Congressman Jack Kingston - First District of Georgia

The American people are tired of being over-taxed. They work harder than ever for their money, yet take home less of it because the federal government continues to tax them every time they turn around. Congress needs to act to relieve that burden.

First, we must simplify our tax code and make it fairer for working Americans. Did you know that, since 1913, the tax code has grown from 400 to over 67,000 pages?  Each year Americans spend 6.5 billion hours preparing tax forms and businesses spend 800 million hours complying with the tax code. The current tax code encourages consumption and discourages savings leading to the lowest national savings rate in our history. The road to recovery from our current economic crisis is through allowing working families and small businesses to keep more of what they make, not siphoning their hard earned dollars to Washington. A Harvard economist found that tax reform would boost national wealth by nearly $5 trillion!

Second, Congress should enact the FairTax which will eliminate the income tax and all the special loopholes that are in it such as estate, gift, capital gains, alternative minimum, corporate, Social Security, other payroll and self-employment taxes and replaces them all with one simple, visible, federal consumption tax. I am a co-sponsor of the FairTax because it eliminates the root of the problem which is taxing income and only taxes us on what we choose to spend, not on what we earn. It does not raise any more or less revenue; it is designed to be revenue neutral. The FairTax is a fair, efficient, and intelligent solution to the frustration and inequity of our current tax system.

I fervently oppose the Value Added Tax (VAT), which is a tax on the transfer of goods and services at every stage of production. With nearly every U.S. manufacturer now competing on a global scale, this would place a major disadvantage on our manufacturers, making them much less competitive than their global competitors. At a time when millions of Americans have lost their jobs, raising taxes is the wrong answer to address our nation’s enormous spending habit. 

As with any other issue of concern to you, I hope you'll take the time to let me know how you feel about this issue. To find the best means to contact me, click here.