4-15-06 IRS, Income Taxes, The Fair Tax, April 15, 2006 and other issues

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4-15-06 IRS, Income Taxes, The Fair Tax, April 15, 2006 and other issues

*S. McAfee* 4-15-06 …” Since today is April 15, the taxes I have had to pay are primary on my mind.” *AVOC* … For self-employed persons (as an attorney, I am), tax time comes at January 15, April 15, June 15 and September 15. If one owes any taxes for the previous year, April 15 is a double whammy. There have been a number of times that I had to “borrow” the money to pay the taxes and often to make an IRA deposit. AVOC April 15, 2006 IRS, Income Taxes, The Fair Tax, April 15, 2006 and other issues By Wendell Dawson, Editor, AVOC, Inc. Income taxes are something we all are conscious of at this time of year. We realize then the true cost of Government and who is paying the bill. For self-employed persons (as an attorney, I am), tax time comes at January 15, April 15, June 15 and September 15. If one owes any taxes for the previous year, April 15 is a double whammy. There have been a number of times that I had to “borrow” the money to pay the taxes and often to make an IRA deposit. “Tax Time” leaves a bad taste for many of us. Many folks are advocating changing to the FairTax. My cousin, S. McAfee of Peachtree City, wrote about her feelings on the subject and her article appears below. *4-15-06 S. McAfee* …” Since today is April 15, the taxes I have had to pay are primary on my mind.” To AVOC, Inc. A Georgian on the Fair Tax April 15, 2006 The Fair Tax By S. McAfee, (Peachtree City, GA ) Since today is April 15, the taxes I have had to pay are primary on my mind. ------------ The FairTax - The FairTax is a federal retail sales tax that replaces the entire federal income and Social Security tax systems, including personal, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security/Medicare, self-employment and corporate taxes. The FairTax allows Americans to keep 100 percent of their paychecks (minus any state income taxes), ends corporate taxes and compliance costs hidden in the retail cost of goods and services, and fully funds the federal government while fulfilling the promise of Social Security and Medicare. The unfair income tax that we now have exports our jobs, rather than our products. The FairTax will bring jobs home. Retail prices will no longer hide corporate taxes or their compliance costs, which drive up costs for those who can least afford to pay. According to Dr. Dale Jorgenson of Harvard University, hidden income taxes are passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices - from 20 to 30 percent higher than they would be otherwise. This plan is more involved than I can sketch in a letter. Congressman John Linder is the primary sponsor of the FairTax and there is plenty of information available. John Linder co-authored the FairTax book with Neal Boortz. Hopefully, you can get the message out that we need to push our elected representatives to get behind this and abolish the current inequitable system. If we can't get our representatives on our side, we need to elect new ones. Saxby Chambliss says he is a supporter and is working to get it on the floor for a vote (I hope he is as I plan to monitor ). About the Fair Tax Americans for Fair Taxation http://www.fairtax.org/ The FairTax was created by first asking the American people what they wanted out of a tax system, and then having a team of respected economists design a tax system that met those demands. The FairTax replaces the income tax and all other federal taxes with a national consumption tax. The FairTax is levied only once, at the point of purchase on new goods and services. The simplicity of the FairTax frees Americans from our current overwhelming tax code and unshackles the U.S. economy. The FairTax: Abolishes the IRS Closes all tax loopholes and brings fairness to taxation Maintains our current Social Security and Medicare benefits Brings transparency and accountability to tax policy Allows American products to compete fairly Reimburses the tax on purchases of basic necessities Enables retirees to keep their entire pension Enables workers to keep their entire paycheck 4-15-06 Neal Boortz on the FairTax BOORTZ http://boortz.com/nuze/index.html April 15, 2006 THE FAIRTAX BOOK --- REVISED AND EXPANDED In just over two weeks - on May 2nd - the soft-cover edition of The FairTax Book will be released. The book contains revisions to clarify points about the FairTax, and a 5000 word "afterword" to bring you up to speed on the latest status of H.R. 25 and to answer some of the critics who have surfaced in the last six months. Though the furor over the hard-cover edition of The FairTax Book has died down, interest in the FairTax has not. The president's tax reform commission turned out to be a complete flop -- recommending nothing more than more of the same. In the meantime H.R. 25 is adding sponsors in the congress, and House leadership has promised a vote on H.R. 25 in the coming months. Many of you ask what you can do to move the FairTax forward. I have a simple, and, on the surface, a self-serving suggestion on how you can do just that. Buy the soft-cover edition of The FairTax Book. Don't just by one, buy several. Spread them around. Send them to your friends. I would ask you to do that today ... buy them today. Go to Amazon.com and order a few copies. For less than $00 you can get 10 copies to spread among your friends. Business owners could buy a copy for every employee! We had just that happen with several business owners when the hardback came out. I can remember several days when Belinda and I were hidden in a conference room signing hundreds of books for this or that corporation that bought a book for every employee. Members of Congress were already shocked last year to see The FairTax Book, a book on taxes, debut at No. 1 on the New York Times Bestsellers list. If the soft-cover edition of the book has a similar success it will send an even-stronger message to Washington. The people have studied this idea for tax reform, and they like it. It's not just a flash-in-the-pan. Now .. I see that my asking you to get out there and buy the soft-cover edition might sound a bit self-serving. After all, I'm earning royalties here, aren't I? Well, the same pledge I made for the hardback edition stands for the soft-cover. Every penny of royalties, after expenses, will go to charity. With good sales of the soft-cover edition when all is said and done I will have contributed over a half-million to charity. I'm not in this to make money. I'm in this to change the tax code. Help me. Here's your link for ordering the soft-cover edition from Amazon.com. Order now and you'll have your books within a day or two of the release date. There's an even fancier link at the bottom of the page! More of Boortz…………… AND JUST HOW BIG IS YOUR TOTAL TAX BITE? The Georgia Public Policy Foundation steered me to a rather interesting (though not shocking) facts on taxation in America. The source is an article by Michael K. Evans posted on IndustryWeek.com. Do you have any idea just how huge your total tax load is? Take a look at these facts. First -- and this fact is now beyond debate -- all taxes are paid by individuals. All taxes are levied against wealth, and only individuals hold wealth. For those of you who attended government schools, and are thus a little slow on concepts like this, corporations are not wealthy. Corporate shareholders hold that wealth. Individuals. So ... for the sake of Evan's article, he says that the taxes are paid by employees or proprietors, the owners of small businesses. Now .. the tab: Total federal income taxes collected last year: $32 billion. That works out to $,650 per employee. In addition to income taxes, the federal government collected another $.286 trillion in taxes, mostly Social Security taxes. The total state and local tax burden amounts to $.14 trillion. The grand sum here -- paid by employees and proprietors -- is $.358 trillion. That's $,358,000,000,000.00 This works out to $4,000 per employee. The total compensation earned by employees and individual proprietors last year was $.2 trillion. This means that 40% of income goes to taxes of some sort. That rate, of course, is much higher for those earning higher incomes. Much lower for those in low income brackets. Nice, huh? Now ... grab this fact. Where did most of this money go? National defense? Homeland security? Hardly. In terms of Federal expenditures you have: $95 billion for national defense. $72 billion spent by the federal government for the purchase of goods and payment of employees $.69 trillion sent to someone else. $.69 trillion in income redistribution.** This is just fine with those on the left who believe that income is distributed, not earned. For the rest of us? Well, I don't know about you, but I have a wee bit of a problem with all of this.