If the IRS were a business, they would be out of business. There is no way they can accurately enforce compliance with the code, because they don't even understand it anymore. My own tax advisor told me to call a tax attorney with my question because he couldn't navigate the ambiguous rules. I'm a detail-oriented person, and this stuff drives me nuts.

You may be right about everything eventually seeking its own level, but there will be a new level of efficiency with FairTax. Thats good when it comes to international competition, bringing jobs here and selling goods abroad.

As lawmakers apply more rules to the existing tax code, it will only get worse. Eventually most taxpayers will be in violation of some rule, and nobody will even care. It's integrity is shot. It's time to mothball this old steam engine.

I really don't give a damn whether you consider me an "authentic" libertarian or not. And I'm sure that Botnst cares just as little as I do.

We've beaten this horse many times already, have we not?... (sigh......) :rolleyes: But I'll go one more round, if I must....

My positions on various issues are what they are. While I am a member of NO political party, my overall priorities are more closely aligned with the libertarians than with any other party that I am aware of....

So I tend to identify myself with them, even though I will never adhere strictly to every detail of the party's "official" stance on every issue, like the good little sheep that you obviously want us to be. I prefer to think for myself.

Regardless, your opinion of me and my politics is pretty much LAST on my "list of things to worry about". I will waste no more effort responding such meaningless drivel.

Next.

Mike

If the issue is truly important to you, then why don't you read the book, and educate yourself?

Why merely rely on me, when there is a wealth of material available from true experts on the subject? It is not merely a book of "promises", it is a book full of well-researched, well-documented information. All of the answers you seek are contained within.

The FairTax plan itself (as the book would tell you, if you would read it) was devised by experts such as the heads of the economics departments of Harvard, MIT, etc.... NOT by politicians! Why would you consult me, when you can read the book and consult THEM?

Additionally, TONS of links and info can be found on the fairtax.org site.... Since you don't want to do your own homework on it, then I'll offer a little cut-and-paste assistance:

_________


As FairTaxers, we all hear the refrain from our anti-capitalist opponents. Typically this is from those folks who are more of the knee-jerk opponents, not the people making reasonable arguments. But even unreasonable people need to be refuted from time to time.

“I just don’t think these greedy businesses are going to lower their prices! After all, these corporations will charge as much as they can, and why would they lower prices when the embedded taxes are removed?”

To those sorts of people, who are typically the kind who think price gouging exists and must be stamped out by the government, the response needs to be simple and something everyone can relate to. How about this?

“And just what has happened to your gas prices in the last few weeks? After the hurricanes, when prices shot up, why didn’t they stay there? After all, the gas stations knew that people could afford to pay the prices, but they lowered them anyway!”

In the last 3-4 weeks, I’ve seen gas prices here in Marietta drop about $0.50/gallon. From their highs after they stabilized a couple of days after Hurricane Rita hit, they’re about 70 to 80 cents lower. What’s brought this on? Lower wholesale prices and competition.

To people who don’t believe in capitalism and competition, it’s not enough to just say to them that it will happen because the market demands that they drop their prices. These are the types of people who think that the gas stations actually set the price of gasoline, as opposed to the market setting the price and the gas stations conforming to market conditions. When you can show a concrete example of the market driving prices down, however, the message just might sink in.


The burden of price reduction must be placed on the consumer. When the gas prices did drop, they did not all drop at all stations at the same time. Let’s say that a Shell station receives a two-day supply of gas on a given morning at $3.09 per gallon. That afternoon wholesale prices drop 15 cents per gallon. Then the BP station across the street gets a tanker delivery for two-day supply. The BP business owner could price his gas at $2.94 – but decides to sell gas at $2.99 because that price still beats the Shell station.

Now where are you going to fill up? Sure the BP station is making more money per gallon than normal – you might even call it price gouging. However, the lines will form at the BP station. Two days latter, the wholesale price has dropped another 5 cents per gallon. The Shell station prices its new gas at $2.89. The BP station still has the $2.94 gas (selling at $2.99) and drops his price 5 cents to minimize the price difference.

