A small critque of the website fairtax.org
I was driving down the street when I noticed a bumper sticker. I must admit that I am always interested in bumper stickers and their meanings. Bumpers sticker like their owners come from all walks of lifes. Bumper stickers are truly a unique exspression and like a tattoo, they can be hard to take off. The bumper sticker I ran into the other day was a very simple one, it has a picture of the IRS crossed out in a circle and the words fairtax.org. At first I thought this was your usual libertarian bumper sticker explaining smaller government, better life. I however kept my judgements to myself and drove home. Later I had a chance to get on the internet and look up the site. To my susprise the website wasn't about flat tax.-And it had some very interestng ideas.
Americans for Fair Tax is a non-partisan organization which aims for a more systematic and fluent system of exchange between government and its citizens.
The site gives you an array of information, even a toll free number if you have questions.
The main critque of system is that it could possibly eleminate the IRS, but with its restructuring in the Social Security adminstration-where you file your rebate- as well the dismantling of the IRS, and impact of job loss would cost hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars.
The Social Secutiry branch would also have to expand as noted, this would mean that SS would have more costs and a bigger budget, but as the represenative I talked to the phone mentioned it wouldn't be as much.
The IRS, indeed, if eliminated would leave a large gap in the checks and balances of auditing peoples finances. A fair tax system would take the need to look into peoples finances out for the most part, especially because corporate tax would be no more. However, the future system would have a hard time looking into financial corruption since coropate finances wouldn't have to answer to the IRS anymore. We would have to rely on figures the company puts out through the stock market. That is if the company is on the market.
The last part, is that the site advertises among its argument that this would create incentives for companies to invest in America and have American companies stay here. This is fine, but this does not account for the outsourcing or accountability to pay a "fair" wage. Indeed more corporations could possibly come to America but only as a tax haven for corporations, not as a new and strong labor force that gives back to America with strong paying wages and job security.
The woman on the phone I talked to argued that when it came to labor standards that we could prevail because there is a standard labor in American labor. Indeed, this may be true. However, the standard 8 hour shift and high paying union jobs doesn't mean that the workforce is more attractive then the Chinese, who are willing to work 16 hours at a fourth the cost. Remember more Chinese and Indians go beyond secondary education.
As a thinktank for tax goods, fairtax.org brings into play the idea of a better tax code, however there are some deep gaps in how this would be a positive thing for all americans. Most assets by the hyperrich and corporations in the stockmarket would be taxed only by the cost of trading, there would be no accountability for taxing the actually stock or gain, nor would a estate tax be in place, to collect from the generations who adopt the large sums of money.
-Gjuro
posted by Politics in Motion @ 2:30 PM
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