increases the price of ore; the tax on a steel mill increases the cost of sheet metal; taxing car manufacturers and dealers further adds to the cost, ALL of which is ultimately paid by the consumer who buys a car.

The Fair Tax removes that deceptive additional cost from the price of raw materials and manufactured goods, reducing the final cost of those goods by far more than the sum of the tax it eliminates at each level by simultaneously removing the cost of the bureaucracy which administered those piecemeal and cumulative taxes. The result is lower prices to consumers.

At the same time, by collecting taxes (only) at the point of final purchase, every worker's take-home pay is increased by a significant margin, an effective wage increase which can be used to pay down personal debts, saved, or invested as the consumer sees fit. Because the Fair Tax does not penalize savings, it gives consumers a significant incentive to manage their money wisely and rewards good personal finances.

Finally (for this comment), the Fair Tax "Prebate" protects low- and fixed-income consumers while rigorously guarding their personal privacy by eliminating the requirement for them to "prove" their need. Those with higher incomes may spend or save their prebate -- either choice improves the economy for everyone -- and those at or below the poverty line can do the same, because the Fair Tax rewards thrift.

The Fair Tax is the best hope for our children's future; a fitting 21st-century replacement for a worn, patched and failing tax code which has been stretched far beyond its limits.

Answer 3

Naysayers railing against the FairTax become, ipso facto, defenders of the an INCOME TAX system that has enabled the profligate spending that IS bringing the country to an economic meltdown (*). Do FairTax naysayers really believe:

• Workers love having their pay confiscated, hourly, through gov't withholding and don't mind getting their money back by involuntary servitude - to the tune of 50 hours/year (on average) - preparing an annual tax return?

• That certifying the number of persons in your family (annually, and, ancillarily, upon change in household) is an abrogation of our freedom - more intrusive and complex than filing a tax return every year subject to threats and intimidation by theIRS.

• It's better to have theIRS fishing through citizens' income transactions (complete with audits, interest, penalties, and threats against individuals, families, businesses as well as confiscation of their homes, property, and bank accounts) rather than - Gawd forbid - issuing a gov't check to an individual (while pretending that Social Security payments disbursement logistics really can't work for "prebates")?

• That an monthly advance tax rebate is the same thing as "being on the dole" ? (Only lobbyists, special interests, and business deserve "handouts" ? - the politician gets a payoff from a lobbyist, the lobbyist gets a payoff from its client, and the citizen gets higher taxes and/or prices that pay for it all.)

• "Hidden taxes" in higher prices are fine because they're not "taxes"? (Hey, forget that families are really paying business's costs for complying with a business income tax code - staff, consultants, submittals, etc.)

• It's far better to have a gargantuan tax collection "service" in Washington, than to have 50 decentralized, smaller, leaner state collection agencies collecting taxes from fewer sources?

• That the work by notable economists (paid tens of millions of $'s by Americans for Fair Taxation) doesn't carry weight because it was paid for by private funds instead of some gov't / quasi-gov't enterprise?

• That FairTax's backing by many economists (**) doesn't carry any weight because (the Brookings') Wm Gale's testimony before the President's Commission on Tax Reform is - somehow - above all that?!

(NOTE: The Commission/Gale made up their own "consumption tax" requirements, as if that constituted a legitimate rebuke of the FairTax plan. Dr. Kotlikoff has requested - but never received - Gale's technical "modus operandi" which would definitively explain just how Gale's conclusions can be reconciled with Kotlikoff's well-documented technical work (***).


(*) MOST OMINOUSLY, WE'RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME FOR THE FIX THAT FAIRTAX WILL PROVIDE. Prof. Kotlikoff elaborates: http://snipurl.com/meltdowninprogress

(**) http://snipurl.com/econsopenletter (Lists every tax that FairTax will eliminate, together with the power they represent to pol's and lobbyists.)

(***) http://snipurl.com/taxpanelrebutted


The time for sitting around, pontificating, is over. We have NO CHOICE but to ACT: http://snipr.com/scrapthecode

Answer 4

Bad idea. No, it's a TERRIBLE idea! Why? Read on!

The wealthy amass wealth, they don't spend it. They'll pay much less in total tax under that tax. If you take the load off of the wealthy it will have to go somewhere -- to the poor and middle class. (The wealthy LOVE the idea as they'll save a TON of $$$. That should tell you something right there!)

Criminals would switch over to pushing black market goods as there would be MANY people who would not be able to survive with such a huge tax load. Most of them would continue to evade taxes and many otherwise law abiding folks would be forced to deal with the mafia and gang bangers for their DVD players and Cap'n Crunch.

The "prebate" would be rife with fraudulent claims. It would make the current EIC fraud look tame by comparison. Addresses would have to be tracked in real time. It takes the IRS years to catch up with income tax cheats in some cases so it would take hundreds of billions of $$$ in infrastructure improvements to catch the prebate cheats.

The IRS would be even more invasive in our lives. Imagine a tax audit where the auditor comes to your home and demands to see proof that all of your possessions were properly tax-paid. NO WAY!

FYI, I'm just an ordinary taxpayer. I have no "vested interest" in maintaining the current system, other than keeping my tax bite from growing exponentially as it would under the atrociously named "Fair Tax." There's absolutely NOTHING "fair" about it!

Answer 5

Are you suggesting that businesses pay no tax on earnings? I don't understand. That would be disastrous. Individual income tax would skyrocket to make up for the billions and billions the IRS now collects from businesses. YOU want to pay their share?

Businesses didn't leave the USA because of high taxes, they left it to find CHEAP LABOR.

Answer 6

I love the FairTax. It's the fairest tax proposal out there and it's extremely easy to implement. Unfortunately, there are too many people out there who have a vested interest in the current complicated system, that I think it will be an uphill battle to get it passed.

Answer 7

The last survey you prob answered from me was 103/99 huh..my 14 dead surveys.. No rant. 1. Which anime has very few female characters? >>> death note 2. Which anime has very few male characters? >>> love hina 3. Can you name an anime character that where in the genre being focused on is horror/comedy? >>> drawing blanks here 4. Can you name an anime weapon that can transform into something else? >>> inuyashas sword kinda forgot what it was called .. .. Oh joy..-.- short survey.. anyways, cyah *goes to diet and fitness section*