At the end of the second day, Shell is at $2.89 and BP is at $2.94. Where are you going to fill up?

If a business does fight for sticky prices, DON’T SHOP THERE – find a retailer that does offer lower prices. The BP station was smart to try to sell the gas for 5 cents more than he could – that is his job. A business’s job is to sell for as much as it can. Demanding lower prices is the job of the consumer.

So, anyone who believes business will try to keep prices sticky is correct. Again, that’s their job. We would be wrong to deny that fact. But, if these same people think that they have no influence on prices, they are wrong. If the price is too high, keep your money in your pocket or find a fair retailer – That is our job as a consumer.

When the FairTax legislation is enacted, and your favorite retailer does not lower prices, delay the purchase and hold your money for another week. The business will either come around and lower prices or go bankrupt. I think they will choose to offer lower prices.

We all live with an interesting duplicity. During the day, we fight for the highest price we can – our wage. Then at night we fight for the lowest price at the supermarket. This duplicity is called a free market. It works when we all do our part.

[On a side note, the high gas prices was not caused or set by the oil companies. Fear of a shortage hit the market and everyone filled their tank and gas stations ran dry. Gas station managers had to call for emergency deliveries and paid a premium price. The resulting price increase reinforced consumer fear and those who did not yet fill up did. Those of us who did fill up, topped off our tanks again. More shortages resulted in higher prices, and so the story continued. The moral here is that we did the high gas prices to ourselves.]

________


More:


Will corporations get a windfall with the abolition of the corporate tax? Corporations are legal fictions that have not, do not, and never will bear the burden of taxation. Only people pay taxes. Corporations pass on their tax burden in the form of higher prices to consumers, lower wages to workers, and/or lower returns to investors. The idea that taxing a corporation reduces taxes on, say the working poor, is a cruel hoax. A corporate tax only makes what the working poor buy more expensive, costs them jobs, lowers lifestyle, or delays retirement. Under the FairTax plan, money retained in the business and reinvested to create jobs, build factories, or develop new technologies, pays no tax. This is the most honest, fair, productive tax system possible. Free market competition will do the rest.



How will the plan affect economic growth? With the penalty for working harder and producing more removed, Americans are free to keep every dollar they earn, and a new era of economic growth and job creation is unleashed. Hidden taxes are history, Americans are able to save more, and businesses invest more. Capital formation, the real source of job creation and innovation, is facilitated. Gross domestic product (GDP) increases by an estimated 10.5 percent in the first year alone. The FairTax as proposed raises the economy’s capital stock by 42 percent, its labor supply by four percent, its output by 12 percent, and its real wage rate by eight percent.

As U.S. companies and individuals repatriate, on a tax-free basis, income generated overseas, huge amounts of new capital flood into the United States. With such a huge capital supply, real interest rates remain low. Additionally, other international investors will seek to invest here to avoid taxes on income in their own countries, thereby further spurring the growth of our own economy.



What changes come at the retail level with the FairTax? Our baby boom generation has been trained to spend money before inflation eats it up or savings is taxed away. This group, for good or evil, will likely spend their initial pay raise. Others will recognize the advantages of savings and investment. There will be a whole new round of home refinancings. There will likely be a lot of interest in the actual cost of the federal government when consumers see their most recent contribution at the bottom of each retail receipt.

Since the FairTax plan is revenue neutral, the same amount of resources is extracted from the economy as is extracted under current law. These funds are, however, extracted in a less economically damaging way. Every known economic projection shows the economy doing better, often much better, under the FairTax.
Because the economy grows, is more efficient, and more productive, while investment, wages and consumption are higher than they are under the income tax.



How does this affect U.S. competitiveness in foreign trade? Since all U.S. exporters immediately see an average 20-percent reduction in their production costs, they experience an immediate boost in their competitiveness overseas. American companies doing business internationally are able to sell their goods at lower prices but similar margins, and this brings jobs to America.

In addition, U.S. companies with investments or plants abroad will bring home overseas profits without the penalty of paying income taxes, thus resulting in more U.S. capital investment.

