92 reasons to oppose the Fair Tax

by Jim Nichols [courtesy of Blog for America]

Actually since there were 105,480,101 households in America in 2000 there are actually--by my calculations--about 97,041,692 reasons (or should I say households) to oppose the Fair Tax; or any sort of consumption tax.

Don't follow what I mean? I know, unfortunately at least a few supporters probably hope you don't.  I'll turn to the tax policy center and their online issue brief: National Retail Sales Tax: Who would bear the burden?

Under a national retail sales tax, the wealthiest households in the country would receive stunningly large tax cuts. Households in the top 1 percent of the income distribution have an average income of about $475,000. Their average tax cut would be $79,000, or more than the incomes of all but about 8 percent of households. Put another way, the roughly 1.1 million taxpayers in this top 1 percent would save a total of $87 billion on their taxes each year. This cut would be financed by tax increases on the bottom 92 percent of households. Households with income between $5,000 and $50,000 would face an average tax increase of over $1,000.

If someone turns to you and asks why you don't want the Fair Tax... "cause like its Fair" and "who would be against that."  Just smile and respectfully say...

"Speaking as just one of the 92% of us in this country who would actually get a tax hike from it... I'd have to say no its not, and no it wouldn't be."

crossposted at Speculative Fiction