What is the Fair Tax Act?

The Fair Tax Act is currently before Congress and has been for several years.  It proposes to replace the Federal Income Tax, Payroll Tax, and Estate Taxes with a National Sales Tax.  I support this approach to "True Tax Reform" for the following reasons:

  • Numerous economic studies have also shown a significant and positive impact on US Gross Domestic Product.
  • The poor, unlike the current tax system which taxes their wages for social security taxes, will not pay any taxes for purchases made with income up to the poverty level.
  • The majority of the cost of tax compliance will be eliminated. This has sometimes been estimated to cost us between 3 and 4 percent of GDP that we spend every year for a worthless stack of tax returns. The time and effort spent on tax compliance contributes nothing to our ability to make a better car, jet, or any other product.
  • People will no longer have to take taxes into consideration when making business decisions. This can only lead to better decisions.
  • You will no longer be required to report what you made and how you made it to the government. Your information about how much you paid on your mortgage or what you made in charitable contributions is your business, not the governments.
  • The Fair Tax proposal is far simpler than the Florida Sales Tax law which means that you don't have to hire professionals to understand it.

We all agree that the current income tax system is too complex. Calculating a tax based upon the sales price of some product is by it's very nature always going to be simpler than calculating the net profit from the sale of that product. As a CPA with years of tax experience in preparing tax returns and planning how to avoid such taxes, I can tell you this is a huge waste of time and talent. Supporting the Fair Tax is probably the single one thing that any of us can do that will have a tremendous positive affect for future generations.

For more information about the Fair Tax, go the Fair Tax Organization's website at http://fairtax.org.

Additionally, you can contact me, Jim Payne, using the Contact Us link for help in finding speakers about the Fair Tax for your organizations.