In the wee hours of the morning, when everyone else has either fallen asleep or passed out, there is a late night talk show on called “Coast to Coast A.M.”. This show was once hosted by the deep, baritone voiced Art Bell but he has since been replaced by George Norry. Art Bell has a way with words and voice inflection that could make a square dance in Knoxville sound like a mysterious, ancient ritual. George Norry not so much. But George isn’t a bad replacement with a style of his own and he covers the same types of topics which include hunting for Nessy of the famous Loch Ness, Big Foot, of the Pacific northwest, the New Jersey Devil of the kind of famous New Jersey woods, just to name a few. Art Bell still does the weekend shows where he discusses anything from werewolves and global warming, (which I put in the same classification), exorcisms and the Amityville house, to scientific and political issues. George does the same during the week. Just listening to some of the people that call in to discuss these topics is worth staying up for.
The other night in honor of the pending tax deadline, George interviewed a man named Bill Spilane. Bill is in favor of what is called a “Fair Tax Plan”. This plan would get rid of all federal income taxes on wages and just charge one flat rate federal sales tax. Bill suggested 23% would be the national sales tax rate which may seem a bit high. But Bill believes bountiful benefits befitting Barons be believable.
A quick synopsis of how this would work is as follows, but before I give you my take, just remember I was listening to this after working eight hours and it was 1:15 in the morning. I am going to do my best to convey the information I remember hearing from the show and if you have any questions about it or think I might be mistaken, just Google the “Fair Tax Plan” and it will give you the skinny, the lowdown, the dealio, the “what’s-uuuuuup” on the plan. O.K, here goes…..
The elimination of all federal income taxes; this would take the first step in simplifying taxes by getting rid of the 63,000 pages of federal tax guide-lines that show us how to pay our income taxes. Bill said that the income tax laws are ever growing and so confusing that even tax experts can’t keep up with them. This would also increase the amount of money everyone would take home in their check every week. If you made $52,000.00 a year, you would receive a check for $1,000.00 every week when you got paid. There would be no more costly accounting fees, income tax deadlines or loop holes.
We would only pay the tax when we made purchases. This would let you budget your money more efficiently. If you bought a car that cost $20,000.00 you would pay $4,600.00 in taxes on it. There would be no other fees. Doing it this way would also eliminate to a large extent the underground economy which pays no taxes now. Since we would only be taxed on what we spend then it wouldn’t matter to the government how much we made.
(A bit of a side note here; the way our system is set up now is we penalize success by making those that make more pay more. This is counter to the whole idea of capitalism and a free economy because it punishes hard work.)
With the “Fair Tax Plan”, when a drug dealer buys his new Hummer, he would pay a federal sales tax, just like everyone else.
The rich would proportionally pay a higher amount of taxes because they would buy higher cost items. There would be no loop holes for even the mightiest of the wealthy to sneak through to avoid paying “their fair share”, 23% across the board and no exceptions.
Bill explained that this last point is one of the reasons the “Fair Tax Plan” doesn’t have a bigger amount of support in the hallowed halls of congress. You see, our congressional leaders can now dangle the carrot of loop holes for their wealthiest of constituents in return for their support. A nice big fat contribution to your favorite congressional blood sucker might buy you a pass or a reduction on certain taxes. Bribery and blackmail at the highest levels and it’s all legal.
There were a lot of questions as the interview went on and people called in. I could go into more but I think you get the gist of what I am trying to say. There has to be a better way of doing the whole tax thing. We are so mired in a system that is costly, time consuming and patently unfair that the system is crying out for REAL reform. Why does it take 63,000 pages to explain what we have to do to pay our taxes? Why do we need an army, the IRS that has the powers of the Gestapo and instills just as much fear to impose these voluminous and mind boggling laws? The “Fair Tax Plan” is the cause and we must become the “Resistance” that fights for it but not so much with the guns and grenade throwing.
My brother forwarded the Fair Tax website to me so here it is……..
http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer
Sunday, April 15, 2007
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