Letters on tax reform

Non-Militaristic Wars that have been declared in my lifetime which Americans cannot afford

2008-01-21T07:37:00.000-08:00

The War on Poverty; declared by Lyndon Johnson. This will always be un-winnable as long as humans make life decisions that lead them to financial decay, and as long as the government perpetuates poverty by allowing the central bank to inflate the currency through counterfeiting.

The War on Drugs; declared by Richard Nixon and re-declared by the Reagan administration. This war is lost and can never be won. There is two much money on both sides of the issue for it ever to be anything but self perpetuating, and self medication is human weakness that can only be subdued, but not controlled, through education and experience.

The War on Terror; declared by the second Bush administration after the events of 911. This war will self perpetuate as long as we impress our will on foreign soils. The cost, in terms of lost American liberty, has exceeded the monetary cost that has been spent and will be spent since its initiation in 2001 many times over. This lost liberty will never be fully recovered.

The War on Global Warming; declared by presidential candidate Al Gore. This war is based on the egocentric belief that humans have made a permanent, lasting impression on the environment. Global warming is a 10,000 year cyclical phenomena, and the idea that governments can control the weather is utterly absurd.

Listing of Indirect and Direct taxes

2007-07-03T10:04:00.000-07:00

Most of us have seen the long list of taxes that have appeared over the last 100 years due to the ever expanding reach of government. But I have yet to see a list of the hidden taxes that we pay, which in some ways are even more insidious than the ones we can see.

Some of these issues are addressed directly by HR25, some may be impacted by HR25, and some we may never get a handle on. Please feel free to add to this list.

Hidden cost of government:

Indirect taxes:

1) Cost of tax compliance – not just limited to income tax filing and record keeping (Have you ever had to stand in line at the DMV?)
2) Cost of employer share of employee withholding – included in consumer's cost of goods and services
3) Cost to companies of government mandated regulations - included in consumers cost of goods and services
4) Cost of corporate taxes - included in consumers cost of goods and services
5) Cost of deficit spending - inflation and interest on federal debt
6) Cost of government subsidies that artificially inflate the cost of goods and services (kind of a double wammy)
7) Multi tiered taxing - tax on tax, included in the cost of goods and services that include components that are produced by multiple and/or vendors/contractors.
8) Pork legislation:
- Funding of the pork itself
- Funding of marginal legislation that may not have passed with out the pork attached (purchasing of votes).
- Tax breaks for entities as a result of the legislation that puts the tax burden elsewhere
8) Intangible costs:
- “Brain Drain” – lost economic opportunity due to time spent on tax avoidance schemes in lieu of creating new wealth.

The following ar costs that are not as well hidden:

Direct Taxes:

Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
CDL license Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Excise Taxes F
ederal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax (42 cents per gallon)
Gross Receipts Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges
IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Luxury Taxes
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Personal Property Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Service Charge Tax
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Tax
Sales Tax
Recreational Vehicle Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Taxes
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Utility Taxes
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax

The cynical view of Rush Limbaugh on the FairTax

2006-03-20T07:49:00.000-08:00

Dear FairTaxers,

Sadly, Rush may be right on this one.

As with entitlements, the politicians use the tax system to extort your vote. And, as with entitlements, we may be to a point of no return. That is to say that there may be more voters who are benefiting (or who are not affected) from the current tax system than there are those that are paying into it.

The FairTax will make these same people pay their share. So why would they support something that is going to take money out of their pocket that wasn’t taken out before?

The vision of democracy that our founding fathers had has somehow gotten turned inside out in the last 100 years. From my point of view, this is largely due to the Federal tax systems (Income, FICA, and Medicare). The unprecedented expansion of the Federal government during this period has occurred principally because of the ability to levy more taxes than ever before, and thus controlling the political and economic focus of the it’s constituents (we, the people) through a tangled web of tax incentives and entitlements. There is something fundamentally wrong with this concept. The federal government should be a puppet of the people, not the other way around.

And don’t think that a government that invented PSYOPS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psyops ) is beyond using similar tools or methods to sustain the status quo, or to achieve the support of a political objective that may be perceived as favorable to the narcissistic bureaucracy that the system sustains.

