Submitted by sirius, Dec 17, 2007 23:08

I approached the so-called FairTax with an open mind, but the more I have learned about it, the more biased it seems in favor of the rich.

How is it "fair" that medicine is taxed at such a steep rate, but stock purchases aren't taxed at all? How is it "fair" that the purchase of an existing home is not taxed, yet rent is taxed at such a steep rate EVERY MONTH?

Since the sale of used cars and existing homes aren't taxed, yet new ones are at the 23% inclusive (30% in reality) rate...this would be bound to have a very negative effect on the construction and automotive industries, as people would favor used cars and pre-existing homes.

And our taxes would be tied in to inflation. If prices rise, our taxes rise.

One other thing...

I'm a single guy who rents, and my rent is $700 a month.

According to the info at fairtax.org, under the fairtax rent would be taxed. So a current $700 monthly rental fee would have to increase to $910, so that the landlord could pay the government a 23% inclusive tax on that fee and still get their $700 in rent money every month.

Yet as a single person, according to fairtax.org, my monthly prebate would only be only $196, which is less than the tax on my rent would be!!!

Apartments aren't not going to have any economic impetus AT ALL to lower their rents by any 23%.

That baloney about prices magically falling by 23% doesn't wash at all when applied to rental properties: most apartment complexes have long been paid for, hence they are not paying any recurring embedded taxes in materials/manufacturing costs every month. And most apartment complexes only have a few people on staff, so cuts in what the apartment complexes would pay in employees' taxes would not amount to much either (especially if they're passing on those savings in income & payroll taxes to the employees!)

Not only that, but the property taxes which apartments pay are by far mainly on the local level; under the "Fair"tax the federal property taxes would be eliminated, but not the local property taxes. So renters would be paying the steep 23% inclusive(30% in reality) federal tax on those heavy embedded local property taxes.

And yet, as Boortz explains it, the purpose of not taxing used goods is to avoid double taxation. Yet renters would be paying a federal tax on local embedded property taxes.

Clearly the framers of the "Fair"tax did not think the details through very well...

Another thing... everyone's credit card debt would instantly increase by 30% under the "Fair"tax, since credit card payments would be taxed too.

Yet stock purchase aren't, nor capital gains, nor dividends. By taxing such things as rent and credit card payments, the poor and middle class would be hit very hard by the "Fair"tax, while the effective tax rate for millionaires would be as low as one percent.

Does that sound fair to you?

I don't like giving a third of my check to the government every week, but the "fair"tax isn't going to change that, it's supposed to be "Revenue neutral", which means that it would collect the same amount of money that the IRS now takes in.

It would just shift the tax burden more to the poor (renters) & middle class (who hold a lot of credit card debt) and further off of the wealthy, and completely off of corporations... and that doesn't sound "fair" to me at all.

I'm no fan of our current system by any means, but it is far more "fair" than the so-called fairtax.

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