FAIRTAX, FLAWED TAX?
28th August 2007
Neal Boortz gives the other side of the Fair Tax debate. And apparently he has a book on the subject. How convenient. Unfortunately he indulges in some of the same things he criticizes Bartlett for:
t’s so very simple: When you see a lamp on the shelf marked $100, you will pay $100 for that lamp when you get to the checkout. You will receive a receipt which shows that $23 of the $100 you have paid represents the FairTax. You do the math for yourself, but every time I work it out it comes to 23%
Well, no. If shops did it that way, then he would be correct, but they won’t — you know and I know that they’ll put the price at $77 and tack on the $23 at the checkout, the exact same way that they do now. And Neal knows it too, which is why I find this sort of argumentation rather irritating.
But he does have some good arguments, if you can separate the wheat from the chaff (and when don’t you have to do that?), and some good references, so Read The Whole Thing.