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Shelby, Gene, Don and the FairTax ResponseFirst Jeffc, I would like to thank you for keeping the FairTax in the discussion. As you are congratulating yourself on how clever you are, you need to realize that these attack items have been around for years. You are not the first to “uncover” “flaws” in the FairTax legislation. These concerns have been answered many times over. In fact, most of us that support the FairTax had some of these same concerns as we first heard of the plan. We studied in more detail about the structure of the overall concept and realize that, although it is not perfect, it is an extremely well designed and sound replacement for the current income tax system. I’m not sure of your motivation but I suspect that you are looking at the FairTax through the prism of either 1. your hatred of Neal Boortz (based on your earlier comments) or 2. your desire to find a mechanism for political gain or both in which case you are not going to want to know the truth. Neal Boortz had nothing to do with the development of FairTax. This plan was designed without the aid of “Black Helicopters” or some secret federal agency out to take advantage of the citizens. It was developed as a result of asking average citizens about how they would prefer to pay their taxes. It does not give any group any advantage over any other. It is simply a method to fund the federal government in a more efficient and fair method. I, obviously, don’t know how old you are, but I would hope that you would evaluate the plan with a more open mind before you make your defacto vote for the income tax. You are condemning your children and grandchildren to a lifetime of an increasingly overburdening and extremely inefficient tax collection system. With the FairTax, we have a sound, logical alternative to the burden that we have to deal with everyday. You identified yourself as a democrat. We have many active workers who are democrats. In fact, Dr. Lawrence Kotlicoff, who has done much research on the FairTax, identifies himself as a very liberal democrat. He said in an interview that he particularly likes that the FairTax successfully taxes wealth, which is something that democrats have been unsuccessfully trying to do for years. You did mention an item that I haven’t seen discussed in 4 or 5 years and that is the issue of paying the tax on interest above the going rate. That issue was raised at the meeting that you referred to and it is there for a very good reason and not to secretly catch some unsuspecting citizen. We were discussing possible ways that FairTax could be scammed and wondered what would keep someone from reaching agreement with, say a new car dealer, to finance a new car at a very high interest rate with a corresponding substantial reduction in the sales price, thereby avoiding taxes. This section of the FairTax legislation was highlighted to avoid the scam and the tax would be collected through an alternative mechanism. My thought, at the time, was not that they were out to get me but that this plan really been HAS been researched well. If you purchase as you do today, you will not be penalized. You referred to prices not dropping as much as advertised. If you had come to the meeting, you would have seen a chart depicting a comparison of the current system and the FairTax. The chart worked through the costs of an average new car. It compared the taxes involved with both systems and showed the amount of money that needed to be earned with both systems. The result showed that you would have to earn approximately 10% less with the FairTax with the original price of the car staying the same. If the price dropped from the elimination of imbedded taxes by a conservative 10%, you would have benefited by 20%. That means that you could have worked one day a week less, purchased a nicer car, or invested the extra money without tax consequences and still have the same lifestyle. Actually, you didn’t have to come to the meeting to learn this. You would have found that information in your research at FairTax.org. I realize that people are encouraging you to learn more because they realize that they had some of the same concerns early in their education process. The FairTax has many positive benefits for the nation as a whole that easily overshadow the benefits that we would enjoy as individuals. Hopefully, as you continue to try to identify flaws, you will try to put everything in perspective and be honest with yourself. Gene Key's blog | login to post comments
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