The following is currently being linked at the front page of the Constitution Party’s website:
The Fair Tax
« The Fair Tax is an unapportioned direct tax upon the people. As such, it is not authorized by the 1787 Constitution, nor is it authorized under the 16thAmendment which changed the original intent of the founding fathers by implementing a personal income tax.
« The Fair Tax does not guarantee a lower overall level of taxation. In fact, it could result in a higher level of taxation than is currently being paid by Americans. The initial rate of 23%, coupled with the a state sales tax could add upwards of 30% to the cost of retail sales, with no guarantee against Congress raising that rate in the future. If you find yourself having issues with your Taxes, it might be worth seeking help from someone similar to Good Service Tax or find out more by doing research on what you need to get help with your taxes.
« The Fair Tax does not provide a simplified means of taxation. It replaces one complex system of taxation with another that is equally convoluted. The only real difference is that it moves taxation from being placed on a person’s income to being placed on their expenses. It still requires an annual registration of household members and their Social Security numbers.
« The Fair Tax continues and expands the welfare state. The Family Consumption Allowance (FCA) is provided to every registered household, regardless of income. If implemented, it is estimated that the FCA would constitute the single largest entitlement program in American history.
« The Fair Tax is socialistic in nature. This allows for the continuation and expansion of big government and high taxes, ignoring the intent of the framers of our U.S. Constitution
« The Fair Tax expands the size of government. It eliminates one agency, the IRS, but creates multiple agencies in its place, including an Excise Tax Bureau, Sales Tax Bureau, and state agencies, where the primary collecting of revenues would take place.
« The Fair Tax makes states the primary tax collection agency. The distinction between state and federal government is further eroded by making states the primary collection agency. It also requires state taxing authorities to annually register every household and household member in the state, accelerating the current trend towards treating states as mere political subdivisions of the federal government thus putting the Constitutional principle of state sovereignty (the 10thAmendment) in even greater peril.
« The Fair Tax does not fix what is wrong in America. Only the electing of individuals with a good understanding of America’s founding principles and a firm commitment to frugality and fiscal accountability can fix what the Fair Tax pretends to address.
WHAT THE CONSTITUTION SAYS ABOUT TAXES
DEFINITIONS (taken from Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary):
Tax: a rate or sum of money assessed on the person or property of a citizen by government for the use of the nation or state; they are annual or perpetual; includes all forms of imposition (or the imposing of) a burden upon the citizen.
Duties: a tax that is required by government to be paid on the importation, exportation, or consumption of goods.
Imposts: a tax or duty laid by government on goods imported, at the time of the importation, and required at the hands of the importer.
Excises: a tax or duty laid by government on commodities consumed or retail sales at the point of sale.
Common Defence: right of the government and its citizens to be defended and protected in their rights against all enemies.
General Welfare: the enjoyment of peace and prosperity, or the ordinary blessings of society and civil government.
Capitation: a tax or imposition upon each head or person, also known as a “poll tax”.
Direct Tax: an impost on land or other real estate, and on the stock of farmers.
ARTICLE 1, SECTION 8: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE 1, SECTION 9, CLA– USE 4: No capitation, or other direct Tax, shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken. (This was changed by the 16th Amendment.)
16TH AMENDMENT: The Congress shall have power to
lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
ARTICLE 1, SECTION 9, CLA– USE 5: No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.
ARTICLE 1, SECTION 10: No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary.
FAIR TAX FACTS
The Fair Tax replaces ALL federal taxes on goods or services not considered to be final consumption goods or services, including:
Personal Income Tax, Alternative Minimum Tax, Corporate Income Tax, Capital Gains Tax, Payroll Taxes, Social Security Tax, Medicare Tax, Gift Tax, Estate Tax, Savings Tax, Investment Tax, Education Tuition Tax, Export Tax, Intermediate Business Transaction Tax.
The Fair Tax would be included in the price of a good or service rather than added on after sales are tallied. The receipt would show the percent of the tax but not the actual amount of the tax. (An item priced at $100 would actually cost $77.00 before the 23% retail sales tax was added, thereby masking the real cost of the good or service, as well as the real cost of the tax.)
The Fair Tax is a single national Consumption Tax (Retail Sales Tax), levied ONCE at the final point of purchase on all new goods and services:
Health Care Services, Financial Services, Auto Repairs, Real Property Rentals, Legal Services, Haircuts, Apartment Rentals, All Internet Purchases, Any good used for personal consumption, Any service used for personal consumption, all retail internationally imported purchase (to be collected by US Customs and Border Protection).
“Used” (and therefore “untaxable”) is defined as any good owned by a consumer when the tax takes effect, or if the Fair Tax has previously been paid.
The Fair Tax includes a “Family Consumption Allowance” (FCA).
* FCA is paid to all lawful US residents in a family household, based on family size, not income, and equal to the estimated total of poverty level spending using statistics provided by DHHS; households register annually with their state taxing authority, providing names and Social Security numbers of each household member. Illegal immigrants will seek to “legalize” in order to receive the FCA.
