Fair Tax
Fair Tax: An Unfair Welfare Scheme
By Daniel G. Jennings
The latest surefire fix all solution for America’s unfair and wonky tax system is something called the “Fair Tax.*” On paper, Fair Tax which is being promoted in a best-selling book** and by a number of Congress, sounds great. In reality, it is a welfare scheme that is as unfair and bureaucratic as our present tax system.
Fair Tax is a scheme for a national sales tax, the basic idea is that all consumer purchases would be taxed at a 17 percent rate to pay for the federal government. At the same time all federal income taxes including Social Security and Medicare taxes would be eliminated.
Fair Tax is unfair because of what won’t be taxed: used items and business to business purchases. Under Fair Tax, millionaire movie star and comic book collector Nicholas Cage could sell one of his 1940s Superman comic books worth $1 million and he wouldn’t pay the Fair Tax, he’s selling a used good. Meanwhile a kid who buys a brand new Superman comic book for $2.50, or whatever comic books sell for these days, would pay the Fair Tax. That’s not very fair is it? Yet that’s how the Fair Tax would work, people who sell antiques and collector’s items wouldn’t pay Fair Tax. Average folk who buy new stuff would.
The business to business provision is even worse, if a big corporation buys a new private jet for the CEO to fly to his vacation home in Aruba that’s a business expense that wouldn’t be taxed. If Joe Six Pack buys a new car to drive to his job he pays the Fair Tax. How is that fair?
Worse, under the Fair Tax schemes posted on the Internet, the poor would get a refund check each month.* I don’t know about you but that sounds like a welfare entitlement to me.
It also sounds like a bureaucratic nightmare just like our current tax system. People spend big money to pay tax preparers to get a tax refund check. The government spends a fortune to collect taxes from the working class in order to send them back. Wouldn’t a system that lets the poor keep their money and taxes the rich be more sensible and truly fair?
So the Fair Tax is not only unfair it’s a thinly disguised scheme to expand welfare. A scheme that has many characteristics of our current sick tax system.
What would be better? Well, a Value Added Tax system, in which taxes would be levied on each level of business might be a better solution. So would a flat tax especially one which exempts the Middle Class and hits the rich.
Still no matter how you look at it the Fair Tax is anything but Fair.
** See www.fairtax.org
* “The Fair Tax” by Nick Boortz.
By Daniel G. Jennings
The latest surefire fix all solution for America’s unfair and wonky tax system is something called the “Fair Tax.*” On paper, Fair Tax which is being promoted in a best-selling book** and by a number of Congress, sounds great. In reality, it is a welfare scheme that is as unfair and bureaucratic as our present tax system.
Fair Tax is a scheme for a national sales tax, the basic idea is that all consumer purchases would be taxed at a 17 percent rate to pay for the federal government. At the same time all federal income taxes including Social Security and Medicare taxes would be eliminated.
Fair Tax is unfair because of what won’t be taxed: used items and business to business purchases. Under Fair Tax, millionaire movie star and comic book collector Nicholas Cage could sell one of his 1940s Superman comic books worth $1 million and he wouldn’t pay the Fair Tax, he’s selling a used good. Meanwhile a kid who buys a brand new Superman comic book for $2.50, or whatever comic books sell for these days, would pay the Fair Tax. That’s not very fair is it? Yet that’s how the Fair Tax would work, people who sell antiques and collector’s items wouldn’t pay Fair Tax. Average folk who buy new stuff would.
The business to business provision is even worse, if a big corporation buys a new private jet for the CEO to fly to his vacation home in Aruba that’s a business expense that wouldn’t be taxed. If Joe Six Pack buys a new car to drive to his job he pays the Fair Tax. How is that fair?
Worse, under the Fair Tax schemes posted on the Internet, the poor would get a refund check each month.* I don’t know about you but that sounds like a welfare entitlement to me.
It also sounds like a bureaucratic nightmare just like our current tax system. People spend big money to pay tax preparers to get a tax refund check. The government spends a fortune to collect taxes from the working class in order to send them back. Wouldn’t a system that lets the poor keep their money and taxes the rich be more sensible and truly fair?
So the Fair Tax is not only unfair it’s a thinly disguised scheme to expand welfare. A scheme that has many characteristics of our current sick tax system.
What would be better? Well, a Value Added Tax system, in which taxes would be levied on each level of business might be a better solution. So would a flat tax especially one which exempts the Middle Class and hits the rich.
Still no matter how you look at it the Fair Tax is anything but Fair.
** See www.fairtax.org
* “The Fair Tax” by Nick Boortz.
posted by great one at 6:22 PM
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