And at last, imports and domestic production are on a level playing field. Exported goods are not subject to the FairTax, since they are not consumed in the U.S.; but imported goods sold in the U.S. are subject to the FairTax because these products are consumed domestically.


Want more? Go here: http://www.fairtaxvolunteer.org/smart/industry_impact.html
Or here: http://www.fairtax.org/business_economy.html
Or here: http://www.fairtax.org/links.html
Or here: http://fairtaxvolunteer.org/materials/index.html
Or here: http://www.fairtaxvolunteer.org/smart/rebuttals.html
Or here: http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/archive/200509/20050901_transcript.html#1

The FairTax bill itself: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c108:H.R.25:

While we're on a "link binge", allow me to sneak in one that exposes the anti-capitalist/pro-income tax Noam Chomsky for what he really is: a complete hypocrite: http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=1019055


Want more?.........


....read the book. ;) :D

___________________________

Mike

Mike you ask me to read the book and then give me no reason to read it. Please don't act like one of my professors who used to quizically stare at me for 20 seconds as if I were dumb and then blurt out to the class that it's obvious and asked me if I read the book.

If you want to educate, then educate. You're just preaching.

It has nothing to do with my opinion of you--just the facts man, just the facts
 

That would be a small "L" Mikey. I mentioned nothing about a party. Imperialism and libertarianism are entirely incompatible, and you consistently fail the libertarian sniff test on those grounds. I consistently fail on other grounds, but then, I don't claim to be a libertarian.

Instead of asking why the income tax should be repealed, we should be questioning how it became legal in the first place. If we were to start all over again, and placed IRS and FairTax side by side for comparison, there is no question which is preferable.

No doubt, if not for any other reason than it's simpler. I dislike the FairTax rhetoric. There's no guarantee, not even a good chance, that all the claims on the website or the book which I haven't read, will materialize. It's a little like the rhetoric get rich quick scam artists use. People buy into the promise and nothing happens.

The only way nothing will happen is if we do nothing. It's a little scary to think of life without income tax and everything that's ingrained in the system over the years. But it can be done. It's kind of like getting a new job and moving into a better neighborhood. You end up wondering why you didn't do it sooner.

Good Lord!! :eek:

Can they be stopped?!

All too easily.

Yup. That's the answer that lurked in my sub-conscious. Just like with instant run-off/preference voting.

Let's put taxes in terms everyone can understand.

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner The bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh $7.
The eighth $12.
The ninth $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that's what they decided to do.

The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20."

Now dinner for the ten only cost $80. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So, the first four men were unaffected.

They would still eat for free But what about the other six, the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share'?

The six men realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being 'PAID' to eat their meal.

The restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).
The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to eat for free. But once outside the restaurant, they began to compare their savings.

"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man "but he got $10!"

"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too.
It's unfair that he got ten times more than me!"

"That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!" The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore.

Folks, remember to declare fealty to your masters
 

In reality the tenth man gets more of a meal. The first two get a meal, but usually in jail.

The affluent use more services. They oughtta pay more, but just for the services they use like keeping undesirables out of their neighborhoods and having more community service officers cleaning up roadkill around their streets.

The fact that you would even think of comparing the FairTax Plan (which you apparently dismiss as "rhetoric") to the claims of get-rich-quick scam artists indicates that you need to do some more research on the subject.

I think I provided quite an extensive response to your inquiry. Competition would keep most prices in check, just as it does now. The FairTax plan would not undermine free-market forces in any way. Competitors will still seek to undercut one another.

I'm not saying that this change would be a particularly easy one. Of course there will be speed bumps and hiccups along the way. Uprooting such a gargantuan and firmly-entrenched system and replacing it with a vastly different one will involve a LOT of work. But that doesn't mean it's not worth it.

Come on, bro.... Must I cut-and-paste the entire website and book for you? You are not someone who normally expects to be spoon-fed information like this... why the sudden change?

Mike

Cause he's got a rug-rat nipping at his heels while he's trying to read like me, that's why!!!:D

Although I disagree with your rationale for it....

