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tagrynCNN this morning had on Neil Boortz, author of the book FairTax. The idea of the book was taken from a study by ten universities of the tax system, and it recommends replacing the income tax with a flat 23% sales tax on all new goods and services. In addition to closing the many loopholes which our current tax system has, it would also allow the government to eliminate the IRS, and would actually bring in more money than the current tax system.
Hmm. It sounds like a good idea, for many of the same reasons the flat tax does: a simple, fair tax on everyone. I don't know that it would do away with the IRS entirely; with so much $$$ at stake, there's going to inevitably need to be someone to monitor whether the tax is actually being paid or not, even if it is collected at point of sale. Boortz said in his interview that however better the system would be, realistically it'll never fly because the current system is designed to give politicians power by winning favor through tinkering with the tax code, and FairTax would take that away from them. My wife Donna also pointed out that in addition to putting thousands of IRS employees out of work, it would also eliminate the need for tax attorneys and MBAs, and those groups combined would represent a large political constituency if they felt their livelihood was threatened.
Still, an interesting idea.
Hmm. It sounds like a good idea, for many of the same reasons the flat tax does: a simple, fair tax on everyone. I don't know that it would do away with the IRS entirely; with so much $$$ at stake, there's going to inevitably need to be someone to monitor whether the tax is actually being paid or not, even if it is collected at point of sale. Boortz said in his interview that however better the system would be, realistically it'll never fly because the current system is designed to give politicians power by winning favor through tinkering with the tax code, and FairTax would take that away from them. My wife Donna also pointed out that in addition to putting thousands of IRS employees out of work, it would also eliminate the need for tax attorneys and MBAs, and those groups combined would represent a large political constituency if they felt their livelihood was threatened.
Still, an interesting idea.
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A FairTax Blog
Date: 2005-08-22 03:06 am (UTC)