Here’s my rough and very partial list of questions which remain unanswered by the fairtax faction: 

 

Since there is already some degree of cheating and complexity in presently existing sales taxes at the state level and in other countries, why would that problem not increase in a situation in which all our taxing is focused on sales, especially since a national sales tax would have much higher rates than our local sales taxes do? 

 

How in the world do you expect to amend the constitution, which is extremely difficult to do, in order to promote a tax which shifts burden onto groups such as retailers, pubs and restaurants which have great grassroots contact and are geographically well distributed? 

 

Related point, how do you think another well distributed interest group will respond when it becomes widely known that the fairtax would force churches to tax their sales of Bibles? 

 

That’s right, you read correctly. I took your advice and made another visit to www.fairtax.org where I read this sentence tucked away toward the end of the section on not-for-profit companies: 

 

“Also, the sale of Bibles by a church is taxable.” 

 

Do you honestly think that you can skip over something like 1,000 years of legal wrangling about state taxation of churches without so much as a peep out of the churches? Good luck with that. 

 

How is it fair to tax, not only a purchase, but a substantial portion of the interest cost associated with that purchase? That’s right, houses, cars, anything purchased on credit would tax a portion of the interest, not just the sales price. 

 

While you ponder those, here’s another: 

 

Is General Motors a hobby? You see, the fairtax exempts businesses from taxation associated with their business activity. Of course that creates all sorts of opportunities for avoidance. Can I declare the time I spend painting my house last fall a business and deduct the paint? Can I form a catering service and cater my own parties. The fairtaxers tied to close that loophole by saying that if your business doesn’t make money in at least two of the last three years, it would be classified as a hobby, and lose it’s exemption. GM has lost money for the last three years, therefore it is a hobby and would not be exempt under the fair tax. How about all the tech companies which ran losses for years before breaking even, Amazon, Yahoo, Google, etc. Hobby, hobby, hobby and hobby. 

 

That’s right, just when you’re in the hungry years, startup phase of a rough business environment, the fairtax hands you a massive tax hike. How fair does that sound to you? 

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