They would still pay more, under the FairTax plan. The more goods and services you consume, the more you pay. Not a higher PERCENTAGE (which is the unfair way it is done now), but a higher dollar amount.

Mike

Looks a lot like a diagram of a communist society that I saw a while back.... Except that there's only TWO levels... 2 or 3 guys at the top, and everybody else at the bottom.

Lovely.

Mike

Yes, pyramid-shaped social/economic models really do suck.

Yes.

Unfortunately, the utopian, socialist, "big happy family", flat models don't work. That pesky human nature problem again.....

Fortunately, at least the capitalist model provides some opportunity for individuals to move further up the much-maligned pyramid.

Mike

That just illustrated how warped our system really is. We have poor people living beyond their means via someone elses largess, instead of pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. Under Fairtax, all ten men pay the same price for their restaurant dinner. The rich guy might go every night, the poor guy maybe once a month. The poor guys should have really opted to stay home and make a home-cooked meal with their families to make the most of their Fairtax rebate checks.

Ding, ding, ding, ding! We have a winner! Someone who gets it! :D

Mike

With the pitiful behaviour of the Democrats the last two elections the time of the Libertarians has come....the Democrats have proven themselves passe' and undeserving.

Yes, and we might be 50 years ahead of our time, judging from the pathetic responses I got from my elected officials. It's obvious they didn't read a word of H.R. 25. I'd be interested to hear about some of the answers other people got from their state representatives.

Good Lord, how many times do I have to tell people I have no interest in hugmongous, all encompassing communism? You didn't accuse me of it directly of course, but this is common, to smear people who are not in favor of feudal landlordism as communists.

Communism was the idealistic fantasy of a guy who had way too much time on his hands.

OTOH, conservatives and many Libertarians place way, way too much faith in the intelligence of money. Somebody splain to me why a couple of slicksters like Michael Milken and Ivan Boesky were able to gain control of $hundreds of $millions and why that's a good thing for the world.

And how about one of the right's favorite punching bags, George Soros, who is sometimes called the man who "broke the bank of England?" Was there a genuinely useful service he performed when he alledgedly profited $1 billion in a day for betting that the pound would fall sharply? I'm sure some will argue that currency traders perform this or that valuable service, but I'm hard pressed to see what it would be.

When all is said and done, the real value of that money is the goods and sevices that people will deliver in exchange for it. People who manage, through gaming the system, to appropriate outlandish amounts of that labor to keep at their beck and call (in the form of gynormous sums of money) frequently do not contribute to wealth, IMO, but rather consume it imprudently (often) and hasten the depletion of real wealth: natural resources.

I'm sorry. Sandy Weil, CEO of citibank, who "earns" a reported $100 million plus per year, can damn well pay 35 to 40% of it in taxes. Nobody earns that kind of money by themself. Some ultra wealthy people provide more in real exchange than others, such as my billionaire doctor/inventor buddy whose house I worked on. His first invention, a balloon catheter for removing blood clots, is estimated to have saved the lives or limbs of around 15 million people. That is a lot of satisfied customers. I don't begrudge the guy his wealth. I'm sure he's in a high tax bracket, but what do ya know, he still manages to own 300 acres in Portola Valley, CA where land runs at around $1 mil and acre; a renowned winery up the hill from his house; a hunting lodge in the Siskiyou Mountains (near Oregon); and a horse training facility near Santa Clara.

God, if only we could get the burden of taxation off his back.

Still, the good doctor didn't earn that money by himself. Every doctor who used his devices in operations helped in that, doctors trained at many point in their careers, most of em I'll wager, in publicly funded institutions.

His money doesn't seem to be doing his sons any good -- stock car driving (mediocre) playboys both.

The use of money has it advantages and problems. A graduated income tax strikes me as one of the better ways to minimize some of those problems.

My response wasn't directed at you, it was directed at Zeit, the person who posted the pyramid chart image... And I never mentioned communism, I said "socialist"....but OK.... whatever you say... :confused: ????

