Subject: Support for the Fair Tax (HR 25) Comment: I am writing you to voice my support for HR 25, the Fair Tax bill. I am a full-time graduate student enrolled at the University of Florida and I’m working on my Ph.D in mechanical engineering. Every year I go through great pains to fill out my income tax return because of the way my fellowship is structured. Essentially, I’m considered a independent contractor and responsible for taking care of all the taxes due on my graduate stipend. This is unfair. I simply do not have the knowledge necessary for seeing to it that my taxes are done correctly. Luckily, my school provides free tax consulting to help students like me. The Fair Tax plan would end this nightmare for myself and many other students. I know that many of the international students in my research laboratory also seek the free tax consulting that I do because they can not simply understand the forms they are required to fill out. If we were paying our taxes to the government as we go, via a sales tax, neither I nor the other students would have this problem every year. I just like to make one more comment before I leave you. As a college student, I can see that one of the biggest finical problems facing young Americans is a lack of savings. I have many friends that are living paycheck to paycheck and would be unable to pay their rent if one of their paychecks were late. Most are in this situation because they are not being paid what they are worth (a problem with graduate schools in America), and because they spend too much. The Fair Tax plan would help to encourage them to save more and be more finically sound. In closing, I would like to ask you to read the book called The Fair Tax Book by Neil Boortz and Congressman Linder. I would have liked to send you a copy, but I couldn’t afford my own. I had to borrow a friend’s. Maybe I could if I had the benefits of the Fair Tax. Thank you for your time and patience. |