Published January 28, 2008 05:05 pm - Editors note: This is the final installment in a three-part series on the FairTax, written by Rudy Treml, a former Port Arthur resident. Treml’s series will be presented in its entirety on our Web site panews.com for your review/vote. He credits Neal Boortz, co-author of the NY Times best-seller The FairTax Book, for some of the information presented herein.
RUDY TREML: Time for you to vote on a taxing system
Rudy Treml
The Port Arthur News
In the first article in this series, we imagined the FairTax system as the law of the land and this system was satisfactorily funding our Government. Everyone was happy with the FairTax system.
In a condensed form, the nonpartisan FairTax plan is an integrated approach to generating revenue for the government. It includes a progressive National Retail sales tax, and provides prebates to families, to ensure no American pays taxes on the necessities of life, up to the poverty level.
The FairTax completely funds our current government programs (revenue neutral), including Social Security and Medicare, and allows all Americans to keep their hard-earned dollars from any income source.
The FairTax taxes us only on what we choose to spend on new goods and services, not on what we earn. There is no tax on used items. The FairTax is fair, efficient, transparent, and an intelligent solution to collecting taxes for our government.
Remember, the FairTax is our imaginary taxing system. We’re imagining this system is currently used to collect revenues to operate the federal government.
In Part II of this series, we had a politician propose to terminate the FairTax system and replace it with a new federal income tax system. His proposed system includes federal personal taxes, gift taxes, estate taxes, death taxes, capital-gain taxes, alternate minimum taxes, Social Security taxes, Medicare taxes, self-employment taxes, and corporate taxes. Plus, his system includes other regulations that would affect the way you live and make economic decisions, whether these decisions are personal or corporate.
THE FIRST QUESTION
The question, of course, is why does this politician want to change the tax system in this way?
Power and the expansion of the federal government, that's why. He/she wants to be able to enact little changes to the tax code that will benefit certain constituents ... which constituents will then benefit the politicians — with money or with votes. Under the current FairTax system these politicians have no power to favor one group of voters over another for the benefit of votes. This new system would give them that power. And the embedded Federal taxes plus all the tax compliance/avoidance costs on Corporations, though paid by us, are all hidden.
THE SECOND QUESTION
So, as good citizens of the USA, you need to make a choice — keep the FairTax or move to the proposed Federal Income Tax on businesses and individuals?
If we had the FairTax now ... would you be willing to make the switch? If your answer is NO, join this ever growing grassroots movement … The FairTax Act, HR-25/S-1025, as written.
On the Port Arthur News web site, panews.com, you can cast your vote either for retaining the FairTax system or changing to the politicians proposed new Federal Income Tax system. You will also find all three segments of this series for your review before voting.
If you vote for the FairTax system, please join the active grassroots FairTax movement by visiting the web site www.fairtax.org. You may also want to contact your elected representatives in the U.S. House and Senate, to tell them you need their support for HR-25 and S-1025, as written. These bills, known as the FairTax Act, are currently in committees in the 110th Congress.
As you know, the federal income tax system is currently the law of the land, outside of the imaginary world we’ve created in this series. However, the FairTax Act is a reality in Congress at this time. It has 79 house members favoring the switch to the FairTax system, which include one sponsor and 66 co-sponsors.