Regardless: You keep saying that these uber-rich guys "didn't earn their money by themselves"... and you are right. They have hired a LOT of people along the way. A lot of people have made a lot of money off of these "rich guys". These "rich guys" have provided employment to countless people along the way. Of course there are always exceptions, but for the most part, no one makes that kind of money without paying a LOT of other people to do a lot of work.

This provides quite an important service to society, if you ask me... I don't see too many "poor" people providing jobs for hundreds or thousands of their fellow citizens!.... And how do people like you want to reward them for hard work, vision, motivation, intelligence and investment?.... By placing them in higher tax brackets. "They're rich bastards, they can afford to pay more!" Nice. :mad:

It's not about how much money they have. It's not about whether the tax bracket they are in puts a burden on them or not. At that level, of course it doesn't. That's not the point. It's about fairness.

Success should be rewarded and encouraged, not penalized. The line you and other progressive-taxation advocates always try to draw is an arbitrary one. Arbitrary lines are never fair. No one should have the right to make such decisions about money that someone else has earned. The FairTax would remove this arbitrary element from the equation, much to the chagrin of you grudge-holding class-warfare folks.

Mike

Dunno Mike. I am not sure what cmac calls it but he does seem to have very socialistic/communistic leanings. Maybe it is like a Chrysler Crossfire. A rebadged MB SLK

You know that is strangley how a true socialist state works....even though the try to make the people believe its the opposite through institutionalized ignorance of the populace.

Its happening to great effect in muslim nations today.

Yet they try to pretend its the evil capitalists who are alone in this.

At least in a capitalist society Joe Average has a chance to climb the pyramid.....In a socialist state its whos ass you kiss....and in a muslim one you end up too uneducated and brainwashed to understand anything anyway.

Well, in the muslim state, you won't know and you won't care then. Does it matter? :D

Thats why you see them keep the people uneducated for the most part (there are exceptions) how else can they convince people they like being oppressed?

OK, mercantilist genius, full tilt communism involves state ownership and control of the means of production, correct? The saying "power corrupts" has been proven to be true, time and again, and in a communist state, power is focused even more narrowly than in a capitalist system. In spite of some faults, at least in capitalist systems, power accrues to people with some kind of meritocracy involved, which is far less likely in a communist state, if you go by the history of these things.

The phenomenon seen in communist agricultural experiments, where farmers produce more on their own 1/2 acre than on hundreds of state owned acres is going to be hard to get away from in any full scale communist system. This is only natural, and I have no desire to participate in a state that doesn't get this salient point. Standing in line for a couple of hours to buy toilet paper would drive me nuts in short order as well.

However, some mild socialism has worked well in our country. I know you don't want to hear my GI Bill rap again, but briefly, I don't believe private enterprise is going to be funding GIs' education by themselves. Even if they wanted to, it would be very difficult for them to arrange it on their own. Unfortunately, using history as a guide, there are plenty of businessmen only too happy to get rich off of supplying military hardware who are later content to watch crippled GIs beg in the streets. See Gen. Smedley Butler's remarks about the huge number of millionaires and billionaires produced by WW1.

Likewise, all this whining about public education is just a bit weak. Look at states that have never had decent public education. MikeMover will tell you that public ed. is socialism. If so, then socialism has done good by me and my family.

But please, spare me this tired, "What?! You a communist, bwah?" crap. God only knows how much misery and wasted time and money in our great land can be laid at the feet of commie fear and loathing.

Whatever, you'd be directing at me next. Communist/socialist, it's not too much different to right wingers.

You're right, the vision and euntreprenuership of many wealthy people has benefitted society. And even in a progressive tax scheme, they still come out ahead. Plenty of other wealthy people, more and more, are not in such a benevolent posture. The gap between management and worker salaries is growing in leaps and bounds and I believe that's more the result of chicanery than increased merit. Furthermore, landlordism is on the march and I don't see that benefitting too many employees -- more like extorting the lower classes to enable lives of luxury for the elite. Some will say this is just fine. Eventually, it will lead to the kind of social problems that spawn bloody revolutions, methinks.