The income tax system has created a class war that is bubbling just below the surface of our society. Our representatives have somehow kept it in check without allowing it to erupt into something ugly, like national unrest or riots. For the most part, their constituents are placated or somatized by the infusions of entitlements or tax incentives. And like a drug habit, it will be extremely painful to rid ourselves of these dependencies.

As citizens, it is our duty to maintain a diligence against this type of tyranny. I just hope that it’s no too late. Make no mistake; we have a very tough row to hoe.

Best Regards

Robert Nathan

The federal tax snowball from hell

2006-03-10T05:45:00.000-08:00

Dear Fair Taxers

I just have to post something about this.

The snowball effect of the federal tax burden is significant. Let me
give you an example that I think everyone can relate to.

I am in the construction business. The common denominator in the
costs of most all the goods and services used in our business is
labor. The cost of energy is related to some degree, but even this
is driven by the cost of labor in that the cost of a barrel of oil,
while it may be driven by supply and demand, is largely related to
how much man power it takes to get that barrel of oil out of the
ground and into the market.

As a contractor, I see the impact of taxes and tax compliance as one
of the single major factors in determining the cost of doing
business. Profit is a negligible cost (most large contractors
consider their year to have been a good one if they net 1% after
taxes). However, since the overhead and profit are usually figured
as a percentage of cost, the tax on labor is marked up further by
the percentage of overhead and profit that is estmated for a project.

When a contractor figures a job, he estimates what the labor will
cost and then marks this up with the cost of the tax burden. This
subtotal is marked up again by adding a factor for profit and
overhead. The overhead percentage is normally based on historical
costs, and will include the cost of tax compliance.

Then there is the tiered effect of the construction process. One of
the first things that I learned in this business is that you cannot
beat a man at his trade. In other words, don't try to make
a "widget" unless you have experience at it because the "widget"
makers who do have this experience, can make a "widget" a lot
cheaper and quicker.

As a result of this concept, the industry is highly specialized, and
each component in a building may have three or four tiers
of "widget" makers involved in the delivery process. Each one of
these widget makers is paying taxes on labor, tax compliance and tax
on income. There is also the cost of tax avoidance, which a company
has to pay in order to stay competitive.

At each tier of the fabrication process, the "widget" maker will
pass these costs on to the next tier, who in turn marks it up with
his tax burden and compliance costs, adding the cost of his portion
of the "widget" to the final assembly, and so on.

So consider that the cost of all this tax impact is being marked up
by each tier and passed along to the next tier. The numbers start
becoming significant.

Now consider that the general contractor is not even the final tier
in this process. If our company delivers a building to an owner, who
then in turn leases the space out to a retailer, the owner ads his
own federal tax related costs to the snowball in terms of the rental
cost to the retailer. The retailer finally passes these costs, as
well as his own tax burden costs, on to the consumer.

Think about this the next time you go into a retail store to buy
something. My guess is that the federal tax impact on the final
delivery of goods and services that are produced domestically may be
as high as 50% in some cases. So if you think that federal taxes
only affect your take home pay, you have been cleverly disillusioned
by the system.

The fact of the matter is this; we are also taxed indirectly by the
federal government on the money that we spend.

It's a grand scheme of smoke and mirrors.

Best Regards

Robert Nathan

--- In txfairtax@yahoogroups.com, "apboth" wrote:
>
> I was discussing the Fair Tax with a co-worker yesterday and I was
> explaining that with the elimination of corporate income taxes,
that
> the price of goods would be lowered due to market competition.
His
> question was, what if the company is already paying little or no
tax
> due to tax shelters or off-shore companies? Well, I didn't have a
> good answer.
>
> Can any of you help me out with this?
>

________________________________________________________________________

Privacy and the income tax

2006-02-02T07:29:00.000-08:00

I’ve always felt the right to privacy was the core issue, the heart of the matter with regards to the income tax. Proponents of the income tax claim that the constitution doesn’t guarantee an individuals right to privacy.

My argument is that the Founding Fathers felt that this was such an obvious inalienable right, that it wasn’t really necessary to address it directly. One can sense this truth by reading between the lines in the Bill of Rights. Check out the following Articles and determine this for yourself.

Article III

No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Article IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Article IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Now read the income tax amendment, Article XVI

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

Through the liberal application of the sixteenth amendment, we have seen our right to privacy slowly eroded over the past 90 years. Social Security numbers, which were initiated to track ones retirement savings, are now used to track almost every aspect of a person’s life. In this age of information, it's a scary thought.

