How many here support the FairTax? How many don't?

If you do, why?

If you don't, why?

I do for a few reasons that I'll give with short, simplistic explanations.

1. Removes all tax burden from those below the poverty line
2. Spurs domestic economic development by encouraging foreign companies to build/invest/move here
3. Captures equal tax input from illegal immigrants
4. Captures equal tax input from tourists
5. Increases government spending transparency
6. Should, as a byproduct, increase the economy to the size where some government programs, such as SS, MC, and MA, won't go bankrupt in the next few decades.
7. Removes the current penalties on investing
8. Removes the billions currently wasted in both loopholes in current system and the money spent on compliance with the 64,000 pages of current tax law

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"When we consider that women have been treated as property it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit."
Elizabeth Cady Stanton

- A perfect example of why I'm a paranoid parent.

I'm indifferent.

The Good: It might increase savings (but probably not)
The Bad: It might decrease spending (but probably not)
The Ugly: It's not really progressive. It puts a larger burden on the middle class
It won't really get rid of the IRS. It will require some accounting method.
It will affect illegal immigrants and the black market... which has the side effect
of making them harder to detect.
I don't see how a sales tax is actually less intrusive than a income tax.

So I really don't care. I think it's generally sold on false promises... but I think it will pretty much be a zero sum. It won't solve any problems but likely won't screw much up. And it will slowly be altered over time, like the income tax, to pit the poor and middle class against one another and allow loopholes for the rich.

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"Man lives in the sunlit world of that which he believes to be reality. But unseen by most is an underworld, a place that is just as real... but not as brightly lit... A DARK SIDE!"
-opening from Tales From the Darkside

I'm all for it.

Although I would note that those people don't pay taxes now.

HUGE plus.

Yep. All the complaints about illegals getting services but not paying for them would be gone.

Not sure how. It has nothing to do with the spending side.

Maybe. They say so. I'm not sure.

Big time.

Compliance costs will go way down. But we'll still need the IRS for detecting fraud. A ton of busnesses would love to pocket an extra 30%.

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I wasn't born with enough middle fingers.

I'm dubious of it. A bit to much "and then money will gush out of the ground", especially when they start talking about how everybody will be paying less. Especially since it's sounds like there is a lot of disagreement over what the rate will have to be to bring in the required income.

I'm also debuious of the claims of being able to save money by removing oversight. If you don't have IRS type filing and oversight how do you know that many goods and services, especially at the corporate level and amongst individuals with the wealth to buy and transport a lot of stuff from abroad, aren't just shirking the law?

Where does the Fair Tax bill suggest having no oversight?

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I wasn't born with enough middle fingers.

I'm a huge supporter.

The part that I like the best is that the Feds no longer know what our income is, not that it was any of their business in the first place. Atleast then we'd have a tax code everyone can understand, unlike the piece of crap we have now.

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It doesn't directly.
It's the talk of "getting rid of the IRS"..
But I think we agree that the removal of the IRS would not actually happen.

I do think it would sacrifice oversight of black markets and illegal immigrants for getting revenue out of them... This could be a bad side effect in that it will further discourage reform and encourage sweeping under the rug.
Al Cappone was after all caught due to the IRS checking on his income tax... That wouldn't work with sales tax.

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"Man lives in the sunlit world of that which he believes to be reality. But unseen by most is an underworld, a place that is just as real... but not as brightly lit... A DARK SIDE!"
-opening from Tales From the Darkside

The IRS, would exist but in a minimal form, mostly to send out prebate checks.

Oversight over black markets, also means oversight into individuals who don't commit crimes. Tons of people get hammered every year for not paying their taxes correctly. The current system is cumbersome and unreadable to most.

I'm also and advocate of the legalization of drugs, so the black market issue kind of falls on deaf ears with me. I always side with the maximization of personal liberty.

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It's an indirect plus. We would see the amount that the government is taking out of our pockets on every transaction. If they want to significantly increase spending and taxes, it's going to show up on every receipt in the nation. I think a lot of libs who support big government may not once they see that tax rate on the receipt jump up a few points.

The IRS as we know it will go away. It will be a fraction of its former 'glory' and be concerned with preventing corporate fraud, a job it already does to an extent.

Most of those disagreements arise out of how to report the rate and not what the actual rate will be [though some do dispute that]. The FairTax supporters want to report it to the people as an inclusive tax rate because it is a tax that replaces current inclusive taxes which are imbedded in the costs of goods.

Thus, the FairTax supporters say 23% to mean $23 out of every $100. FairTax critics claim this is actually a exclusive tax rate of 30% [23/77 * 100] which is how sales taxes are reported. As you can see, it's semantics that could have an effect on how less informed people actually receive the idea. 30% sounds a whole lot worse than 23%.

They are not suggesting that we remove oversight on the corporate level. Oversight would still be needed to ensure that corporations provided services or goods on the final transaction level would still need to record and report such activities and pay the taxes they collect.

However, personal income and capital gains information and reporting would not be needed or taxed. That's a bonus from a privacy standpoint as well as reducing the costs of population compliance.

Amen. 64,000 pages of junk that no one understands.

The black market would be able to evade these taxes. However, *most* analysts think that the losses under this system from tax evasion would not be as bad as current losses. The IRS itself reports that it probably misses billions of dollars per year in tax evasion.

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"When we consider that women have been treated as property it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit."
Elizabeth Cady Stanton

- A perfect example of why I'm a paranoid parent.

We'd have the Fair Tax equivalent. There has to be someone to enforce the law, just like now. It's just that the law is not at all complicated, so the massive size and scope of the entity would be far smaller. But we'd have one.

Anything purchased at retail is taxed. So we would collect far more taxes from illegals and drugs dealers, etc, then under the current system.

I'm fine with the trade off. We didn't have RICO laws in the 1930's.

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I wasn't born with enough middle fingers.