All Blog Posts (700)

All,

One of the misstatements of which many of us FairTax-ers are guilty is the claim that the VAT is a hidden tax, and the FairTax is not. I attach (see discussion) a copy of my hotel bill from a recent trip to Germany, in which the VAT is clearly broken out. The only German you need to know to read the bill is that the German word for VAT is "Mehrwertsteuer," or "MwSt" abbreviated. The rest is numbers.

The 4 breakfasts and the telephone calls of 53.20 Euros were…

It is a uniquely American holiday, this upcoming Independence Day; it is the day we commemorate the abolishment of our government.



This nation did not materialize from the vapor one day in 1776. There was nearly 200 years of colonial life, and there was government for all of that time. We did not create a new government on that Fourth of July; we just dissolved the old one.



The national holiday which commemorates our disposal of unwanted government is properly called…

Make It a FairTax Fourth of July

Fireworks will color the night skies across America, replicating the “rocket’s red glare…”.

We will once again celebrate our struggle, sacrifice and determination to break away from a distant government, unfair taxes and the arbitrary and capricious rule of kings.

And in homes across the nation the FairTax will be seen and heard in our first national TV broadcast on Fox Business News at 1:30 p.m. eastern time.

Go here for a preview.…

None of us who actually create jobs were surprised at the dismal May employment numbers, while the President’s economists were shocked. What does that tell you.



Excluding temporary census workers, only 25,000 private sector jobs were added in May, less than 20% of the number needed just to keep pace with the growth in the workforce. The President’s crack team of Keynesian number crunchers had forecasted around 500,000.



Mr. Obama somehow managed to blame businesses for the…

What I want to know is: if there is nothing wrong with discussing "alternative paths to service" with Senate candidates, then why is Rod Blagojevich going to jail?



The irony of another White House election tampering case revealed on the eve of the former Illinois Governor’s corruption trial is too rich to let pass without comment.



Some will argue that the cases are not comparable; but others will see them as minor variations on the same theme. Blago offered a job in…

Your family makes $140,000. You pay your pool boy $24,000 but he spends $38,000. He is $130,000 in debt and he tells lenders you are good for it. Now do you get the Tea Party?



If you remember who works for whom and where the money comes from in the first place, it is pretty easy to see why people are hacked off. Add eight zeros to the pool boy’s numbers and you have the budget of the federal government.



The government works for us; the pool boy is not family. We…

The dividing line between compassion and tyranny has a name: it is called coercion. It is the border that encircles libertarian geography on the political map.



Few would argue with our bedrock libertarian principle: it is unjust to initiate force or fraud against another person. Don’t you agree?



And yet we force people to join unions, force people to pay arbitrary prices for goods, services, and labor, force people to purchase insurance, force people to fund…

The Civil Rights Act of 1964? Why do we have to reopen that debate because of something one guy didn’t say on a program no one watched?



And wasn’t the name of their website MoveOn? Whatever happened to that idea?



We are now in the fourth year of Democratic control in Congress, and they are still whining about GWB instead of doing the job we pay them for.



It has been thirty years since Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts were proposed, and I am still reading…

Arlen Specter lost, and Rand Paul won – that is not just big, it’s Joe Biden big.



You could not find two better poster-kids than Mr. Specter and Dr. Paul for what is wrong with this country and what might save it, respectively.



Specter served in the Senate for 24 years, while this is Paul’s first crack at public office. Specter is a regular on the Sunday talk shows, while Paul couldn’t buy his way on. Specter ran on ObamaCare; Paul practices actual health care.…

Question: is there a credit for individual ROTH IRA accounts?

No, there is not a credit for individual ROTH IRA accounts?



However, the FairTax legislation totally repeals the current income tax on Social Security benefits.



The bill also adjusts the Social Security benefits indexing formula, commonly known as the cost of living adjustment or COLA, so that benefits increase to the extent, if any, that the federal sales tax results in higher costs to seniors.…

Question: How does the "transition inventory credit work"?

The effective date of the FairTax is January 1 with the income tax repealed on Dec. 31^st (the day before). The “items for sale” on retailer’s shelves will still have the cost of embedded taxes in them. That is why the…

Are you worried about the continued talk in Washington about the VAT as lawmakers look for ways to get more of your money? You should be. If the VAT comes into being, it could be the end for the FairTax. Americans for FairTaxation has made it easy for you to tell your Senators and Congressman that you don't like it and won't stand for it! Go to www.fairtax.org to the Kill the VAT banner and click on "Tell Congress". If you are a member of FairTax.org then…

FairTax Concerns

Rob Ellsworth

Staff of Reps. Heath Shuler (D/NC) and Walt Minnick (D/ID)

1. How would you prevent the States from raising their income and sales taxes as a response to abolishing the federal income tax?

2. How would you prevent local governments from raising property taxes as a response to abolishing the federal income tax?

I will respond to these two together. Here is what we believe will happen at the state level when (not "if")…