Subject: National Retail Sales Tax Comment: Dear Advisory Panel, I have closely followed the work which you are doing. I have also closely followed different ideas for tax reform for several years. I am twenty years old, but have always had a strong interest in our political system. I am also a small-businessman in Alabama. I co-founded a retail company with my sister earlier this year, and our gross sales will exceed $100,000 by the end of the year. This is amazing, considering that we started our business from the ground up in January. The cost of payroll taxes is a great setback to us. My sister and I lose about 30% of our pre-tax profits to the IRS. We are both extremely busy all of the time because of our business, and we would like to hire additional help. However, because payroll taxes and tax-matching requirements are so high, we are unable to do so. Of all of the ideas set forth before your panel, Representative Linder's FairTax (H.R. 25, S. 25) would be the best for our business. We could hire one additional worker with the money we'd save on matching alone. My business is not alone, I know a number of people who would love to hire more workers, but cannot because of confiscatory payroll taxes. The current system punishes people like me and my sister, and thousands of other small businesses all over our nation. Thank you very much for your time and consideration. Ian Hardy |