Product Description
Wouldn't you love to abolish the IRS ...
Keep all the money in your paycheck ...
Pay taxes on what you spend, not what you earn ...
And eliminate all the fraud, hassle, and waste of our current system? Then the FairTax is for you. In the face of the outlandish American tax burden, talk-radio firebrand Neal Boortz and Congressman John Linder are leading the charge to phase out our current, unfair system and enact the FairTax Plan, replacing the federal income tax and withholding system with a simple 23 percent retail sales tax on new goods and services. This dramatic revision of the current system, which would eliminate the reviled IRS, has already caught fire in the American heartland, with more than six hundred thousand taxpayers signing on in support of the plan. As Boortz and Linder reveal in this first book on the FairTax, this radical but eminently sensible plan would end the annual national nightmare of filing income tax returns, while at the same time enlarging the federal tax base by collecting sales tax from every retail consumer in the country. The FairTax, they argue, would transform the fearsome bureaucracy of the IRS into a more transparent, accountable, and equitable tax collection system. Among other benefits, it will: - Make America's tax code truly voluntary, without reducing revenue
- Replace today's indecipherable tax code with one simple sales tax
- Protect lower-income Americans by covering the tax on basic necessities
- Eliminate billions of dollars in embedded taxes we don't even know we're paying
- Bring offshore corporate dollars back into the U.S. economy
Endorsed by scores of leading economists and supported by a huge and growing grassroots movement, the FairTax Plan could revolutionize the way America pays for itself. In this straight-talking book, Neal Boortz and John Linder show you how it would work—and how you can help make it happen.
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 Great Book
Great book with very good detail. The author also has a humorous way of writing which keeps you interested in the topics. I highly recommend
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What a fantastic concept! ( jbpowell )
I was skeptical at first, but the book presents a logical discussion of how we can simplify our tax code eliminating the anxiety most everyone faces every April. With the Fair Tax you pay more as you spend more. All corrupt "off the books" money and well as visitors to the US (legal and illegal) help pay for our services and protection. The Fair Tax brings money back to the US from those tax havens and corporations no longer need to move off shore to protect their profits. It is so simple: the more you buy, the more tax gets collected and we do away with the IRS! Read it with an open mind. I gave this copy to a tax preparer to get his opinion. We'll see what he thinks.
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 The dumbest book in the history of tax ideas
There are many reasons this book is essentially worthless:
1. No corporate taxes? Great, I'll just create a corporation and buy everything I want through it. Anyone who knows this will never pay another dime in taxes again, and the federal government will be bankrupted.
2. The author talks about banning the income tax, but doesn't talk about what will happen to citizens that have already paid taxes to the government to generate a tax free income stream in retirement (Roth and After-Tax accounts). His idea would punish some of those that have planned ahead for retirement.
3. The book explains how the IRS should be abolished, yet doesn't say who would go about collecting taxes. (Note: look up the author's history with the IRS)
4. The idea of taxing food and writing a check for every single American every month to make up for that tax is so stupid I wasn't sure if it was a joke or not.
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GREAT IDEA!
This is a GREAT idea! Do not be fooled by some false negative reviews by idiots on here, most of whom have not even read the book!
Read 'Answering the Critics' for more info and clarity.
Lets get politicians on board!
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 I'm... a little confused. ( danaseilhan )
Admittedly I have not read this book cover to cover yet. I skipped right to the chapter that explains how the FairTax code would work, and I looked at some other chapters briefly to get a gist of what the authors had to say generally. So here are some thoughts based on that.
First off, how is it an invasion of privacy for us to file tax returns with the IRS, but not an invasion of privacy for me to tell the government the makeup of my household, complete with Social Security numbers, so they can send me the proper amount of "prebate"? I don't even have to give that much information on a census form; why would I want to do it for this? So, protecting one's privacy is a stupid reason to do away with the IRS.
Secondly, who says prices would drop if the tax code were radically changed? I only ever see prices drop when something goes on sale. Now, prices might start out lower when a product is introduced because overhead was lower to begin with, but they go up after that; it's almost a law of physics. People want to make money, and far too many people want to make far too much money at the expense of others. I don't like what that says for the potential of this plan to drive up prices to ridiculous levels.
Thirdly, the prebate system is a decent idea--beats the hell out of "helping" Americans afford something through tax credits, which you can only take once a year--but it's based on the government deciding what constitutes basic necessities and how much they should cost. If we can't trust the government for any other reason--and Boortz is a libertarian and surely believes we can't--how can we trust the government to accurately calculate basic cost of living?
I mean, really, take groceries for example. The government in its infinite wisdom has decided that whole grain is good for you and meat is bad, despite whatever evidence to the contrary. In its WIC program alone it's decided that women and children need junk food (cereal) and liquid sugar (fruit juice) above and beyond all else. So its idea of what I "need" for groceries is going to mean I'm out of luck if I actually want to feed my family correctly. Yay?
Also, define "new goods and services." Do I have to pay this twenty-three-percent tax on my residence? Does that mean I have to pay extra on top of my rent? But it's probably not a new building I'm living in. However, it would be new to me.
What about, say, eBay sellers? What if I buy a new product to resell on eBay, but haven't used it before I resell it? Is it still new? If so, wouldn't the tax be paid twice? How is that fair?
Furthermore, for all his liberal-bashing (and I consider myself one), I see Boortz has played right into the hands of a debate that I myself find problematic in liberal thinking: to wit, the idea that someone is wealthy because they have high income. That's stupid and Boortz should know better, which is particularly sad since he wants to position liberals as being guilty of class warfare while he's coming from the opposite perspective. No, he's not. Income is not a determinant of wealth. Net worth is. If you're making $100,000 a year and spending $99,999 of it--and some people do--you will not become wealthy no matter how much the tax code changes. People who really want to be wealthy will become so no matter what the tax code says or what politicians do. The fun part is that once you have the wealth, it reduces your effective tax rate because only when money changes hands is it taxed. Someone who makes that $100k a year will be taxed at the marginal rates for that $100k. Someone who HAS $100k is taxed at a far lower rate and only on the interest or dividends, which are much lower than what you'd have to pull in per month to have made $100k in a year. And because they aren't normal employment income, they aren't subject to the same taxes anyway (i.e., Social Security, etc.).
I'm surprised Boortz doesn't say this, but based on some of his other statements, I'm not surprised. As helpless as he is to (1) fill out tax returns, (2) save, or (3) invest thanks to the existence of the IRS, I'm shocked he's capable of putting his pants on right-side out or tying his own shoes. Most of us manage to do these things just fine if we take responsibility for our own behavior. But given Boortz's propensity for shooting off at the mouth and saying phenomenally stupid things on his radio show and in his other books, I wouldn't bet on his ability to take responsibility for his actions. In fact, I wouldn't even credit him with contributing in any way to the idea for this FairTax code--I suspect he only put his name on it because he agrees with it and wants to give it a wider audience through name recognition. It's a shame Congressman Linder couldn't get a wider audience on his own.
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