Yeah, I guess "TheMoreFairTax" would be more accurate. LOL. But, I agree that it is an improvement.

I think it is really more like slavery than theft.

Me dino says he IRS amounts to unconstitutional big government tyranny.
"FairTax" is like a cute name for a crappy product. Call a consumption tax what it is.
Like Zenphany wrote, there is no such thing as a fair tax. I prefer it over the IRS, though.

All tax schemes that are adopted are designed to allow maximum manipulation by the tax collectors. Unless someone comes up wit h a more unfair and corruptible tax scheme there will be no change to the current income tax.

'In the market for a new house' means you have to pay 30% more for the house you have saved for for years. That is tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars more. It would not help sellers; it would depress prices.

It isn't "'wonderful" to receive income that you can't use without it being heavily taxed? And it isn't "wonderful" for retirees who have had their savings sacked for decades to suddenly be confronted with government-caused higher prices along with their lower retirement income.

This isn't "fair". It's a shell game packaged as euphoria.

As taxes go, it is great. It is well explained at https://fairtax.org/index When one taxes production, one gets less of it. Wealth is only created by production, which, to me, means anything which encourages production is good. The argument it shifts the tax burden to consumers is ill founded as explained on the website. Then add abolish the IRS and there is a winner. Abolishing taxes will not be done, certainly not in our lifetimes, so we need to work toward a better system than an income tax and abolish the 16th amendment.

I've answered this above. Think about how much more money people will have when they don't have to comply with April 15 anymore and there are no deductions from their paychecks except for 401k and medical/life insurance? Also, think about the employers who will then also will not have all the costs for imposing those deductions for the government, no costs for lawyers and accountants to help them navigate all the laws that continually change with regards to compliance.

Yes, people's habits will change. There will probably be some disruptions at first. Creative disruption! They may stop spending for a little while. But, once the burden of the current tax system is lifted, I would be so hopeful that we would see economic activity like we haven't seen since the early part of last century......and WE never actually saw that!

1. The prebate is paid to every household rich and poor.

#2. Is rent a service? I don't have a handle on everything that will and will not be taxed. Still, taxing this way will ensure prices go down as time and competition increases, so there will be much more freedom in that respect. There is also the freedom from the IRS and the compliances costs to be factored.

#3. This is true. Here in California, people still vote against their interest and increase taxes on themselves for these criminals! Luckily most states are not the same as California and New York and will counteract the stupidity of these states when voting on "raise the tax because IT'S FOR THE CHILDREN" idiotic issues. Actually, I think more and more people will start to pay attention if they see how much money they are paying on each receipt. This will increase awareness and, maybe even in California, people will smarten up.

Yes, I understand that. I agree that to make these changes permanent require Constitutional amendments. However, I would hope that if this was implemented, we would insist on making it permanent after we see if it works as it seems it would.

And, who pays attention to that? You don't physically PAY it like you would at the check out.

But, the name is not the important part. It's a vehicle to try to sell the plan, that's all. Reducing your income to pay less tax is a negative. Reducing your spending to pay less tax is a positive.

Okay, think of it this way. Practically every household spends, I think BILLIONS of dollars for accountants and lawyers in order to navigate the current tax law with it's maze of regulations laid out so that we can AVOID paying taxes. That's what it is, TAX AVOIDANCE and the government lays traps everywhere that we have to navigate. These regulations also supposedly require the huge amount of man-power that inhabits the criminal IRS who can't audit every household but somehow have the time to harass grass roots conservative organizations!

Now enter the FairTax, the only people who have to file anymore are the people who currently already have to file their sales tax returns to the state (I know not all states, but most). The IRS suddenly doesn't need the personnel it currently has. And, the whole department will, hopefully, be gutted (but with any government, who knows?). Yes, maybe the probability of the sales tax businesses being audited will go up. So? They collect the tax they need, file their returns like they're supposed to, and there should be no problem, right?

I agree. I'm looking for anything that will stop the theft. It isn't going to be done wholesale, that's for sure.

Anything that stops payroll deductions and the necessity of quarterly payments, however, and allows us to choose when to pay those federal taxes, not to mention eliminating those mountains of IRS CRIMINAL regulations, is a good thing.

Yes,and this it one of the things that excites me the most about this idea. You won't see a 30% or 23% increase in new houses at all. Well, maybe for a little while after implementation. If the FairTax was implemented, all compliance costs go away. That is money and LOTS of time people spend in avoiding paying the taxes we have now. This means that all the many taxes upon more taxes that are built into prices now, will become free to the original owners. This will, again, eventually, ensure that prices will massively reduce due to competition and the lack of government intervention. And, everyone who receives a paycheck will receive the entire paycheck. Wouldn't that be wonderful?

