The Need For A Transparent Tax System: The Fair Tax System

Jack Abramoff was imprisoned for 42 months for bribing congressmen. He wrote about how easy it is to buy a congressman. Peter Shweizer wrote Throw Them All Out.

Our elected officials are growing their wealth while pretending to work for us. They use "milker policies" that threaten new or more taxation of businesses and industries.When they receive campaigncontributions they withdraw the threat.

This shows us how our tax system is used as a toy. If one of these tax threats became law you and I would never know it. It would be hidden in the cost of a product or service. We need a tax system that is transparent. One where everyone knows what the law is and how much it costs.

The Fair Tax offers a single rate tax system with the rate and the cost printed on every receipt. If Congress were to change something with the Fair Tax, everyone who makes a purchase would know about it. The Fair Tax is the only system that taxes wealth, not income, but wealth.

Economist Art Laffer showed us that complying with our tax system adds 30 percent to our taxes. The latest report from the IRS for 2006 states that unpaid taxes cost $385 billion. This is called the tax gap and adds 27 percent to our tax cost. Our tax system does not address the underground economy (black market), so it loses $300 billion in tax revenue. The Fair Tax would collect that money. That amount is 21 percent. According to these numbers, the Fair Tax could save us 78 percent or $1.1 trillion per year.