Letter: FairTax would be anything but fair to most

Friday, Dec. 28, 2007 | 7:18 a.m.

I am writing in response to the Tuesday letter from Louis Phillipine headlined "FairTax gets a bum rap from columnist." Mr. Phillipine writes that columnist Jay Bookman has "spewed forth so many untruths about the FairTax it is hard to know where to begin."

Mr. Phillipine goes on to extol the "prebate" included in the plan, which will somehow make this tax more palatable to lower-income families. Mr. Phillipine makes much of the fact that the FairTax proposal includes no tax on big-ticket used items.

Rather than debate the issues raised by Mr. Phillipine, which to him make the FairTax, or national sales tax, the panacea for U.S. taxpayers, perhaps we should look at the portions of the proposal that were left out of his letter.

Although big-ticket used items such as cars and homes would not be taxed, new-home sales would be. So, that new home you were going to pay $150,000 for will now cost $184,500, a 23 percent tax rate if you listen to the optimistic projections proponents of the FairTax have put forth. However, the estimate by the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation is that a tax rate of 36 percent would be needed to keep revenue at its current rate.

Also taxed under the FairTax would be medical bills. Gee, just what the health care crisis needs! If those two proposals don't make you sit up and take notice, I don't know what will.

I could raise more questions, about tax avoidance and black markets. And, for the less-government-is-better crowd, what's to stop the government from imposing a national sales tax on top of the federal income tax?

The more one looks at the so-called FairTax, the less "fair" it sounds. No wonder politicians and economists on both sides of the aisle are lining up in opposition to this proposal.

Mark Mikowski, North Las Vegas