Re: “It shifts the tax burden to EVERYBODY (even illegals) because we are all consumers at some level.” No it doesn’t. The “prebate” means that the “poor” pay no federal taxes at all, other people are forced to subsidize them.

Re: “It also gives us the freedom to decide when and how much we want to pay.” Not for most necessities, such as food and gasoline. And rent. From the FAQ: “Service providers are not exempt from the income tax today, and should not be exempt from the Fair Tax. Services now account for well over one-half of the gross domestic product (GDP). Neither consumption of services nor consumption of goods should be tax preferred.”
http://fairtax.org/faq

Re: “It puts the amount of tax you pay to the federal government right there on your receipts. Making people actually see how much they pay the government.” State sales taxes do that now. It doesn’t appear to have much effect.

In my view it's even worse. From their FAQ, this appears to be the replacement for the IRS:

"Also, as registered sellers, they are subject to the possibility of being audited by the state. During such an audit, they will have to produce the invoices for all the “business purchases” that they did not pay sales tax on and will have to be able to show that they were bona fide business expenses. If they cannot prove this, then they will have to pay the taxes that should have been paid when the items were purchased, plus interest and penalties. The probability of being audited will be much greater than it is under the current system with its over 140 million tax filers. Under the FairTax, there will be less than 20 million businesses that will be filing sales tax returns and thus subject to the possibility of being audited. Thus, the probability of tax cheats getting caught will be much greater than it is today, making tax evasion riskier than it is today. Additionally, while the FairTax has much stronger taxpayer rights than does the current tax system, the FairTax legislation provides for a number of fines and penalties for noncompliance. It also authorizes a mechanism for reporting tax cheats and obtaining a reward. An example would be 1-800-TAX-CHET."
http://fairtax.org/faq

This would be a great incentive for someone to start a new small business, don't you think?

The more I learn about the "fair tax", the less I like it. This proposal is far from ready for prime time.

There is no such thing as a fair tax. In all cases, it is theft.

The actual federal sales tax rate they are proposing is 30% not 23%. The 23% is actually 23% of the final price after the tax is included. Rather misleading in my view.

In addition, they seem to be assuming that consumption patterns will not change if the “fair tax” is implemented. In fact, they will change big time. How many people will pay a 30% surcharge for a new house when an equivalent used one can be bought tax free. Same with cars, jewelry, and other big-ticket items. The “fair tax” would likely cause massive economic disruption just implementing its distinction between “new” and “used”.

A flat tax on "income" with "no deductions" would be devastating to businesses, most of whose gross income pays for expenses to stay in business, including other taxes like property taxes, and is not profit. And retaining business expenses with the tax on net income with do nothing to eliminate the lawyers, accountants and most of the complexity.

The income tax withheld from your pay is reported to you by law.

Will you still think it's "like a baby-step in the right direction" when you're in the market for a new house?

Taxing people on what they control is not control over the tax they have to pay and is not "fair". You already have the means to control your income by earning less to pay less income tax. That doesn't make the income tax "fair" either. Calling these schemes a "fair tax" is a typical anti-intellectual conservative argument/sell-job.

Yes, the prebate part troubles me, too. However, we have already become a welfare state with the government TAKING the money from production to give it to others. This eliminates the taking part and becomes more voluntary. Having the prebate, I think, would also help sell the plan to a big majority of people who would be very concerned about the fact that even the poor would have to pay the tax at checkout when the cost of food, for them, is already very high. I guess, it would be small comfort for the "concerned" to be told that everyone would not have any deductions from their paychecks anymore, nor would contractors or small business people have to send in anymore quarterly payments. I think I read that every legal household receives the prebate depending on household size. So, that part is also equal treatment.

In the end, to me, it seems like a baby-step in the right direction at least.

Every bit of that legislation can be reversed. It's not a Constitutional amendment. What we are likely to wind up with is the equivalent of Europe's "value added tax", or VAT. On top of all the other taxes we pay today. The federal income tax started out small as a "tax that only the rich would pay." It evolved into the monstrosity we see today. Nothing in the "fair tax" proposal will prevent it from doing the same.

And, the rest of that answer is....However, the FairTax legislation does three things that effectively dismantle the income tax: (1) it abolishes the IRS, (2) it repeals all statutory language having to do with taxing income and payroll (i.e., the Internal Revenue Code), and (3) it eliminates the filing of annual income tax returns to the federal government for over 140 million Americans. The 16th Amendment does not “require” an income tax, it only “allows” one, and the FairTax will have broken that egg in a million pieces. - See more at: http://fairtax.org/faq#sthash.gRURq4l...