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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 336.271
EAN num: 9780061540462
ISBN number: 0061540463
Label: Harper Paperbacks
Manufacturer: Harper Paperbacks
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 272
Printing Date: February 01, 2008
Publishing house: Harper Paperbacks
Release Date: February 12, 2008
Sale Popularity Level: 8464
Studio: Harper Paperbacks
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In 2005, firebrand radio talk show host Neal Boortz and Georgia congressman John Linder created The FairTax Book, presenting the American public with a bold new plan designed to eliminate federal taxes and the IRS, jump-start the U.S. economy, bring back lost industries and jobs, and recapture billions of untaxed dollars hoarded by criminal and offshore businesses. Their book became an immediate #1 New York Times bestseller, propelling a powerful grassroots tax reform movement that's spreading like wildfire across our nation.
Now, three years later, the authors are back to answer the outspoken and misinformed critics of their innovative proposal. Offering eye-opening new insights not covered in the original book, FairTax: The Truth debunks the negative myths and gross misrepresentations of this groundbreaking idea. The FairTax plan is simple, brilliant, and it will workâenabling you to keep all the money in your paycheck; eliminating the fraud, hassle, and waste of our current system; and revolutionizing the way America pays for itself.
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Rated by buyers 
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Answers questions that one may have had after reading the very first FairTax book. Written well.
Rated by buyers 
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To paraphrase a famous quotation, "Fair Tax" is a dream, wrapped in a fantasy, inside a fairy-tale. It is amazing and perhaps disheartening that so many seemingly intelligent and educated people have been deceived by the dream. Most of the defenders are people who have never looked beyond the fairy-tale: A simple tax, replacing the insane complexity of the current system. The only excuse one can find for them is that these people look at "Fair Tax" as if it were an abstract concept. If there were no economy, no people earning money and using them for purchasing, and we just created a society, then a consumption tax for the new economy might be worth considering.
A book review, however, is not the right place for a discusion of the fundamental merits of a tax system. Let's leave that to the economy theorists. For the sake of the discusion (only), let's grant the authors the premises about embedded taxes and their (debatable) role in setting the price of goods. Most definitely, let's set aside the endless, asinine arguing about whether to cite the consumption tax inclusively or exclusively, and even what the actual percentage would be. Who cares? As the authors correctly state, the only thing that really should matter to people is the purchasing power, and the generated revenue.
It is appropriate, however, to evaluate the way the authors are making the case for "FairTax", the validity of their arguments. They write not about an abstract concept, but about a real switch to a new tax system.
Perhaps the most insidious and deceitful feature of Boortz and Linder's book and arguments is the use of averages. It starts with the "embedded tax." "In The FairTax Book we wrote extensively about a Harvard University study that showed that, on average, about 22 percent of what you pay for any consumer item or service represents the embedded costs in that item ..." (p. 29). The authors briefly mention, in this and the very first book, that the actual embedded costs vary from industry to industry, but they do not bother to tell us how much. A simple consideration would tell them and us that the range must be considerable, and that it also must vary widely from product to product in the same industry, and is different for the same type of product made by different companies.
Why is that important? Because if those different percentages of embedded costs were replaced by a single, constant "FairTax" percentage, it would cause an unbelievable upheaval of the market as well as redistribution of the purchasing power of the population. Since, according to the authors, the embedded costs are mostly due to the tax burden of the employees involved, industries or companies with high mechanization and therefore low embedded costs would see their products burdened with a higher consumption tax than what their previous embedded costs used to be, while those with high embedded costs because of a large workforce would be at an advantage. The switch would penalize productivity.
Let's consider a simple example of two companies, making the same type of product, and let's assume that the production costs, excluding labor costs, are the same and that the final products are equivalent in quality. One company has a more efficiently organized production line, requiring a minimum of workers, and thus has lower labor costs, and therefore lower "embedded tax costs". Because of the competitive pressure both products sell for the same price, so that the more productive company shows higher profit. What would be the effect of replacing the "embedded tax costs" with a universal "FairTax" percentage? With the same purchasing price again, the relative profit margin of the more productive company would fall.
What about the effect on the purchasing public? Are we all just averages, everybody buying the same things? If products with currently high embedded costs satisfied your needs and lifestyle, you might perhaps see prices go lower, but if you preferred mostly the low-embedded cost products, you would be out of luck. Is that supposed to be fair and reasonable?
One of the most deceitful claims, which I heard Mr. Boortz to make on radio, and which is repeated in the book, is about the effect on retirees, who live on their savings. On radio, Mr. Boortz assured a caller that since FairTax would just replace the embedded tax, the prices would remain the same, so that there would be no change for his retired parents. In the book (p.190), the authors breezily assert: "... either you're going to pay the embedded taxes that lurk in every product and service you consume, or you're going to pay the FairTax. Six to one, half-dozen of the other." And: "Everything you buy with those savings is going to cost pretty much the same - plus you'll have that prebate check every month."
Here one must note that the authors certainly are not guilty of consistency. ... Read More
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As a regular attendee to the church of the painful truth I was looking forward to this book coming out. It truly does answer the critics and give plenty of ammo to us "FairTaxers"!
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This is a great idea for an tax structure. At very first I thought it was stupid and you couldn't sell this to me. Then I started listening to Neal Boortz'sshow, and I decided to educate myself.
Neil explains how little people understand the current tax system in our country. To quote neal from his program: "If we had a fair tax (or something similar), Barack Obama would not have been able to use the lie that 95% of American will get a tax cut." The problem is many people confuse payroll taxes with income taxes.
Neal goes through a list of response for the critics of this system. The things I want to hilight are how our government uses the tax code to play favorites, and that the current income tax system subsidizes debt and penalizes savings.
I have no idea if the Fair Tax will ever come to fruition, but all Americans who care about their own liberty should read (or listen) to this book. You'll be able to sniff out the BS artists every election year. Hopefully one day enough of us will wake up and tell the government to go back to your powers that are in the Constitution.
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I wish everyone in America would read this book and the very first book that Neal Boortz and Congressman Linder wrote about the Fair Tax. This is the best way to fix our economy!!!
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