The focus on the name "fair" was pushed on us by the sales campaign telling us what to think without regard to what it is. There isn't anything fair about it, as explained several times. The sales pitch telling us it allows us to control our own taxes because you can *choose" not to buy something is also an ugly package deal and a scam.

There are reforms in simplification and tax rates that would help, but nothing can substitute for the fundamentals of limited government for the protection of the rights of the individual, resulting in much lower taxes so the mechanisms are not as important. Substituting a shell game campaign claiming a major reform in the name of "fairness" by adding an enormous new national sales tax is worse than a distraction.

Serious people interested in Ayn Rand's ideas should know better than to jump on these anti-intellectual statist band wagon scams.

OK. $200 per person-year. You probably assume--and this assumption would likely be safe--that the prosperity of the people would be quite sufficient to enable every responsible party--parent, guardian, etc.--to pay the head tax for himself and any person for whom he is responsible.

Now this next question might be a bit out-of-scope: how would you effect the voluntary collection? Where lies the incentive to pay for these services? I assume, to begin with, that at the very least, States handle road-building, and agree to connect their roads with those of their neighbors at the border. And at the most, completely private owner-operators build and maintain streets and roads. I myself have come up with three different models of street-and-road operation, one each for residential or industrial streets (the considerations being the same for each), commercial thoroughfares, and long-distance highways.

So how would you incentivize people to pay any amount at all for the police and the military?

Ding! Ding! Ding! You gotta +1! LOL!

Oops, I think I got that one backwards;^)
If you can cheat the former, you are longer enslaved by the latter.

Correct, it would be applied equally to all.

Uh, so if I cheat on my taxes I can live longer?
Me dino don't think I'm quite getting what you wrote up there.

It's much like a "fair punch in the face".

If you can cheat the latter, you are longer enslaved by the former.

Thanks!

But, you see, acknowledging it does not change it. I KNOW we are not free. I KNOW taxation is THEFT. I KNOW taxpayers are SLAVES just as welfare recipients are also slaves. I want to know how we get out of this mess created for us, incrementally, by people over 100 years ago. Violence is not an option until all other options have been exhausted. So, the FairTax looks like a step away from statism that can ACTUALLY be implemented.

You describe a capitation tax. Of course that would have to fall proportionally per the population of each State, per the Census.

People really need to stop focusing on the NAME....it's about taxation and it would smell more sweet as a consumption tax than the noxious smell of an income (or production) tax and the name of it matters NOT AT ALL.

Money is security, so no, we do not necessarily earn money ONLY to spend it. You need to look at what is more moral. We will always have a federal tax, as someone else said here "the only certainty is death and taxes". So, is it more moral to tax production or consumption? Yes, yes, we all understand that taxation is punishment that affects behavior. But, it isn't going away EVER. So, which behavior is better for us overall? Stopping work to avoid taxes, or not spending to avoid taxes?

By “new house” I mean a brand new, never-occupied house. You know, the kind that real estate developers build to serve a growing population. If the Fair Tax passes you can forget about any meaningful new housing construction for the next several years, and most existing developers will probably go bankrupt through no fault of their own. And it’s not just homes, it’s cars, jewelry and many other high-ticket items. For everything, the cost difference between “new” and “used” will be 30% more than it is now. This will create a huge incentive to purchase used items whenever possible, and will strangle economic growth by greatly reducing the demand for anything new. This change in consumption patterns will cause a shortfall in tax revenues and force an increase in the “fair tax” rate, making a bad situation even worse.

And while the Fair Tax would not promote economic growth (since the heavy tax burden would not change), it would create a field day for speculators. They could buy a new item the day before the Fair Tax goes into effect, “use” it for one or two days, then resell it as a slightly “used” item at a nice premium above what they paid a few days previously.

Wrongness, evil, and anti-humanistic gov't must be acknowledged. Compromise with it, accepting a little bit of it, trying to make accommodation for it will only lead to more of it. There is only freedom or slavery.

The reality is that this is no longer the most free country in the world and bears little resemblance to the one most of us believe we have and as long as it's citizenry accept individual taxation, it never will be.

My dire predictions are a given. They are built into the Fair Tax as described on its own website. The distinction that the Fair Tax creates between "new" and "used" is absolutely clear. On the day the "fair tax" becomes law, a "new" house will be taxed at 30% and a near-identical slightly "used" house will not be taxed at all. Would you really want to be an investor in a new residential housing development on that day or for several years thereafter?

Economic havoc 101: As I posted elsewhere on this thread, the day that the Fair Tax goes into effect, the price of a new house will rise 30% while the price of a used house will not. Builders who were unlucky enough to bring their housing developments to the market during this time will be bankrupted. The new house market will be destroyed for some time to come, until the interruption in supply of new houses forces the price of used houses up sufficiently to justify new construction once again. (A side effect will be a devastating fall in construction employment.) Meanwhile, renters will be faced with an immediate 30% increase in their rents, which for many of them will be enough to make existing rents unaffordable for low-income renters and their families (who pay little or no income tax now), and they will be forced to move to shabbier quarters or become homeless. Economics 101. The Fair Tax is anything but fair.

