A Fair Trade - Eight Taxes for One By Joe Siano

Being a Libertarian, you can bet that I’ve never met a tax that I liked.

But what if there was a tax plan that:

·         Replaced eight federal taxes with just one tax?

·         That freed taxpayers from hours of tax prep and planning and closed the IRS?

·         Was so simple and straightforward that slick politician and bureaucrats could no longer hoodwink taxpayers with hidden taxes?

·         Made U.S. more competitive for the export market thereby stimulating manufacturing job growth in America?

Such an idea exists and it is called the Fair Tax.  I recently had a sit down with some folks with Fair Tax NJ and it was an eye opener.

The Fair Tax is a national sales tax that would be applied only at retail to finished consumer goods.  This tax is currently in the House under the name of HR 25 with 65 sponsors and in the Senate as S 296 with five sponsors.  If passed it would greatly simplify the lives individual taxpayers and businesses by eliminating and replacing:

·         The individual income tax

·         Corporate, partnership and other business income taxes

·         Payroll taxes – FICA and Medicare deductions

·         Capital gains tax

·         Inheritance taxes

·         AMT

·         Self employment taxes

·         Gift taxes

Because the Fair Tax is only charged on retail purchases it

1. Does not punish productive activity as the progressive income tax does
2. Is collected from all consumers including illegal aliens
3. Makes American products more attractive on the export market by removing “baked in” corporate taxes
4. Collects much more revenue from wealthy Americans than poor as the wealthy tend to more stuff in general and more expensive stuff in particular
5. Keeps the prying eyes of the IRS out of the lives of Americans

The current legislation also includes a “prebate” feature to ensure that low income American citizens can afford the necessities of life.  The prebate would not be available to available to illegals.

The Fair Tax is a good idea whose time ha come.  I encourage readers to ask their legislators and candidates about it.  I will be advocating for it my own campaign.

But before we go overboard, let’s remember that the Fair Tax is no magic bullet for government fiscal responsibility.  No matter what tax system we employ, it is still vital that America radically reduce the scope of government to its Constitutional limits.  Otherwise no tax scheme will save us from spending and borrowing ourselves into oblivion.