FairTax: The Truth: Answering the Critics

I wish everyone in America would read this book and the first book that Neal Boortz and Congressman Linder wrote about the Fair Tax. This is the best way to fix our economy!!!

Neal Boortz and John Linder have a revolutionary idea with the Fairtax! I believe it is the answer to our country's ills. This is a must read!!

Finally, an easy-to-understand tax policy that can be managed without the onerous, confiscatory arm of the IRS looming. Transparent and free of corporate loop holes how refreshing.

For those that have read the FairTax, and beleive, this is a must have book. In their usual charm, and tenacity, Mr Boortz, and Mr Linder lay out the details of this marvelous plan, and offer information in answering the nay-sayers, and non-believers. For those of us who are advocates here is a tip: purchase 1 copy of each book, and give it to someone you know under the condition if they agree with the idea, they are to do the same for someone else. C'mon folks, get on board, and advocate this plan. Both books explain all there is to know in laymans terms. If you aren't a believer after reading this book, you are ignoring the facts.

As is usually the treatment of any policy issue during a campaign, the ideas presented in FairTax: The Truth - Answering the Critics are cloaked in more than a bit of hyperbole. Most of the following examples of this exaggeration have been mentioned by others. Still, they are worth repeating:

- The IRS will probably not disappear if FairTax is adopted. Some government body will be needed to collect and audit the FairTax proceeds. That organization will likely be the IRS.

- On page 30, the authors state, "The FairTax would eliminate the embedded costs of the American tax code - taxes on capital and labor - from the retail price, allowing corporations and businesses operating in the United States to sell their good and services to the global marketplace with no tax component." However, on several other pages in the book, the authors state that the FairTax would be an embedded component of a product's retail price. Nowhere else in the book do they indicate/imply that products/services sold overseas would be exempt from FairTax. Thus, the claim on page 30 doesn't seem plausible, given the book's other information.

- Several states have a sales tax and an income tax. Most of those states have experienced severe budget problems despite the multiple revenue streams (the best example being California's recent budget ordeal). Consequently, it seems that revenue streams play little part in whether governments can live within their means (that seems to be more a function of controlling spending urges). Thus, it is unlikely that shifting from an income tax to a sales-based FairTax system would lead to widespread budget reform, as is implied by the authors.

Despite these grandiose claims, there is a lot of validity for the arguments that Boortz and Linder present. There is little doubt that the current tax system is stifling economic growth and is in desperate need of an overhaul. The plan that Boortz and Linder present is a carefully crafted policy document that has a very strong likelihood of removing many of the productivity impediments and inequities that exist in the current system. Additionally, Boortz and Linder present generally sound rebuttals to many of the criticisms that have been leveled at the FairTax proposal.

Yes, there is more than a little hype in FairTax: The Truth - Answering The Critics. But, once a reader gets past the hype, the book contains a very sound tax policy within its pages. This policy and arguments presented in the book not only deserve to be read by the tax-paying public, but also deserve to be debated within our legislatures.