Investors don't earn an income? They provide the capital for businesses to start, to expand, and to grow. They risk their money (money they EARNED) by letting other people use it to build their businesses.
Its not an accounting trick. The accounting trick is that you think the income tax is the only way you pay taxes. Roughly 20% of the price of everything you buy is already taxes. Its the taxes that manufacturers pay. Its the taxes that businesses pay.
You are taxed when you earn the money. You are taxes when you spend the money. And you are taxed if you save the money or invest the money (with a few exceptions that lock your money up).
As for the poor being taxed in ways they cannot pay, that is simply your ignorance of the Fair Tax Act. No one (read it again - No One) will pay taxes on the necessities. There will be a prebate for every registered family that equals the 23% tax on all monies up to the poverty level.
Go here and actually read what the Fair Tax Act is about instead of listening to the idiots who have no comprehension of what it is.
http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer
Look at the letter to the President and Congress from 80 independent economists concerning the Fair Tax Act.
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2007/08/the-deceptive-p.html
The Deceptive Presentation of the FairTax Proposal
Bruce Bartlett says when you read the fine print and uncover the deceptions, the FairTax proposal is far less attractive then its supporters woudl have you believe:
FairTax, Flawed Tax, by Bruce Bartlett, Commentary, WSJ [Update: open link]: Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's unexpectedly strong second-place showing in the recent Iowa Republican straw poll is widely attributed to his support for the FairTax.
For those who never heard about it, the FairTax is a national retail sales tax that would replace the entire current federal tax system. ...
Rep. John Linder (R., Ga.) and Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R., Ga.) have introduced legislation ... to implement the FairTax. They assert that a rate of 23% would be sufficient to replace federal individual and corporate income taxes as well as payroll and estate taxes. Mr. Linder's Web site claims that U.S. gross domestic product will rise 10.5% the first year after enactment, exports will grow by 26%, and real investment spending will increase an astonishing 76%.
In reality, the FairTax rate is not 23%. Messrs. Linder and Chambliss get this figure by calculating the tax as if it were already incorporated into the price of goods and services. ...[T]hink of it this way. If a product costs $1 at retail, the FairTax adds 30%, for a total of $1.30. Since the 30-cent tax is 23% of $1.30, FairTax supporters say the rate is 23% rather than 30%.
This is only the beginning of the deceptions in the FairTax. Under the Linder-Chambliss bill, the federal government would have to pay taxes to itself on all of its purchases of goods and services. Thus if the Defense Department buys a tank that now costs $1 million, the manufacturer would have to add the FairTax.... The tank would then cost the federal government $300,000 more than it does today, but its tax collection will also be $300,000 higher.
This legerdemain is done solely to make revenues under the FairTax seem larger than they really are, so that its supporters can claim that it is revenue-neutral. ...
Similarly, state and local governments would have to pay the FairTax on most of their purchases. This means that it is partly financed by higher state and local taxes. ...
State sales taxes have long exempted all but a few services because of the enormous difficulty in taxing intangibles. But the FairTax would apply to 100% of services, including medical care, thus increasing their cost by 30%. No state comes close to taxing services so broadly. Consumers would also find themselves taxed on newly constructed homes. Imagine paying 30% ... on top of the purchase price...
Since sales taxes are regressive ... some provision is needed to prevent a vast increase in taxation on the nonwealthy. The FairTax does this by sending monthly checks to every household based on income. Aside from the incredible complexity and intrusiveness of tracking every American's monthly income ... the FairTax does not include the cost of this rebate in the tax rate. ...
Rejecting all the tricks of FairTax supporters and calculating the tax rate honestly ... professional revenue estimators have always concluded that a national retail sales tax would have to be much, much higher than 23%.
A 2000 estimate by Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation found the ... rate would be 57%. In 2005, the U.S. Treasury Department calculated that a ... rate of 34% would be needed just to replace the income tax, leaving the payroll tax in place. ...
Perhaps the biggest deception in the FairTax, however, is its promise to relieve individuals from having to file income tax returns, keep extensive financial records and potentially suffer audits. Judging by the emphasis FairTax supporters place on the idea of making April 15 just another day, this seems to be a major selling point for their proposal.
Yet all but six states now have state income taxes. So unless one lives in one of those states, this promise is an empty one indeed. In short, the FairTax is too good to be true, and voters should not take seriously any candidate who supports it.
