LTE - Fair Tax
Imagine what a boost the American economy would experience if taxpayers were handed a virtual $400-billion-per-year tax cut! This amount of extra money in our pockets would work to grow the economy. Further imagine that even with this virtual tax cut, the government would continue to be funded at its current level. The treasury would merely have to collect federal taxes through a simpler, more transparent and fairer system than our current tax code. The Fair Tax bills before Congress would replace the Internal Revenue Service with just such a system.
The report of President Bush’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform, published in late 2005, states that the money spent by Americans filling out their tax forms would fund “the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State, NASA, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Transportation, the United States Congress, our federal courts, and all of the federal government’s foreign aid.”
This same advisory panel noted that widespread noncompliance costs each honest taxpayer an extra $2,000 in taxes yearly. It further notes that due to the arbitrariness of the code increasing your income by 50 percent can increase your tax burden by 140 percent.
It shows that marginal income tax rates can now rise to more than 30 percent for a family earning just $30,000 per year. That’s does not include the 15 percent payroll tax. A 45 percent marginal rate on a $30,000 yearly income is happening today! This comes straight from the advisory panel experts. Who in his right mind can prefer the current system to the 23 percent Fair Tax?John Hanson
Bristol, Va.
Use the Fair Tax calculator and find out how much the Fair Tax can save you.
posted by Carl Kilo at 8:10:00 AM
Comments on "LTE - Fair Tax"
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Anonymous said ... (1:03 PM) :
post a commentMost of the critics of the Fair erroneously believe that income taxes are the best way to redistribute wealth from those who have to those who don't. They seem oblivious to the fact that all the loopholes and exemptions in the current tax code leave the rich practically untouched while their taxes get passed on to consumers through higher retail prices. But this also increases the cost of production in American which makes Amercan made products uncompetative in foreign markets. That's why so many manufacturers have moved their plants and jobs overseas and keep their money in offshore tax shelters. We're hardly producing anything and we're importing far more than we're exporting so our trade deficit keeps climbing year after year.
The Fair tax will undo all this damage. It's not a sales tax because it isn't added at the register. It's a consumption tax that is included in net prices. It's intended to replace those hidden income taxes we're already paying for so we won't see prices change much. It completely rebates the tax to the poor and the elderly so they stand to see a 20% drop in their cost of living. Since it eliminates taxes on production, American manufacturers will be able to compete in the global market and increase our exports. They will move their money back to the US and use it to build more plants here and create tons of good paying jobs.
The Fair tax plan is a no-brainer! Any shortcommings it may have pale in comparison to the stark injustices and inequities of our current income tax system. Everyone should be relentlessly shoving this into the faces of their elected representatives until it gets passed. Then, when we're all better off, we can worry about ironing out the details.