The strong sense of individualism that this country was founded on is slowly drifting to mythical status as the application of the income tax code (and other laws built around these philosophical abominations) moves us toward a communal society, as envisioned in novels such as 1984 and Brave New World.

So if you still have any remaining remembrance of the liberty and freedom that we enjoyed prior to the federal government’s meddling in our lives via the enforcement of the tax code, don’t let it go. It’s time to recover our freedom by ending the abomination called the income tax and replacing it with the Fair Tax.

Posting to the Official Blog of the National Taxpayers Union

2005-12-19T10:08:00.000-08:00

Robert L Nathan said on Apr 01 2005 at 3:10pm

Dear Mr Liberal Virgenian.

Dude, I don’t understand your logic. How do you figure that Dude A spends 75% of his income on consumer goods @ $20K of income and Dude B spends 60% @ $100K of income? I personally have an income close to Dude B, and I can tell you that what I spend on consumer goods is less than what Dude A spends, primarily because I invest every dime that I can get my hands on in hopes that I can escape the trap of being a corporate slave some day.

I also figure that my investments create other jobs, which is good for everybody. If the workers that are employed through my investments follow the same suit that I do, more and more jobs can be created.

If you want to really get regressive, tax the wealthy to the point where they leave the country. I’ve got to tell you, Costa Rica starts to look awfully good when you start paying 30 cents of every dollar to support the Federal Bureaucracy. As wealth leaves the country, so do jobs. And with fewer jobs, than who is left to pay the taxes? I can assure you that your representatives in Washington are not going to cut their highbrow noses off to spite their faces on this issue, liberal or conservative.

Have you ever considered the possibility that the reason that our labor markets at home can’t compete globally is because the tax burden that employers pay on labor is so high? In spite of the high productivity of the American workers, we cannot overcome weight of wagon that Uncle Sam has loaded for us.

The solution is a hybrid of the consumption tax, known as the Fairtax. Under this proposal the so-called regressively of the consumption tax is nullified by rebating the tax up to the poverty level (factoring in the number of dependents). FICA tax, which is the most regressive of all taxes as far as the poor and lower income people are concerned, goes away.

I recommend that you go to the www.fairtax.org site for more information. I'm sure that if you take a serious look at it, you will come around. It's truly a non-partisan proposal, being embraced by liberals and conservatives alike.

Best Regards

Robert Nathan
La Jolla, California

Response to article in the Seattle PI

2005-12-19T09:26:00.000-08:00

Dear Mr. Hassett,

I read your article at seattlept.com entitled “Tax reform takes a back seat to partisan rankling”, and thought you might like to know how a good number of the American people plan to enforce some solidarity on the tax reform issue.

The Fairtax organization consists of 600,000 plus dedicated members, and our ranks are growing daily. We are a grassroots group committed to a total overhaul of the Federal tax system and replacing it with a fair and transparent tax, which cannot be easily manipulated by those that derive their power from money rather than the will of the people.

You can bet that we will make this a major issue during the months prior to the next election. The politicians may be in denial about it today, but rest assured, they will be getting a sobering wakeup call.

I suggest that you visit our website at www.fairtax.org and become acquainted with HR25 and S25, these bills being introduced and supported by representatives on both sides of party lines.

Very Truly Yours

Robert L. Nathan
December, 2005
San Diego, CA.

Letter to Senator Shelby about the Flat Tax

2005-12-06T08:28:00.000-08:00

Dear Senator Shelby,

I grew up in the Muscle Shoals, Alabama area and I have many fond memories from those days. My father and brothers still reside in Alabama. I am now and have been for many years a Texan and while my heart is here, my soul will always reside in Muscle Shoals.

I have been following the tax reform efforts that are now underway with a keen interest. Having been born into the current income tax system, I have often wondered how it came about, as it does not reflect the American ideals that I learned about as a child while in school on the banks of the Tennessee River. During the past few years, I have done quite a bit of study on this subject, and I have come to see it as a mechanism for enslaving the middle and lower classes of this country.

