Subject: Advocacy of Fair Tax Comment: The United States needs simple and direct taxation to compete successfully in the global marketplace. Our current tax structure penalizes all of us hard working Americans. We must file a time-consuming tax return that is so complicated most of us pay an expert to do it because we fear an IRS audit. Yet studies have shown that questions we direct to the IRS are not answered accurately more than a fraction of the time. The Fair Tax(a sales or consumption tax) would only apply to new items so poor citizens would enjoy the privilege of purchasing used items and thus minimize (or avoid payment of) the Federal sales taxes. Stanford economists have estimated that compliance with IRS regulations costs at least 5% of the GDP. Steve Forbes has written Wall Strreet Journal articles in favor of the Fair Tax. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert and Chairman of the Federal Reserve System Greenspan are in favor of the Fair Tax. H.R. 25, the Fair Tax proposal before the Panel, represents a truly significant improvement over the present US tax system. |