You talk of fairness, but I don't see too much fairness in some of the huge profits that accrue to bankers and mutual fund managers, for starters. I have a feeling that the cheating on mutual funds that has recently been uncovered is just the tip of the iceberg. The Bank of America, formerly headquartered in SF, merged with Nation's Bank, out of NC, and its CEO, Hugh McColl, was a bit sharper than David Coulter, the head of B of A. McColl snookered Coulter and left him and SF holding the bag. B of A's headquarters left SF along with a lot of local income. In spite of all this, Coulter received a $100 million golden parachute when he left the company. W T F?!

While the wealthy man is of benefit to people by providing them jobs, the employees' value to the entrepreneur is enhanced by the degree of quality education and health care the employees receive. One could argue that a graudated tax system, if properly administered, can eventually be of benefit to the wealthy person.

At the very least, such a tax system can help to rein in some of the ill-gotten gains of charlatans and connivers, and slow or prevent a gradual slide to the sort of unbalanced society like El Salvador, where the top 1% owns about 80-90% of everything. In case you hadn't noticed, we're heading in that direction, and globalism is only going to increase it.

Just replace rhetoric with argument. I can't buy it and frankly I don't care about the blue sky promises that the fairtax plan makes. I care that taxation should be fair, but how do you make the rich guy pay to imprison a thief who is obviously not out to break into my modest stationwagon?

I like to think of myself as one of those fish who has been caught and released a few too many times and survived to tell the tale.

Life has been improving for us each year. I do better than the economy. Income is back to dual income levels, we save twice as much and we plan to retire at 55-60, and our tax burden is getting lighter each year. My life goals have changed from making enough money to running farther and faster than I've ever done before. Life is good. If anything, I'm living the fairtax promise right now.

Kuan used a term that I think is the crux of arguments that swirl around taxation.

What is "fairness?" It sounds simple but evidently it is not simple or we would all have a common understanding of it.

So what can we agree on concerning fairness? In other words, what components of fairness would we all approve of?

I think that honesty is a fundamental attribute of fairness.

If we think of taxation as inflicting pain in order to achieve some future benefit, then we all could probably agree that it would be far preferable for somebody else to get the bite than ourselves or our friends. But is that fair? In absolute terms it certainly is not fair. Unfortunately, taxation is not a binary function. Instead it is a vast and complex manifold.

Taxation also follows the rule of unintended and unforeseen consequences. What I mean is that when taxation is enacted things happen as a result of the enactment that nobody predicted or if predictions were made, the probability of the particular bad consequences were minimized. I think every tax ever enacted by man anywhere and any-when had unintended consequences. May special favorite is protectionist tariffs which always have long and short term unintended consequences for all trading partners and often for industries in nations that are completely unexpected.

So somehow the distribution of pain has to be fair, or if that is not possible, then the distribution of benefit must compensate those unfairly burdened by pain for the unequal distribution of that pain.

Bot

I think I can make my concerns clearer by saying that I object due to the lack or rigor in the fairtax argument.

Yep, that's it.

Every form of taxation will have some potential negative facets. Such observations ought to be spelled out and addressed in a constructive way. Making comments like: "NO, I just don't like it", makes you sound like a 2-year-old, or someone who just doesn't care to read or think outside the box. Why bother saying anything? Your statement about doing better each year financially is inconsequential. Most people who tool around in a Mercedes are doing better than average anyway.

HR 25 is the best alternative to our current stinky system. I think it has sound principles. If you disagree, please refer to that section of the act's text. I will also say Fairtax may have unintended consequences that are uncovered by the actions of dishonest people. Its the extent and potential breadth of those drawbacks that need to be looked at. Yes, there is a better mousetrap, but no silver bullet.

Well you don't know me and I'm sorry I sound like a two year old to you. I read the whole darn thing from taxpanelreform.org and skimmed through HR 25. Not convincing enough for me and convincing enough for you. Could be different personalities or different ways in which we interpret arguments. Mine are almost purely logical.