While I applaud you for recognizing the need for significant tax reform, I do not think the flat tax is the answer. The flat tax does not take the tax burden off of the poor, nor does it take the cost of compliance out of the cost of goods and services. It is not a transparent tax (no one will know the total cost of the tax). More over, it will be subject to the same K street manipulation that has occurred over the past century, at the expense of those that shoulder the bulk of the tax burden. There are many more arguments against the flat tax, but let me just refer you to the web site that has all the information that you need.

Please visit www.fairtax.org, which is the tax system that I support and will be promoting along with at least 600,000 other Americans this coming election.

Very Truly Yours

Robert Lindsay Nathan, Jr.

President's Advisory Panel on Tax Reform

2005-12-02T10:49:00.000-08:00

To: The Honorable John Snow,
Secretary of the Treasury

Dear Sir,

As a volunteer for the Fairtax initiative, I am writing to you about tax reform and the recent findings of the Presidents Commission on the same subject.

I write this letter to you as a humble citizen of these United States of America. I do not have access to the services employed by those who make things happen in Washington, through their influence via lobbyists and lawyers. Nor do I employ the corporate support of accountants, lawyers, secretaries, comptrollers, or tax consultants when addressing tax matters with the Federal Government. So please give this letters its due regard, as it is written with time that is more precious than that of those that have the wealth and power to facilitate direct influence on people at your level of government.

I cannot express how utterly disappointed I was in October to learn of the Commission’s findings. The current tax code is a monstrosity that has evolved from 100 years of tweaking, primarily via the influence of the wealthy, so that they may avoid excessive tax burden. Their compliance costs are passed to the middle class in the costs of goods and services that we buy from the companies that maintain their wealth. All the wile, the less fortunate are left to their own meager resources in this regard.

The income tax code is stifling small business, with the possible exception of those cash only businesses, who are likely able to avoid taxes and the compliance costs all together. How can an upstart business be expected to compete with the larger business that has full time employees who are dedicated to the minimization of company tax exposure?

This convoluted conundrum of the income tax is not the vision that our Founding Fathers had for this country. This intimacy of the Federal Government in the lives of its citizens is a travesty that goes beyond words.

There are many, many more reasons that I support the Fairtax, and you will receive many more letters from volunteers just like me that will no doubt enumerate the benefits. However, it is a legitimate alternative, and to dismiss it as such would be to dismiss the human condition entirely. I am most passionate about the abolition of the 16th amendment and the replacing it with the Fairtax, because to continue on with the income tax in any form, is to continue on with an enslavement of the citizenry of the United States by the Federal Government.

Very Truly Yours,

Robert Lindsay Nathan, Jr.

Panel Recommends Major Tax Law Overhaul

2005-11-02T17:06:00.000-08:00

Dear Fair Taxers

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051101/ap_on_go_pr_wh/tax_overhaul

This article, just posted on Yahoo news service, validates our concerns. The tax panel has recommended that the pig be dressed in a tuxedo.

It's still just a pig.

Best Regards

Robert Nathan

Demint's alternative tax proposal

2005-11-02T17:03:00.000-08:00

Dear FairTaxers,

It's me again, with another rant.

This article about Senator DeMint's introduction of an alternative tax system says a lot.

It tells me that perhaps the money brokers have heard our cry, and are offering something that they think is middle ground. But I can see right off the bat that this proposal is totally flawed from the FairTax perspective.

First of all, I am highly suspect of it because it was apparently conceived and introduced in the "House of Lords" (The Senate). This means that it is most likely the collaborative product of business and government. Notice how there is a provision to hide part of the government's tax base in the cost of goods and services. This does not coincide with our goal of total transparency.

The worst part of it is that there would be two different taxes instead of just one. A friend of mine, who is an accountant, says that there is an unwritten rule of government that pronounces something to the effect that "tax schemes tend to multiply rather than shrink in number". This seems to be an indicator of that concept.

As long as taxes are hidden in the cost of business, there will always be the temptation of those with wealth and power to use their influence on government to tweak the tax rules in order to gain an advantage.

The prospect of starting a small business in America has become as intimidating as a hike up Mount Everest with all the regulations that one must abide by, let alone the tax compliance. And I'm not pointing the finger just at the Federal Government, although they are the main culprits, having hamstrung the States and local governments with their coercive distribution of Federal Funds; our tax monies.

