The Three Taxketeers

Representatives John Linder, Steve King, and John Hostettler each have their own version of tax legislation in the house. FairTax advocates need to support these measures:

Of course there are many other income tax related bills being considered in the House; 177 to be exact. An additional 97 bills are being considered in the Senate. But these three bills fit together like a foot, sock, and shoe—why is that? The first two bills do go together like a foot and a shoe. While we could go barefoot, it is proper to wear shoes. We want the long term protection that repealing the 16th amendment will provide. The third bill will not be needed in the long run once FairTax has passed. Fashions like sockless docksiders come and go, but in this case, a sock may help the new legislation slip on a little easier and get passed. Each representative listed in this article is hyperlinked to a customized sample letter in .rtf format ready for download, printing, and mailing.

John Linder’s FairTax Act does, in fact, recommend repeal of the 16th amendment. The FairTax levies tax on commerce at the consumer level and is proposed as a replacement of the current income tax system. Under the FairTax, the right of the federal government to directly tax a citizen is no longer needed. The prudent want to eliminate the 16th amendment to preclude reintroduction of an income tax in the future.

Some FairTax supporters have begun to take up arms against cosponsors of H.J.RES.16 who have not also cosigned H.R.25. The logical order it seems is to enact the replacement tax and then repeal the 16th amendment. Any with an opposing view are accused of creating delay tactics. Think about how congress works. A bill is presented to congress and then assigned to some committee or subcommittee for review. Most bills never make it out of sub-committee. The FairTax is currently in the Ways & Means Committee. Opponents of the bill will question the details and assumptions as long as possible. The current income tax system does function today, with no approved mandates to phase it out. This allows the opponents to just delay a bill forever.

Steve King’s H.J.RES.16 follows quite a different path to becoming law. It is currently in the Subcommittee on Constitution within the House Judiciary Committee. While a normal bill is enacted into law once approved by the House and Senate, this constitutional amendment must be ratified by 3/4th of the states. The ratification process could take up to 7 years. FairTax supporters don’t want to wait that long before passing H.R.25.

The FairTax has 46 cosponsors in the house. Nine are also cosponsors of H.J.RES.16. More importantly, 35 FairTax cosponsors in congress do not officially support repeal of the 16th amendment. I ask why representatives such as Tom Feeney (FL-24) are attacked for withholding their formal support of FairTax when their stated fear is that we will end up with both types of taxation. Repeal of the 16th amendment has only 13 formal supporters. That is not enough to make me believe that the repeal will ever pass. I’m beginning to side with Rep. Feeney. Hold on. No, I don’t want to wait seven years, and we don’t have to wait. We can fight on multiple fronts. Why not find out if Rep. Feeney will sign onto the FairTax if we get 10 more cosponsors for Rep. King’s repeal of the 16th amendment. Let’s work this both ways.

I’ve heard people say “Don’t put the cart before the horse.” This rhetoric initially sounds good until we ask, which bill is the cart and which is the horse. If the resolution to repeal the 16th amendment was passed by the house and senate this January and sent to the states for ratification, that ratification would take a quite some time; plenty of time to pass the FairTax bill. In this scenario, with a pending elimination of the entire income tax system, there would be a definite need to get the FairTax out of committee. The repeal of the 16th amendment would be the horse drawing the FairTax legislation out of committee.

Also, consider that the repeal of the 16th amendment is a constitutional issue. Monetary discussion is not appropriate in this arena. An issue is either right or wrong. Inclusive vs. exclusive tax rates and 23% vs. 50% don’t matter. The petty economic arguments that may bury the FairTax in committee won’t occur in the Subcommittee on Constitution. As passage of this resolution progresses, the need for a replacement system increases. The best proposed replacement system is the FairTax.

John Hostettler’s Federal Tax Withholding Act of 2005 has yet to receive significant chatter in the FairTax arena. And why should it. Once the FairTax is passed, withholding of income tax becomes a mute point. H.R.3409 proposes to repeal income tax withholding. This does not change what we have to pay—just when and from whom it is collected. As explained in the FairTax Book, income taxes were originally paid in a single payment once per year, the same way we pay property taxes today. The current practice of withholding a portion of our income obscures how much we actually pay in taxes. Our attention is focused on how much of what we lost through withholding we can get back. We just think about the refund. Accordingly, withholding is a “hiding technique.”

Repeal of income tax withholding is in the same committee as the FairTax, so we cannot use the end-around tactic that is available with the repeal of the 16th amendment. This act would also become mute once the FairTax act passes. This act, however, focuses on one of the three very important aspects of the FairTax—Transparency. If I could only write one letter to congress, I would support the Fair, Simple, and Transparent features of the FairTax. Viewing that I can write multiple letters to congress, I also want to support the single issue of transparency proposed by the repeal of income tax withholding.

We can move our cause forward on multiple fronts. Promoting any one or all three of these legislative proposals will bring us closer to a better fairer tax system. Representatives Burton and Flake have already cosponsored all three bills. The following tables list the representatives with their support of these three pieces of legislation:

The 33 representatives currently supporting only the FairTax are:

If your representative is in the above lists, click on their name for a sample letter ready for your name and signature. Just print it, sign it, and send it.

The key is to act today and voice your opinion to congress. More sample letters are available at http://fairtaxscorecard.com/SampleLetters.phtml

1. I actually think, as a Libertarian, that ending Withholding would suit my purposes just fine. There would be absolutely no quicker way to a tax revolt in this country that would end up in drastically lower tax rates.

   The FairTax has the disadvantage that you’re still paying your taxes over time, in little increments. While it’s more transparent than current withholding, can you imagine what would happen when people had to write a check for several thousand dollars every April? People couldn’t do it. Many millions of people would default on their taxes. Any politician that didn’t support drastic reduction of tax rates would get voted out of office immediately. And with the end of high tax rates, we’d be forced to cut spending. You think the deficit is big now, wait until our elected officials are faced with spending cuts or a $2T deficit!

   But if you don’t want people hoisting the black flag and expending ammunition, I’d say the FairTax is a good step towards reining in government.

   Brad Warbiany  ·  Nov 21, 2005 at 12:57 pm  ·  Permalink

Leave a Reply