Presidential Candidates Flat Tax vs. Fair Tax
July 19th, 2007 by Xander ZebroseToday Senator and Presidential Candidate Sam Brownback has written an editorial supporting what he calls an “optional flat tax”. It would have a huge standard deduction of $20,000 for individuals and $40,000 for families and the rate would only be 15-20%. The details are unclear, but this is obviously not a revenue neutral plan.
Mike Huckabee has also come out in support of the FairTax proposal, that is a 22% sales tax with a large pre-bate for essential goods.
Other candidates have not publicly supported fundamental tax reform, although many favor cutting taxes.
July 19th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
While many who are invested in the current income tax system seek to demagog the well-researched FairTax plan (*), its acceptance in the professional / academic community continues to grow (**). Failure to enact the FairTax - choosing instead to try to “flatten” a NON-FLATTENABLE income tax system - will result in an IRREVOCABLE ECONOMIC MELTDOWN. (*** Impossible, you say?)
Here is why the FairTax MUST replace the income tax. It’s:
• SIMPLE, easy to understand
• EFFICIENT, inexpensive to comply with and doesn’t cause less-than-optimal business decisions for tax minimization purposes
• FAIR, loophole free and everyone pays their share
• LOW TAX RATE, achieved by broad base with no exclusions
• PREDICTABLE, doesn’t change, so financial planning is possible
• UNINTRUSIVE, doesn’t intrude into our personal affairs or limit our liberty
• VISIBLE, not hidden from the public in tax-inflated prices or otherwise
• PRODUCTIVE, rewards, rather than penalizes, work and productivity
Its benefits are as follows:
FOR INDIVIDUALS:
• No more tax on income - make as much as you wish
• You receive your full paycheck - no more deductions
• You pay the tax when you buy “at retail” - not “used”
• No more double taxation (e.g. like on current Capital Gains)
• Reduction of “pre-FairTaxed” retail prices by 20%-30%
• Adding back 29.9% FairTax maintains current price levels
• FairTax would constitute 23% portion of new prices
• Every household receives a monthly check, or “pre-bate”
• “Prebate” is “advance payback” for monthly consumption to poverty level
• FairTax’s “prebate” ensures progressivity, poverty protection
• Finally, citizens are knowledgeable of what their tax IS
• Elimination of “parasitic” Income Tax industry
• NO MORE IRS. NO MORE FILING OF TAX RETURNS by individuals
• Those possessing illicit forms of income will ALSO pay the FairTax
• Households have more disposable income to purchase goods
• Savings is bolstered with reduction of interest rates
FOR BUSINESSES:
• Corporate income and payroll taxes revoked under FairTax
• Business compensated for collecting tax at “cash register”
• No more tax-related lawyers, lobbyists on company payrolls
• No more embedded (hidden) income/payroll taxes in prices
• Reduced costs. Competition - not tax policy - drives prices
• Off-shore “tax haven” headquarters can now return to U.S
• No more “favors” from politicians at expense of taxpayers
• Resources go to R&D and study of competition - not taxes
• Marketplace distortions eliminated for fair competition
• US exports increase their share of foreign markets
FOR THE COUNTRY:
• 7% - 13% economic growth projected in the first year of the FairTax
• Jobs return to the U.S.
• Foreign corporations “set up shop” in the U.S.
• Tax system trends are corrected to “enlarge the pie”
• Larger economic “pie,” means thinner tax rate “slices”
• Initial 23% portion of price is pressured downward as “pie”
increases
• No more “closed door” tax deals by politicians and business
• FairTax sets new global standard. Other countries will follow
(*) Tax Panel Rebutted (.pdf)
(**) Econs’ Open Letter to Congress (Lists every tax that FairTax will eliminate, together with the power they represent to pol’s and lobbyists.)
(***) Listen to an interview where Prof. Kotlikoff elaborates on Economic Meltdown in Progress ! (FairTax can correct the direction!)
The time for sitting around, pontificating, is over. We have NO CHOICE but to ACT: Scrap The Tax Code NOW
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Great Presentation–Great Idea. I will graduate from school in February–then I would like to get more involved.
November 20th, 2007 at 9:08 am
IH2005 says it all. Nothing more can be said. Forget the flat tax and join the FAirTax band wagon.
December 5th, 2007 at 8:59 pm
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February 10th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Actually Fairtax can not work as planned.
Sounds great, fanastic! but then you see the rest of the story.
Fairtax claims it can raise 2.3 trillion — same as income tax .
Its really a tax SHIFT — and ironically the biggest shift is to health care — nursing home patients, cancer patients, heart bypass patients.
For example, just ONE family could get a “fairtax” of 100,000 dollars on the medical bills for a child with leukemia.
There are a lot of people who just CANT pay that. Insurance isn’t going to pay it.
PLus - its a tax on RENT. Renters probably don’t know that. What if a renter gets heartbypass surgery?
People will actually be getting tax bills LARGER than their yearly income - if they have high medical cost. A person with high cancer costs is an example. Nursing home patients are another.
And you can’t get blood from a turnip. The tax rate would have to increase dramatically when it becomes apparent you can’t really tax health care. Health care will correctly get an exemption.
Also — Fairtax depends on the rather absurd notion that you can tax the federal government, to pay for the federal government.
Neal Boortz writes (Page 148) “The federal government itself will become a major tax payer”.
Thats like me, paying myself 10,000 a day for cutting my own grass. I can write the check, and deposit it, but at end of the month, I dont have 300K.
So the Navy is going to really pay 4 billion in sales tax on an aircraft carrier? The Penagon is going to really pay 200 billion in sales taxes? It can write the check - fine. But the Treasury has to PAY the check. So there is no net gain. The effect is exactly the same, whether the government “pays” itself or not.
The fairtax has a number of very serious fallacies. I wish it could work, we sure need a better system, But this isnt it. Feel free to email me, mdcurran@insightbb.com if Im wrong.