We have seen, over the past century, the near extinction of family owned farms, slowly being replaced by the corporation. I dare say that the existence of the family owned business will go the same way, and we will all become employees of a corporation in the latter part of this century, if the tax advantage is not taken away from the corporate moguls. The States will soon follow, all dissolving into the "United Corporations of America".

We are not living in the America that I learned about as a child. Follow the money, and you will find out where the real power is in this country. America is no longer a concept of the people, by the people and for the people. The corporations, in their partnership with the government, have muscled their way into this position at the expense of our opportunity and freedom. And we, the people, have literally paid their way via taxes.

You can't blame the corporations for this, after all, its just business to them. But to us, the people, it's our lives and the lives of our children.

And this, my friends, is why the passage of HR25 is so critical to our future.

Best Regards

Robert Nathan

Equilibrium

2005-11-02T17:01:00.000-08:00

Dear FairTaxers

In effect, what Mr. Doggett is admitting here, and what we have known all along, is that our current tax system extracts almost 60% of our dollars from us. It's just does it in such a convoluted way, that it's hard for the average man to follow or to notice.

Our representatives, the bureaucrats, and the special interest groups that support them, are all terrified of a tax system that is as transparent as the FairTax.

The demise of the Berlin wall was not a symbol of a victory of Democracy over Communism. It was a symbol that equilibrium had finally been achieved between the two opposing ideologies.

The real "wall" that needs to be torn down is the one that enslaves free men in a tax system, by controlling their social and economic behavior.

Robert Nathan

Findings from the Presidential Tax commisision

2005-11-02T16:58:00.000-08:00

Dear FairTaxers

This revelation from the tax commission that they are not willing to change the status quo, while deeply disappointing, should not come as a surprise. As I have inferred before in this forum, the middle class only has the illusion that it is in control of the government. Real power comes from those who are outside of the walls that confine the rest of us.

Poor men, who are enslaved by the income tax system and the circumstances of their life, are too occupied with the unending task of survival to spend any time or effort in supporting an overthrow of that same tax system.

Middleclass and lower middleclass individuals, not only have to deal with the day-to-day problems of survival and promoting the survival and flourishing of their offspring, but are further burdened by compliance with the tax regulations that are impressed upon them by the government that they supposedly employ. To spend time educating themselves on tax reform, and in turn, rallying behind this reform,
is something of a luxury.

This is the way the "Lords" would have it. If their constituents are over worked but well fed, they will have little time or inclination to look past the walls of their enslavement and see the big picture.

While all the while, these same "Lords" have the luxury to employ lawyers, accountants, academics and lobbyists, and to buy off our elected officials, all in order to maintain the economic and social wall around us, the middleclass taxpayer. These efforts shed the "Lords" from the cost burden of supporting the same social and
economic agendas that they themselves have authored, designed, and implemented (via their political influence), for the rest of us. Through propaganda that they promote in the news media, and though spin on advertising for the goods that we are sold, we are driven to a corner of somatic complacency.

Our freedom seems to have become somewhat of an illusion. I am currently doing some deep soul searching, asking myself what I am willing to sacrifice in aiding an end to this enslavement for ourselves and future generations.

Robert Nathan

Taxing of Capital Income

2005-11-02T16:55:00.000-08:00

Dear Fair Taxers

I read with some interest the discussion on the Tax Policy Center web
page about the taxing of "Capital Income", the link to this being
posted by Mr. Jim Schutt. This is an interesting topic and something
that I think may warrant some discussion here.

By Capital Income, I take it to mean Capital Gains. In real estate,
capital gains are those gains that may or may not be realized after
one holds a property for several years and sells it. The Capital Gain
is the difference between the selling price and the purchase price of
the property. It is also known as appreciation. I suppose in the
world of corporations, this equates to profit, or return on
investment. For the purposes of this discussion, I will limit myself
to the real estate side, because that is what I am most familiar with.

Somewhere during the history of the income tax, our government
representatives decided that capital gains on real estate should be
considered as income and should be taxed accordingly. While I don't
know the exact history of this, it most likely occurred during an
administration where there were huge deficits being run up, and
another source of revenue had to be had to offset the excess spending.