* FCA will be annually adjusted using a predetermined formula according to federal receipts of the previous fiscal year, including adjustment for inflation.
* FCA will be paid through the Social Security Administration; monthly payments sent to each registered household by paper check via USPS, by EFT transfer to a bank account, or by the issue of a “Smart Card” (debit card).
* FCA will pay 100% of the retail sales tax to households under the predetermined poverty level; those above this level will pay ALL sales taxes above the FCA, showing the Fair Tax to be a progressive tax.
* would cost $489 billion if 100% of households registered and complied, creating the largest entitlement program in American history, costing more than all budgeted spending in 2006 on the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, and Interior combined.
The FAIR Tax dismantles the IRS three years after the legislation takes effect, replacing it with the Excise Tax Bureau and the Sales Tax Bureau, both functioning in the Department of Treasury.
* It grants primary authority for collection and remittance of sales tax revenues to the states which will retain .025% of the total revenues collected; would not affect state income tax.
* It will generate more or less revenue depending on various calculation methods and varying retails sales year to year; an economic downturn = less revenue, a strong economy = more revenue.
* The compliance burden will be on businesses, not individuals as the tax is included in the cost of the good or service. Businesses must have a resale certificate, keep sales records for 7 years, report sales each month, and provide a detailed receipt to every purchaser, with fines and penalties attached for non-compliance.
* Goods purchased for legitimate business use would not be taxable (including family businesses religious organizations, non-profits
* It will adjust Social Security benefits based on prices—an increase in prices = an automatic increase in the amount of benefit payments.
* It favors the creation of a brisk underground economy in “used” goods, resulting in more recycling/reuse of existing goods, or people may choose to max out their credit cards buying durable goods, both in an attempt to avoid paying the Fair Tax, which would decrease revenues.
* It eliminates tax deduction incentives, such as charitable contributions and the mortgage interest deduction, and the tax advantage of state and local bonds.
THE CONSTITUTION PARTY PLAN TO RESTORE THE CONSTITUTIONALLY-CORRECT SYSTEM OF TAXATION
Since 1913, our Constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property have been abridged and diminished by the imposition on each of us of Federal income, payroll, and estate taxes. This is an un-constitutional Federal assumption of direct taxing authority.
IT IS OUR INTENTION TO REPLACE THE CURRENT TAX SYSTEM OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT (INCLUDING INCOME TAXES, PAYROLL TAXES, AND ESTATE TAXES), WITH A TARIFF BASED REVENUE SYSTEM SUPPLEMENTED BY EXCISE TAXES.
WE OPPOSE the flat-rate tax, national sales tax, the FAIR Tax, and value added tax proposals. The 16th Amendment does not provide authority for an un-apportioned direct tax.
WE PROPOSE
· LEGISLATION TO ABOLISH THE IRS (the Liberty Amendment), and will veto any authorization, appropriation, or continuing resolution which contains any funding whatsoever for that illicit and unconstitutional agency. The IRS is the enforcement arm of the Federal government’s present unjust tax system. Citizens, have repeatedly sought responses from the IRS bureaucracy as to the basis for the agency’s tax policies and procedures, to no avail. A responsible government must be answerable to the people and has a duty to those it is supposed to serve.
· LEGISLATION TO ABOLISH THE FEDERAL RESERVE and return the monetary system back over to the Department of Treasury, as well as re-establishing the gold and silver standard.
· LEGISLATION TO DEFUND and/or DISMANTLE all government agencies and departments which exceed the enumerated powers in the Constitution.
· LEGISLATION TO BEGIN A PHASE-OUT of Social Security and other entitlement programs, retaining payments to current recipients while returning the responsibility for these programs back to the people and the states under the 10thAmendment.
· A RETURN TO THE ORIGINAL TARIFF SYSTEM on foreign made products.
· CORPORATE TAXATION WITHIN CONSTITUTIONAL RESTRAINTS. The Supreme Court has defined “income” as a “gain or increase arising from corporate activity or privilege.” People are not corporations, and corporations should not be treated as “people” for the purposes of taxation. The original intent of the 16th Amendment was to tax income derived from invested capital, not the wages of personal labor; and as there is substantial evidence that the 16th Amendment was never legally ratified, we will act to cease collection of direct Federal personal income taxes, and support ratification of the Liberty Amendment which would repeal the Sixteenth Amendment, and provide that “Congress shall not levy taxes on personal incomes, estates, and/or gifts.”
· EXCISE TAXES for specific uses within the scope of constitutional authority, such as the Motor Fuel Excise Tax, not in excess of those currently imposed.
· THE APPORTIONED “STATE-RATE TAX”. Should tariffs and excises, prove insufficient to cover the legitimate Constitutional costs of the federal government, we would implement the apportioned “state-rate tax”, in which the responsibility for covering the cost of unmet obligations will be divided among the several states in accordance with their proportion of the total population of these United States, excluding the District of Columbia.
Why replace one unconstitutional tax system with another unconstitutional tax system? Why not re-build America’s economic structure on the principles established by the Founders in the Constitution? Why not do it right this time?
Download PDF on Fair Tax from HERE.
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