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Find out what your state is doing to promote the FairTax:
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South Florida Sun Sentinel
Fair Tax System is the Way to Go
October 22, 2007 - http://www.sun-sentinel.com/ - By: Stuart Fearer
Billions of otherwise productive hours are wasted each year by Americans in preparing their federal income tax returns and, to a lesser degree, planning their tax avoidance strategies. Those strategies involve counter-productive ways to avoid taxes that serve to cripple our economy.
Millions of jobs are now outsourced overseas, partly due to our prohibitive withholding taxes that make us non-competitive, despite the fact that the American worker is one of the most productive in the world. Most leading economists agree the federal income tax is the biggest drag on the economy today.
More than $22 trillion is sitting in off-shore bank accounts, most of which are there to shelter it from the income tax.
If we abolish this tax, most of these dollars could, and probably would, come flooding home to bolster our economy.
Poor people in this nation could have their paycheck dramatically elevated if they have no withholding tax to pay.
How can all this be accomplished?
H.R. Bill 25 and companion Senate Bill 1025 are sitting on the sidelines, waiting to come to the rescue of the American economy.
To fully understand this article, it helps if you visit fairtax.org on your computer and become familiar with this proposed legislation. Find out how you can help with the grass-roots movement.
The Fair Tax is a proposed inclusive sales tax to replace the federal income tax, federal witholding taxes and the alternative minimum tax, as well as the capital gains tax. The wealthy people of this nation have become that way, partly because they know how to avoid paying these income taxes, leaving the rest of us to share most of the burden.
If enacted, it provides for a rebate paid in advance to all American families, delivered to their mailbox each month to offset the cost of the new sales tax up to the maximum limits of the poverty level. This means the minimum wage worker (and all others) will have the federal government send them a check each month to pay them back (in advance of their having to spend it) for the minimum necessities of life. At the same time, their paychecks are fatter without the income tax being withheld.
The Fair Tax is designed to be revenue-neutral, which means the federal government will have the same amount of money to be run on as the present system.
Opposition will come from the Washington, D.C., lobby crowd, as well as from most folks in the tax preparation business. Expect some distorted rhetoric on this as the battle heats up. To measure the reaction of a cross-section of the American people, please note the strong second place showing of Mike Huckabee in the Republican polls in Iowa. He was the only candidate to wholly endorse the Fair Tax proposal. The surviving candidates in the upcoming presidential race will do well to note this and study the proposal before opposing it in debates. We need a president who will sign it into law if passed by both houses.
When you consider the effect of those trillions of offshore dollars on the economy and the return of so many out-sourced jobs, not to mention the foreign companies that will wish to do business here instead of with other countries that charge income taxes, you have to believe the revenue neutral status will change to revenue positive. The wealthy folks will still spend their money here, but will no longer be able to escape some of their fair share of the tax burden.
For those wondering how it would be administered, the Fair Tax would be collected by the same state agencies now collecting state sales taxes. The six or seven states that do not have sales taxes will start their own agencies, or the federal government will step in and establish the collection points.
I have only summarized this proposal here. Again, go to the source (fairtax.org) and download the plain English version of the bill and read it. Those who do will be rewarded and enlightened. Those same people can then spread the word in grass-roots fashion.
I challenge the media to step up to the plate and fulfill their responsibilities to inform the people by composing and printing, in a prominent place, some articles to explain the Fair Tax to the readers. They owe us that, as we support that media with our subscription and advertising dollars.
Stuart Fearer is a resident of Tamarac.
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