At face value, if one believes that the taxing of income is a
legitimate thing for the Federal Government to do, it appears that
this is a reasonable idea, the taxing of Capital Gains. However, one
must question why there was appreciation on the property in the first
place. It's all a matter of semantics, or what words that one uses.
The words; capital gains, appreciation and inflation are closely
related. Excess government spending causes inflation, so the idea of
taxing inflation is a bit like a penalty for trying to be frugal in
protecting the value of money that you previously earned and for
which tax was paid (tax on top of tax).

It's also a tax on the economy, because these gains are going to be
plowed back into the system in one form or another. Taking the
inflated dollars out of the economy serves no purpose except to
justify the excessive government spending. Now, I admit that I am no
economist. My background is in the field of Architecture, which makes
me somewhat of a pragmatist. As such, none of this income tax
Architecture makes a lick of sense to me.

Forgive me for being so long winded here, but this issue is another
one of my income tax pet peeves, and just another reason why I
support the FairTax.

Best Regards,

Robert Nathan

Letter on the X-tax

2005-11-02T16:54:00.000-08:00

Dear Mr, Hassett

This is a reply to your statement about the so-called X-tax: "The X-tax is a brilliant redesign of the famous flat tax that delivers most of the economic benefit of the tax, while allowing policy makers to maintain the progressivity currently in the code."

This notion of progessivity is another word for big brother controlling the economic behavior of it's citizenry. I am a free man, sir, and vehemently resent the intrusion of the Federal government into my personal finances.

For this reason, I support the FairTax. It frees us from the leash that the government has on us by taxing us only on what we spend, not what we make. In this way, those who do not participate in the income tax system (except by virtue that the cost of the tax system is imbedded in the cost of domestically produced goods and services), will now be required to pay tax in the same manner as the rest of us
(I'm speaking of those who participate in the under ground economy).

The notion of some that the FairTax may be regressive is brought on by it's transparency. The income tax is regressive as it is non-transparent. It targets middle-income earners, while taxing lower income earners who can afford to be taxed the least of all. Further, because the cost of the tax is included in the goods and services that are consumed, the wage earners are in effect taxed twice, once
on their wages and twice when they spend their wages on domestic items. This insidiously hidden double tax mechanism, in my view, is the only reason why it has been tolerated for so long by America.

The FairTax releases the Federal government's burden on lower wage earners by 1) Giving them a prebate for the tax paid on necessities and 2) releasing them from the FICA tax that is taken out of their wages.

I strongly recommend that you visit the FairTax website and study the proposal at www.fairtax.org

Very Truly Yours

Robert L. Nathan Jr.

Communist Manefasto and Income Tax

2005-11-02T16:52:00.000-08:00

Carolyn,

No one is better at crowd control than the administrators of a Communist country.

Would it surprise you if I told you that the passage of a progressive income tax was one of the main tenets of the Communist Manifesto as written by Karl Marx (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Communist_Manifesto )? It even gets more interesting when you dig deeper and discover who funded Mr. Marx and the Bolshevik revolution.

Best Regards

Robert Nathan

Delay resignation and FairTax

2005-11-02T16:50:00.001-08:00

Dear Fair Taxers

I have just finished rereading the book "None Dare Call it Conspiracy" that was published in the early 70's. I don't consider myself a conspiracy nut, but with the recent rise in popularity of the FairTax (largely due to Boortz's and Linder's book), I have to wonder if the indictment today of Tom Delay might somehow be connected. Granted the man is quite outspoken, and this campaign contribution issue has been hanging over his head for some time, but the timing of this is just too
perfect to be coincidental. Will Linder be next?

Those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, I strongly reccomend the book mentioed above. It will give you a different slant on how and why the Income Tax amendment was passed, and why it is so important that the FairTax replace it.

Robert Nathan

The hidden regressive nature of the income tax

2005-11-02T16:50:00.000-08:00

After reading the report about the regressive nature of the FairTax, I felt compelled to submit a few comments on this subject.

The Fairfax, in my way of thinking, is much less regressive than the income tax. The regressive nature of the FairTax is just more transparent than the Income Tax, so it`s an easier target for those that oppose it. This is because the regressive nature of the income tax is hidden in the compliance costs as well as the way it's
administered.

Any middle class or lower class person who has ever made the effort to take advantage of the loopholes that are afforded the wealthy will quickly discover that the cost of doing g so is prohibitive in terms of the risk of audit and associated accounting/attorney costs. If one is persistent, you may be able to prevail, but your ultimate tax savings will be wiped out by the cost of making your case. I have
first hand experience at this.

