Fair Tax Critique

Dear Harland;

Nice points - however - it's a moot debate as Libertarians we should not be having to debate replacing one tax with another tax - we should be debating how to stop all taxes. A tax is a tax is a tax - no matter what fancy title it is given to make it appear to be something which will be 'fair" to everyone. There is no such thing and there will be no such thing as a fair tax under any circumstances which will replace government taxes as they now stand.

Secondly it will do nothing to stop state income taxes or state sales taxes or gas taxes or any increases in them. Thirdly the scheme has no way of stopping any increases in the federal sales tax from the starting point of 23%. Fourth the scheme to reimburse low paid people for the taking of the money they need to live on and its reimbusement has no controls on its levels either. Much like the Earned Income Tax credit in existence today its another redistribution scheme.

Then some sort of a board will be needed to be set up to settle disputes on taxes paid on goods or services then a board will be needed to be certain the taxes are collected by a business and remitted. I work for a tax attoney and we regularly receive reports on businesses who do not pay to the state board of equalization sales taxes collected and these non-payments can run into the hundreds of thousands - this with the california 7.25% sales tax less any local sales taxes.

Fair Tax should not get out of committee or even be bothered with - what has to be done is to cut government spending and programs massively then we will not need any taxes and then they can be cut completely.

Ron Getty
SF Libertarian