The Fair Tax Proposal

Do you actually know how much you paid the Federal Government last year? As the year went on did you have a feel for how much you were paying in? Oh, and don't forget to include the Social Security tax. That's quite a few bucks. And, oh yeah, there's Medicare, too. Almost forgot about that. It's less than Social Security now, but it's still a couple of bucks. Do you know what you paid in for those things last year? Can you even get within a couple of thousand dollars of what you paid in? Should you count the Social Security paid in for you by your employer? He wouldn't be paying it if you weren't employed by him, so shouldn't that count as something you paid in as well? How much time or money did you spend preparing last year's tax return? Was it enjoyable time? Should that time count for something?

The Federal Income Tax as collected by the Internal Revenue Service is an abysmal system. For example, it makes you a potential criminal every time you make a decision as to what to count as a charitable deduction. Bring an old computer to the Salvation Army. Count the mileage? What if you were in a company car at the time? How much is the old computer actually worth? You didn't want it any more so I guess it wasn't worth all that much as far as you're concerned. But how much do you tell the IRS it's worth? How many worker bees are at the IRS watching your return to decide if that company car is really a company car? Do you have all your receipts? When was the last time you were audited by the IRS? If you never have been, why are you just a little fearful of that actually happening to you? Hear some nightmare stories about that?

You should know that there is an alternative, and it's actually an active bill in the House of Representatives as we speak. It's H.R.25, and it's called the Fair Tax bill. Why is it fair? For one thing, it doesn't care if you're rich or poor, married or single, a responsible citizen or a criminal, you will be taxed on anything and everything new that you buy. And to make it revenue neutral, that is to say, bring into the Federal Government the same amount of money as it gets now with the IRS system, it will be a fairly hefty sales tax of 23%. Whoa, you say. That sounds like a lot! Well, yes, it actually is a lot. It's the amount needed to replace the Income Tax, Social Security Tax, and the Medicare Tax. Those are the things you've been paying into for years, but had no idea how much. But don't you think that you really should know about things like that? Payroll deduction was marketed as a painless way of paying your taxes. And your Social Security. And Medicare. It is somewhat painless if ignorance of how much you're paying is somehow helpful. It would clearly work for ostriches, and probably Sgt. Schultz too (I know nothing!). But that doesn't really get it for me.

There will probably be a lot of agruments against the Fair Tax proposal. They won't necessarily be fair or reasonable arguements. Maybe some of them might be. I just haven't seen them yet. It almost seems too good to be true. But at this point it seems to me that it's a genuine, viable alternative to the nightmare IRS. See the Fair Tax page.