Further if a large percentage of the population starts taking advantage of these loopholes, congress changes the rules. I saw this happen in the early eighties disguised as "tax simplification".

You can be assured that a wealthy person facing an IRS audit feels much more comfortable than a person with limited resources. I have never been able to see the balance here, a sole individual competing with the entire resources of a federal bureaucracy. The intimidation factor increases exponentially as one's available resources diminish.

So if one considers 1) the Prebate and 2) the fact that the poor are not taxed on their wages (FICA), and 3) that there is less and equitable compliance cost, the FairTax is far and above less regressive than the income tax.

I conclude with one final thought about the income tax. Based on what I have read, I have a strong suspicion that the Enron debacle (and other incidents of corporate financial scandal), besides being brought on by greed, had the income tax code as a complicit catalyst at the root of it's cause. This is fourth potential example of the hidden regressive nature of the income tax, as this type of scandal costs us
all, over and above our tax cost. I'm wondering if this will ever be revealed, or if we will continue to blindly follow the pied piper.

Big Daddy Government

2005-11-02T16:48:00.000-08:00

Dear FairTaxers

This was indeed a great post.

I had a good chuckle with the image of Uncle Sam, "big daddy government", dolling out an allowance to his lowly constituents. Then I got to thinking about how my dad actually let me actually keep all of my paper route money, presumably to teach me some fiscal responsibility. And then I got mad again because this Uncle Sam guy
isn't even related to me and he surely doesn't seem to have any sense of fiscal responsibility, yet he wants my money before I even have a chance to spend it.

So then I got to thinking about these guys who wrote the constitution and founded the country, Jefferson, Franklin, Washington; and I tried to conger up an image of these noble gentlemen filling out their tax returns. It was just too painful and I must admit that the thought of it brought a tear to my eye.

Best Regards

Robert Nathan

Senator Cornyn's position on the tax issue.

2005-11-02T16:45:00.000-08:00

Dear Senator,

I read a response that you wrote to a fair tax supporter on one of the FairTax organizations websites, and it has become obvious to me that you are missing the whole point to the FairTax movement. Your statement, "I believe our current tax system is unnecessarily complex and needs to be reformed. Thus, I support efforts to simplify the tax code by decreasing the number of tax rates and rate adjustments",
leads me to believe that you are in favor of keeping the 16th amendment in place and fix it by putting a bandade on it. This is what lawmakers have been doing for the past 1oo years and, simply stated; IT AIN'T WORKIN'.

This is totally unacceptable from our point of view. The 16th amendment is a travesty of American politics. In it's simple, unelaborated wording, it robbed the states and individuals of many of the basic rights that were passed to us by the forefathers of our country. It dismisses the citizens right to privacy, a right that was so apparent to the forefathers that it was only implied in the Bill
of Rights.

I can see where a bureaucrat would want to keep this in place. It's a source of immense power and influence. It gives corporations a reason to lavishly reward lawmakers such as you for the tweaking of the tax law at the common taxpayers expense.

Any legislation that does not include the repeal of the sixteenth amendment will not be supported by the FairTax group. We will see it as only a temporary fix to the legislative branches addiction of constantly passing law that is only self serving in the sense that it buys votes and corporate support rather than servicing the citizens and protecting their rights.

Best Regards

Robert Nathan

Homebuilders and federal tax

2005-11-02T16:44:00.000-08:00

Bob,

I work for a large construction firm, but I can see where a home builder might have some concern about the FairTax. At one level, the home builder thinks that he is enjoying an exemption from payroll taxes, because most of the labor involved in building a home is contract labor.

It's a misconception on his part to think that these "contract" employees don't file quarterly estimated tax reports and ultimately pay into the income tax and social security funds just like a corporation would do for a full time non-contract employee. So in this sense, the tax cost is still embedded in his cost, with all the
same profit and overhead markups that are passed on at different tiers, just like a large construction company. It's just not quite as transparent.

Another interesting note is that one of the founders of the FairTax movement owns a large construction firm in Houston that has been around for quite some time and has been very successful. It's not likely that someone will be able to furnish a convincing argument that the same business principals used in a large successful
construction firm wouldn't apply at the smaller scale of a home builder.

