Thursday, May 21, 2009

What is the FairTax plan?

The FairTax plan is a comprehensive proposal that replaces all federal income and payroll based taxes with an integrated approach including a progressive national retail sales tax, a prebate to ensure no American pays federal taxes on spending up to the poverty level, dollar-for-dollar federal revenue replacement, and, through companion legislation, the repeal of the 16th Amendment.

This nonpartisan legislation (HR 25/S 1025) abolishes all federal personal and corporate income taxes, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security, Medicare, and self-employment taxes and replaces them with one simple, visible, federal retail sales tax -- administered primarily by existing state sales tax authorities.

The IRS is disbanded and defunded.

The FairTax taxes us only on what we choose to spend on new goods or services, not on what we earn. The FairTax is a fair, efficient, transparent, and intelligent solution to the frustration and inequity of our current tax system.

2 comments:

Dutchman3 said...

Kitten,

Sounds too good to be true, and it is! (1) Federal government taxation of state/local government consumption is inappropriate/unconstitutional under our republican form of government. Your 30% sales tax will have to be 39% when the Supreme Court throws out this feature. (2) Senior retirees living on Social Security and the income from their nest egg will be hurt badly by the Fairtax.
(3) Young families spend much more than they earn through borrowed wealth, and will pay higher taxes under the Fairtax.
(4)The prebate feature is really a huge cash grant entitlement at a time when entitlements are squeezing out discretionary spending in the federal budget.
(5)Retail prices will rise by 15-20% under the Fairtax unless everyone takes a pay cut in the amount of their present withholding. This isn't going to happen for contractual and fairness reasons.
(6) How can the Fairtax be called transparent when 15% of the needed federal revenue is proposed to come from higher state and local taxes?
(7) Retirees who have paid into the SS Trust Funds for 45 years or so would be forced to resume paying for the benefits with their sales tax dollars. Is that fair? (8) The Congress is institutionally conservative and much prefers evolution to revolutions such as the Fairtax. The "cold turkey" implementation plan makes no sense and should be changed to a five to ten year change over.

Kitten said...

All I can do is suggest you go to the FairTax.org website and research the answers to your questions - with an open mind. If you can debunk the Fair Tax by honest research, then you will have viable arguments.

Thank you for your comments.