The FairTax

I'll give all my rebuttals numerically, as my opponent provided the points initially. 1. What's wrong with a regressive tax? If you don't show that regressive is bad, saying FairTax is regressive is not a point. I am prepared to defend regressive tax, but you have made no attack on it, so I will wait. Throw this point out or explain why regressive is bad. 2. First, how can a fixed prebate be considered additional income? The government deals with taxes, your workplace deals with your income, and the government deals with the prebate. You don't get it FOR the work you've done, so it isn't income in that sense. Regardless, who cares how they word it? Also, no one's saying you'll magically have oodles more buying power with FairTax. Please clarify this point to say exactly what is shows bad about FairTax or throw it away. 3. Give an official source that says it will not replace income tax. I thought that was the purpose of the FairTax? No one's saying you'll magically have to give the government oodles less money. Clarify or throw this point away. 4. First, those tasks would likely be done by one institution. And this one institution would be a lot less complex as the IRS is now. The IRS has to track your income, keep records of each person's deductions, audit some people, etc. Everyone gets the prebates, so that would be mind-numbingly simple to keep track of (just send one to each household once a year, wow), and deciding the tax rate would be equally simple. With info on government spending and the average dollar value of goods and services people buy, _I_ could determine the suitable tax rate _alone_ in less than one day, and you probably could too. So, in summation, the current tax system is a lot harder to administer than the FairTax. 5. There really won't be that much of an increase in total revenue from this. Pimps and drug dealers will simply have to increase their prices X% to compensate for the fact that they now get taxed. Ergo, John pays the same amount he would have if it was taxed, and the pimp still gets the same amount as if it was still untaxed. In a way, I concede this point, but it certainly isn't something _bad_ about the FairTax. Whichever FairTax supporters claim this are mostly wrong. That doesn't make the FairTax bad, since it's not the reason the FairTax is considered good. 6. The Al Capone would now be paying taxes whether he wanted to or not, so your point is irrelevant. Clarify or throw it away. 7. I don't understand how this is relevant. If the government 'buys' something, it doesn't buy from itself (unless we're talking about two different levels of government). Not in the current system, not in the FairTax system. And guess what? Weapons and stuff are made by defense contractors, not the US gov. Again, clarify the point you think this makes against FairTax or throw the point away. 8. Yes, they will have to increase their taxes. But it won't increase it in a way that the government is now taking more of our money on average. The government would still need roughly the same amount of money overall. Just as the state and local government would have to increase tax on their end, the federal tax would be a little lower than if the state and local governments weren't paying tax. I don't see how this speaks against FairTax. They won't magically start needing more money from us because of FairTax. In fact, they'll need slightly less, since they won't have to operate the IRS, which is a very bulky system. Very slightly less. Once again, explain why this is actually a BAD thing about the FairTax, or throw the point away. My offense is that the current tax system is bulky to both the government and taxpayers. Neither of us should have to keep track of all kinds of purchases. Neither of us should have to waste very much time dealing with taxes. An there is a way to accomplish this: the FairTax. People would no longer have to file taxes, the government would no longer have to waste so much time administering it. I already showed in my rebuttal to point 4 that the FairTax is much simpler for the government to administer. I'll wait for my opponent to respond before adding anything else, since my only other main point is the additional fairness of a more regressive tax system, and I'll wait to see what problems he has, if any, with regressive taxes before making that point.