Robert Nathan

Embedded taxes in construction costs

2005-11-02T16:42:00.000-08:00

John

I saw your posting on this subject, and while I'm sure that you will get many responses I thought I would offer you my perspective as a full time contractor.

When you buy a new home in today's income tax market, you are paying tax that is embedded in the payrolls of everyone that works on the project, from the carpenter that frames the house, to the mill operator that cuts the lumber from the felled trees, to the timber cutter that felled the tree and drug it out of the forest to the mill.

This income tax is marked up with profit at the various levels of production, which further inflates your final cost.

Under the FairTax method, the tax would be paid at the final point of sale, as the builder would be exempt from paying the tax on the products that are incorporated into the new home. The tax is paid at the final point of sale only once, by the consumer, not the producer (the builder collects the tax and forwards it to the collection agency). I forsee that the Fairtax would be applied to the final bill,
like sales tax currently is applied on consumer goods, so that it would not be marked up with overhead and profit percentages, like the current income tax is. More savings.

I'm sure that if you take a few minutes to digest this concept, that you will come to the same conclusion that I have, and that is the undeniable fact that the FairTax is just plain simple as it unburdens the means of production so that the consumer is the ultimate winner.

Best Regards

Robert Nathan

Hidden Benifit

2005-11-02T16:41:00.000-08:00

It occured to me the other day that there is a hidden benifit to the FairTax that I have not seen or heard discussed. Because the FairTax is not placed on used goods that are offered for resale, this feature inherently encourages recycling and conservation of natural resources, including energy.

Robert Nathan

Dr. Carl S. Milsted, Jr. Article

2005-11-02T16:38:00.000-08:00

Dear Group,

I'd like to comment on the article referenced in:

Message: 3
Date: Mon, 16 May 2005 23:14:29 -0000
From: "chugalugalug75150"
Subject: I'd like to hear some commentary on this

http://www.freeliberal.com/archives/001053.html

Why is it the liberal's default position to tax the rich? I am not rich, but I know this: I never got a decent paying job from a poor man.

And on a middle class salary, I never paid wages to anyone with the exception of people who I hire to take care of my meager real estate investments, which this guy wants to add another tax to.

I do agree, however, that the current tax system tends to force people to hold their investments longer than the optimum time in order to avoid paying capital gains tax. My meager real estate portfolio is proof of that. I have property that I've held onto for over 20 years because of this, not to mention the hassle and expense of going out and finding another tax shelter, and paying someone to justify the new shelter to the tax bureaucracy.

Robert L. Nathan

Corraling the middle class

2005-11-02T16:36:00.000-08:00

I read the article that came out Saturday about the so called Unlimited Savings Allowance, and in my humble opinion, if it doesn't abolish the IRS or prevent
special interest groups from influencing the tax code, it is just more of the same old hooey that Washington uses to keep the middle class corraled with the burden
of carrying the tax load.

The issue is fairness.

What's fair about a system that allows special interest groups the ability to influence Congress for it's own benefit at the expense of the Middle Class?

What's fair about a system that is so complex and convoluted that a person with a Masters Degree from a renowned Texas University has to hire someone that he
can ill afford, to complete his tax form?

What's fair about a system that places the entire weight and resources of a federal bureaucracy at odds with a sole individual in the face of an audit?

What's fair about a system that affords this federal bureaucracy all kinds of latitude in making mistakes when enforcing the tax code, but none for the taxpayer
when mistakes are made?

What's fair about a system that allows for the IRS to mistaken the identity of a taxpayer, then proceed to ruin his credit, lien his property and steal money
from his bank account, effectively forcing the individual into poverty status, and then with not so much as an apology for this mistake? This happened to me and I’m still suffering the consequences fifteen years later.

If I sound like I’ve made the income tax issue too personal, please excuse me. It IS personal. What could be more personal than taxing personal income and invading the personal privacy of ones finances? What is the most fought over issue among spouses? What is it that allows us to achieve and fulfill basic human needs? And why does the federal government, in the collection of these income taxes, fail so miserably in
recognizing and accommodating the human condition? If this is not a personal issue, then please explain to me why it is not.

The time has come for change, and in my humble opinion, nothing less than the total dissolution of personal income taxes will be acceptable.