Fair Tax

This whole illegal alien/undocumented worker thing is making my head spin for reasons I won't go into here, but: In my opponent's source #1, they are referred to as both. Following the citations about $6-7bil in SS and $72bil in Medicare and Medicade in the article, led me to a cascade of 3 different news articles, and finally a mention in the Seattle Times about 2009 SS statistics. “...workers who could not be matched to legal Social Security numbers. That total hit a record $90.4 billion, earned by 10.8 million workers, in 2007, just before the recession. Some of those were legal workers who simply made paperwork mistakes, but the majority are believed to be illegal immigrants.” No one collecting data knows that these are illegal immigrants, or why their SS# doesn't match, it's just a guess. Growing up in an area with migrant camps and large populations of illegal workers, I know many are paid under the table. It seems more probable someone looking for cheap, hard working labor would pay in cash rather than risk being caught, and the illegal would prefer NOT to pay taxes out of their paycheck, then turn around and report zero income when applying for benefits. But the bottom line is, how many illegals pay taxes and into benefits is unknown. The Fair Tax would guarantee that they would pay federal taxes, paperwork or not. Concession: Con is correct about 23% actually being 30% on your receipt, something I didn't know until he pointed it out. HOWEVER, you should be spending less than you make, so your income will be greater than your expenses. With the Flat Tax, the larger $ is taxed (income), with the Fair Tax, the smaller $ is taxed (expenses). So the Fair Tax still takes a lower % of every dollar you make, unless you spend more than you make every year. In which case, no tax system can help you. “Progressive” States are going to have high tax rates, and more taxes, as long as they stay progressive. Your federal Flat Tax rate combined with State income taxes would mean you pay a very high income tax total, and a moderate sales tax. Your federal Fair Tax rate combined with State income taxes would mean you pay a very high sales tax, and a moderate income tax. Progressive states just have higher taxes, and that's that. Con also argues that the effects of the GST (another name for a Value Added Tax implemented in '00-'01) in Australia has hurt the economy. Apples and Oranges. The GST replaced some taxes, but they still have an income tax and capital gains tax. [1] The Fair Tax replaces all other taxes. Furthermore, a VAT is different from the Fair Tax in that it is often invisible on the receipt, and is open to more fraud on the producers' level because of how it is enforced and calculated. [2] “flat tax...does not bind the amount of goods purchased with the well being of our national coffers.” No tax plan or rate can solve the current issues with our national coffers. The real problem is with ever increasing government spending. I argue that either the Fair Tax or a lower Flat Tax would be better for the country specifically because it's primary concern is NOT the national coffers. Also, I didn't come up with the current Fair Tax rate of 30%, but from what I understand, it is based off of gov't spending figures, which I'd like to see reduced. When gov't appetite is reduced, the Fair Tax rate can be reduced. With income taxes, people lie about income to evade taxes. With sales taxes, there are black markets and people purchase goods and services across borders. Crossing the border doesn't bother my conscience, but I don't endorse tax evasion. But the government shouldn't be able to take the first fruit of your labor, and you shouldn't be targeted because of how much you make. Covetous as people are, a flat tax would be more prone to be modified to a multi-tier system like we have now to “stick it to the rich.” The Fair Tax would eliminate the ability of the government to tax income (legally) by repealing the 16th Amendment. [3] Because I am more concerned with recognizing a better tax plan than winning this debate, I will submit to Con and the audience that an advantage the Flat Tax holds is that you can see every year how much you've paid in taxes, whereas with the Fair Tax, you would need to do careful personal accounting. http://www.dummies.com... http://www.heritage.org... http://www.fairtax.org...