It's Time for the Fair ax

"No more clever loopholes for the few at the expense of the many. No more lobbyists buying tax breaks for their clients from Congress. No more tax cheats and untaxed underground economy.”
By Mike Huckabee, Former Gov. Arkansas & GOP Presidential Candidate 2008: I’d like you to join me at the best “Going Out of Business” sale I can imagine – one held by the Internal Revenue Service. I want to completely eliminate all federal income and payroll taxes. And do I mean all – personal federal, corporate federal, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security, Medicare, self-employment. Instead we will have the FairTax, a simple tax based on wealth.

The FairTax will replace the Internal Revenue Code with a consumption tax, like the taxes on retail sales forty-five states and the District of Columbia have now. All of us will get a monthly rebate to reimburse us for taxes on purchases up to the poverty line, so that we’re not taxed on necessities. We’ll be taxed on what we decide to buy, not what we happen to earn. We won’t be taxed on what we choose to save or the interest those savings earn. The tax will apply only to new goods, so we can reduce our taxes further by buying a used car or computer.

Our current progressive tax system penalizes us for our success. As we climb the ladder, the government lurks on each rung, hungry for a bigger bite of our earnings. The FairTax is also progressive, but it doesn’t punish the American dream of success, or the old-fashioned virtues of hard work and thrift, it rewards them. The FairTax is revenue neutral, so the Government won’t have more money to waste. The FairTax will lower the lifetime tax burden on all of us: single or married; working or retired; rich, poor or middle class. As our disposable incomes rise, so will consumption and our gross domestic product.

Under the FairTax, we’ll all be treated the same: no more tax avoidance by those who can afford the most creative – and expensive – lawyers and accountants. No more clever loopholes for the few at the expense of the many. No more lobbyists buying tax breaks for their clients from Congress. No more tax cheats and untaxed underground economy.

The FairTax will instantly make American products 12 to 25% more competitive because the cost of those goods will no longer be inflated by corporate taxes, costs of tax compliance, and Social Security matching payments. When we buy products now, those taxes are built into the cost, so all of us pay corporate taxes indirectly on top of the personal taxes we pay directly. Compliance costs are just make-work with no real added value, yet they consume as much as 3% of our gross domestic product annually. These costs are an especially heavy burden on small businesses, which generate most of our jobs.

Other governments give their goods an advantage on the world market by rebating value added taxes on exports, an advantage estimated at 18% compared to American goods. No matter how hard Americans work, no matter how innovative and creative we are, no matter how superior our products are, we suffer from a built-in competitive disadvantage simply because of our tax system. Our tax system deprives us of about $1 billion in exports annually. When you export over-priced goods, you inevitably end up exporting jobs and industries. We are the square peg trying to fit into the round hole of international trade. The rest of the world isn’t going to change, it’s time that we do. The FairTax is the path to greater prosperity and job security for us and our children.

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