The Fair Tax

[Morton Thomson Jr.]

The Fair Tax

And what’s wrong with it!

Here are the main problems I have with the proposed Fair Tax.

1. Those in favor of passing this legislation claim that it first requires that we repeal the 16^th Amendment. This is a false notion fueled by ignorance of the law. The Supreme Court said in Stanton Vs. Baltic Mining Co., 240 US 112 (1916), that the 16^th Amendment does not change Article I, section 8 of the Constitution, and “confers no new power of taxation.” Therefore repealing the amendment will change nothing and will not, in and of itself, eliminate the IRS. Therefore, even if one could successfully repeal the 16^th Amendment, the proposal is doomed from the onset. Other Supreme Court case law as in Brushaber Vs. Union Pacific Railroad Co., 240 US 1 (1916),  is being used as the legal backdrop for the authority to continue the fraud known as the Income Tax, so repealing the 16^th Amendment will not be enough.
2. The proposed sales tax claims to be “revenue neutral”. This means that it will do nothing to change the amount of money going into the coffers of the federal government. This does absolutely nothing to make the feds more fiscally responsible, which is what they claim to be trying to do with the Fair Tax proposal.
3. Because this is a sales tax and is “revenue neutral”, it’s too easy for everyone to lose track of how and where they are taxed, thus allowing the government and the public at large to easily forget that there is a tax being levied in the first place, and;
4. This makes it too easy for the tax to be increased by fiat, any time they feel like it. And don’t tell me that it will have to be voted on, because when you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on the support of Paul. In other words, those constituents who benefit from government giveaways will always vote in favor of increased taxes. Eliminating giveaway programs is first and foremost at the heart of the problem, not eliminating the IRS. And:
5. Wasteful spending by the fed will not change just because the money comes from a different place. Reform needs to be based in correcting the problems that we know exist now, not in changing the source of revenue.
6. In addition, there must be serious reform of the corrupt cycle known as lobbying. When a politician can be persuaded to vote in favor of passing a law for a particular corporation to receive money based on the amount of begging and influence peddling they engage in, this is a problem. The Fair Tax will not change this.
7. Also, the government is in the habit of ignoring the will of the people in the first place, so what will stop them from simply printing more fiat money any time they feel like it? The answer is NOTHING. And:
8. Last but not least is the fact that taxes, like the economy, trickle down to the bottom. When corporations are taxed, industry wide, they do not actually pay the taxes directly. They either move the operation to a tax free environment, thereby eliminating American jobs, or they simply increase the cost of the end product to cover the increased taxes and the CONSUMER pays a higher price at the end of the line. So poor people end up paying the increased taxes levied against the “evil rich and competition will not keep corporations from raising the price of their products, due to the fact that the regulation or tax that increases those costs for a product are levied against an entire industry all at once, in order to make it “fair”. Some perfect examples are cigarettes, alcohol, beef, milk, etc. You name it, the fed has found a way to tax or regulate it, INDUSTRY WIDE. They don’t just tax or regulate one company, they tax them ALL, and the CONSUMER PAYS THE BILL. The Fair Tax WILL NOT CHANGE THAT. That’s trickle down economics 101. If you need proof, check the latest tax returns filed by Goldman Sachs, AIG, etc. You’ll see that not only were they able to differ an income tax liability of TWO BILLION DOLLARS by shipping jobs over-seas, they actually qualified for a TAX CREDIT of over ONE BILLION DOLLARS MORE, on top of that! We must eliminate the IRS AND STOP THE PAYMENTS. Not change the way they get the wealth.

In conclusion,

It is safe to say that the Fair Tax will do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to change what’s wrong with our federal government in terms of how they borrow and spend and print new FRN’s (Quantitative Easing), anytime the Fed says it’s the right thing to do. Not to mention the Fair Tax does nothing to address the fact that they routinely ignore requests now for freedom of information and Redress of Grievances in regard to taxes and other issues. The fed will not change their attitude until “We The People” force them to.

Stop the "voluntary compliance" with the misapplication of the current Internal Re-Venue Codes. This would immediately cripple the fed and wake them up. The Fair Tax WILL NOT! Instead, it will bury the issue of an overblown and corrupt government and put it on the back burner of the American conscience. People will continue to fund a corrupt, wasteful, SOCIALIST government. That’s why I don’t like the Fair Tax.

Comments?

[Wayne Bachmann]

These puns are over my head. would you please explain?

[Osceola Renegade]

I see!

Are you truly not aware of the number of dead bodies following Obama and Hillary and Bill!

What is protecting (who is protecting them?)

And, if you are not aware of one and two above, then you will have to research the rest for yourself because you will not believe what you find either.

That is the PUN.

[Wayne Bachmann]

I am very well aware of the dead bodies associated with the Clinton Regime. I had the tape made by their lawyer when he exposed the many mysterious deaths, before his own mysterious death occurred.

I just don't get the fuddy duddy stuff.

[Morton Thomson Jr.]

Marty, You are describing the Hegelian Dialectic argument technique. Triangulate the argument, so that no matter how you answer the question you end up at the same place. Right where they want you. That's not quite the same as what Osceola is describing. Big O is just insinuating that we are involuntarily participating in a deal we have no control over, but if we are paying for it, we might be considered a "Legal Party" to it. That is the same as all the other adhesion contracts we are forced to participate in and pay for, like S.S. It is not describing the tactics of the left. I respectfully disagree with your assessment.

