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Sunday, April 19, 2009

“Fair Tax” is Subject of Program for Republican Club of West Florida

Area Director of “Americans for Fair Tax” Kerry Bower delivers program on Fair Tax system at noon and 6 PM meetings on Tuesday By Sid Riley
“There is a better way!” That was the primary theme of the ‘Fair Tax” presentation delivered by Kerry Bower, AFFT District Director at Tuesday’s noon meeting of the Republican Club of West Florida at Jim’s Buffet and Grill. “The existing system is corrupt, creates corrupting power for the politicians, and involves injustice, double taxation, and extreme confusion”. The existing tax codes exceed 70,000 pages, and are so complex, contradictory, and confusing that interpretations made by tax experts vary greatly. “It is time for the system to be changed”, he exclaimed.

“However, the politicians do not want the system changed. The ability to grant exemptions enables them to gain great political power and political favors. It will take the threat of expulsion by the masses to cause them to approve the Fair Tax system” Bower continues. “Every year individuals and businesses spend 6.6 billion hours attempting to comply with the IRS and the massive volume of tax codes. The estimated cost to the economy, just in compliance and preparation is over $300,000,000 per year. At present, there are over 50,000 court cases pending in which the IRS is prosecuting citizens on tax issues.”

The Fair Tax concept was first presented by three citizens in Texas in 1995. The Fair Tax is a tax based on “Consumption” instead of “Income”. At present there is approximately 23% of the cost of everything we buy represented by “imbedded”, hidden taxes. These added costs from taxes represent the tax payments made by every step of the production, delivery, storage, and sales network which occurred prior to the point of purchase. Thus the final consumer is actually paying all of the accumulated costs from taxation when they make their purchase.

Under the Fair Tax approach, there would be no taxes paid at any point in these processes, until the item is purchased. At that time a 23% “consumption tax” would be added. The purchaser would be paying for the new item with untaxed wages. Your paycheck would be for your gross earnings. Your gross pay and your take home pay would be the same amount.

A system to rebate purchasers for taxes paid on necessities such as medicines and food would be paid each month back to each household, based on income and family size. This creates an element of progressive taxation into the system, and relieves the burden on low income citizens. This system would force everyone to have a valid social security number and address in order to receive these rebate payments.

The sales tax would only be charged on new, first purchase transactions. Resale of used items would not be taxed, since taxes have already been paid when the items were first sold.
The Fair Tax legislation is only 131 pages in length, a far cry from the 70,000 pages in our current tax codes.

The Fair Tax bills are currently in financial committees in Washington, Senate bill .296, and HR 25 in the House of Representatives. The bills are sponsored by Senator Chambless of Georgia, and Representative John Linder of Georgia. There are four co-sponsor Senators, and fifty-one co-sponsor Representatives. In total, the measure currently has about 25% of the legislators supporting the measure. More public pressure is needed.

If you wish to learn more about this approach, “Fair Tax” by Neal Bortz, and “Do the Right Thing”, by Mike Huckabee are informative books, or you can visit www.fairtaxnation.com.
Also attending this meeting was Tom Walsh, a visiting Republican from Naples, Florida. Mr. Walsh is evaluating support for his possible future campaign for the U.S. Senate, running against the incumbent, Senator Martinez.

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