From what I understand, the "Fair Tax" would be
like the Income Tax, except a flat percentage, in-
stead of being progressive like the present income
tax. Although that would at least take away some of the penalty for success, it would still be robbery.
I am against compulsory taxation per se.
It could be replaced (once the government were
cut down to its proper function) by something
like the present sales tax; (and, since nearly
everyone goes to the store, nearly everyone
would have a "stake in society" that some like
to talk about). How could it be voluntary? If a
store were open a certain number of days, and
the owner would not agree to pay his Law En-
forcement Fee, he would be put on notice that
if someone broke into the place and held a gun
on him, it would be no use to call 911, as the
address would be put into the computer as be-
ing a place whose owner had refused to support
the government and police. Also, thugs would
be able to tell which stores were not so protected, as they would not be given the sticker
(something like the present car-inspection stick-
er) to put in the window. (A recalcitrant store-
owner would still be allowed to use a gun for e-
mergency self-defense, but in the case of 3 or
4 thugs, this might not be practical). Also, if
he came to work and found that the store had
been trashed during the night, the police would
not help. So there would be a powerful incentive
to pay.--Also, we could still have lotteries and
court fees.
Still, we don't have a laissez-faire system
now. So, maybe the "Fair Tax" would be better
than the present income tax, for the time being.

I see the FairTax as part of what is needed to insert us all back into the free market. In that way it certainly is a component of "creative disruption" (the actual term is "creative destruction" where one business innovates or is born and eliminates the need for an archaic business like computers eliminating the typewriter). We currently cannot conduct our business without the help of lawyers and accountants to tell us how to conduct that business without incurring taxes we cannot afford. The FairTax will certainly be part of that "creative destruction" in eliminating the need for all those lawyers and accountants. Many of those can then turn their businesses into helping people INVEST the money and TIME they are saving. Many businesses are NOT started because of the current burdens of tax regulations and the unknowable possibility of more regulations coming down the pike every single day.

Since the federal government already does too much, yes, it is much better to bring the taxing responsibility down to the state level. Audits are no problem if you do your best to comply with a MUCH EASIER to understand law.

I once looked into what taxes would be if the only financial requirements of the federal government were those tasks specifically allowed by the constitution. It would be $200 per year per person, those who have large families would pay more. An easier way to discover how much we pay in taxes was to find out how much money was in circulation (much easier to do 50 years ago, there was only M1) and divide it into the federal budget for the year (also easier to do then because there were fewer black budget deals). There are so many hidden federal taxes that if you simply take what tax bracket you are in you will be short of the 67% the federal government takes. Add state income taxes, sales taxes and now ACA taxes and you are soon at 85% of everything you make pays for some kind of taxation and you are living on 15% :(. If taxation is not voluntary it is theft and extortion. As soon as the government starts an unconstitutional bureau or governing agency stop paying taxes, they will be unable to make it function. That is the only vote that counts, money. The idea that there would be not roads, schools, or hospitals & etc. is preposterous, all of those things existed prior to the federal government getting involved. We would not all be standing around stupid waiting to die because of the lack of schools, hospitals and roads. At $200 per person this also assumed there was no way to make the government more responsible when it spends money for defense; i.e. $1000 toilet seats.

What economic havoc would be created by people keeping their own money?

Obamacare was WRITTEN to be unworkable. There's a huge difference between a government takeover of healthcare and a tax plan that allows people to keep their own money and decide when they will pay taxes and not have to file a return every year.

Reality must be acknowledged, however, and we must take a road from here to there somehow to get where freedom exists. The resistance is incredible just for this step. The FairTax has been on the table, or shoved under the table in Congress for years already.

The problem with the FairTax is the necessity to eliminate the 16th amendment to avoid income tax creeping back in. The amendment process is cumbersome, even if no one fought its abolition.

The size of government needs to be scaled back to the constitutionally authorized activities. As the Antifederalist papers authors predicted, the "general welfare" statement has been an open door to many unconstitutional elements that have created a bloated parasitic monstrosity.

Letting agencies die off by attrition would reduce the theft, and open the door to restoring the original sources of revenue, with specific fees and tariffs. That would lift the tax burden.

If by "new house" you mean "a house built entirely from scratch, on a vacant lot that a subdivider has only just declared," then you are correct: the Fair Tax would indeed apply to the price of such a house.

But: if by "new house" you mean a house you mean to newly occupy, but which already has a present occupant, then you forget: the Fair Tax would not apply to such a house. The Fair Tax applies to new stuff only, never to used. That leaves out existing houses, pre-owned automobiles, second-hand store goods, or anything you would by in a yard/garage/sidewalk sale.

Indeed, I doubt the Fair Tax would even apply to a flipped house. That's a house someone renovates. The only possible way a Fair Tax would apply to a single-family house on a lot someone occupied, might be if the builder had to tear the house down and rebuild on a new foundation. And even then the builder would pay for the new building materials, and the tax would apply to the house but not the land.

There is nothing in life that is fair. You are again forgetting about the amount of money people and businesses would immediately be able to keep along with the time expended to comply with the current horrible tax system we have. You really cannot say that home builders would immediately go out of business when all these positives would happen simultaneously.

The re-thinking of value for product and looking at outside competition alone will make prices fall precipitously. So, no, your dire predictions are not a given.