[John Gaver]

This sounds very much like the TP BS that has been floating around for decades. As I recall, it was about 2005 or so, when I read that there were more than 8000 tax protesters in U.S. prisons. I remember one of the comments in that article that was by an IRS official. He said something along the lines of "A tax protester is just a tax payer who hasn't paid his taxes and has not yet been prosecuted, since he is both too poor and too insignificant for the IRS to notice. Rich or extremely vocal tax protesters don't remain free very long"

The point is that whether you are right or wrong in your arguments doesn't matter. The people in power have decided that you are wrong and it's going to take decades or longer to replace them. In the mean time, if you don't pay your taxes, you better be both too poor for the IRS to notice and too insignificant for other people to pay attention to. Even poor TPs that become too vocal and who gather a significant following often find themselves in Tax Court, just so the IRS can use them as an object lesson for other TPs.

If I were ever to choose to no longer pay U.S. taxes, I would do it the only way that has proven to work, repeatedly. I would follow the 1001 expats who renounced their U.S. citizenship last year. That's a steep price to pay. But it's a lot lower price than going to prison.

"It's dangerous to be right, when the people in power are wrong."

[Wayne Bachmann]

Now you are connecting with part of the reasoning I refuse to pay. The taxes do not benefit this country, but are used to fuel the wars. I refuse to be held accountable for it before our creator.

In the Church I belong to, I am counseled to obey the law, and I do. I have never been counseled to obey the legal system. I am not a citizen of the Corporation of the UNITED STATES, so I don't have to obey the corporation, and I will only do so to the extent that the legal system itself obeys the law. It was a rude awakening for me to find out that the law and the legal system are not the same. When the rest of society wakes up to that, I think there will be some drastic changes in cultural observances and practices.

[Jim Robinett]

the law is the Constitution of our forefathers, legal is the statutes of the corporation.

[Osceola Renegade]

A Corporation is a person in legal terms.  People cannot tax you.

Only Constitutional Governments.

This sucks.

[Steve Belttari]

     John, I don't have a problem with forgiving expatriates and giving them another chance at American citizenship.  The Shmita year is approaching and this is what we are looking at:

     Power to cancel or suspend economic activity

Congress shall have, and with a treaty with other nations collectively producing more than half of the world's tangible goods, shall exercise, power to do the following for each year evenly divisible by seven, for a shmita period at least three and not more than nine months:

1. Cancel all debts, securities, fiat currencies, and derivatives thereof;
2. Liquidate or break up all for-profit corporate entities and activities into organizations comprised of not more than 300 individuals and investors;
3. Regulate emergent behavior that might act in concert like a corporate entity;
4. Suspend all extraction, including mining planting, harvesting, and fishing, all manufacturing, and all transport beyond 100 kilometers of durable goods, other than those essential for defense, justice and law enforcement, water, power, or medical services;
5. Promote storage systems to enable persons to endure the shmita period;
6. Forbid the importation of goods subject to the shmita during the shmita period;
7. Call out militia to enforce the shmita.

          I would hope to witness a national repentance starting Sept. 24 and see the Shmita above implemented 2022-2023.  The previous Shmita we had the Bailout and the one before that 911.

[John Gaver]

But shimta is Jewish (i.e. religious) doctrine. Under the Constitution, the USA may neither endorse nor deny Shari'ah nor may the government endorse or deny Halakha, as long as those tenets don't violate U.S. law. The First Amendment begins, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,…" Shimta is most clearly a religious doctrine. Those who want to live within that doctrine are welcome to do so, as long as their observance of their doctrine doesn't interfere with the right of any other citizen to observe his own particular doctrine of choice.

I'm a realist. The people who are leaving in ever increasing numbers are the people who pay the lion's share of the taxes and who create almost all of the jobs. Without them, this nation will collapse. It's like I told several of my Christian friends, who refused to vote for Romney, "Whether or not Romney was adequately chaste and holy will be the last thing on your mind, when you're out of work and starving due to four more years of Obama's mismanagement of the economy. We need to reverse this trend of wealth expatriation, while there is still an economy to save.

[Steve Belttari]

     Article VI of the US Constitution says:

     "This Constitution and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."

I interpret this to mean that a treaty trumps the 1st Amendment.  I'm not a high powered lawyer though and I think the author of Power to Cancel or Suspend Economic Activity could probably defend the legality of Shmita better than I can.  I will say this though, Replacement Theology has led to some of the most virulent anti-Semitism and probably a distortion of our understanding of property rights.

[John Gaver]

Steve, I believe that your interpretation of Article VI is probably pretty close to accurate. However, I will point out that Shmita is a Jewish doctrine and Religious Jews make up only 1.8% of the U.S. population. By contrast Catholics make up roughly a quarter of our population. Another 14% are Agnostic and a little more than 2% are Atheist. That's 41% of the population who tend to have very strong views on their religion or lack thereof. Furthermore, studies have repeatedly shown that by religious preference, the four groups most likely to vote in any election are 1) Atheist, 2) Agnostic, 3) Jewish, 4) Catholic. Somehow, I just can't see a doctrine that is drawn from a religion that makes up just 1.8% of the population, being accepted by that 41% that tends to be among the most active voters in the country. Whether by law or treaty, it's just not gonna happen.

Also, though it has never got that bad in the past, if the Pope were to tell Catholics to vote the b____s out (meaning Congress), they will. The implementation of Shmita would certainly be enough to push the Catholic leadership past that point.

The Democrats, in particular, depend on the latino Catholic vote. They aren't about to cross that constituency. They're more afraid of them than the homosexual lobby, the environmental lobby or the unions. Shmita is an absolutely certain non-starter in the USA.