As someone who has owned and operated a retail store, I think I know a thing or two about retail taxation. You are misrepresenting the facts. The fact is the retail store does not pay the sales tax, the consumer does. I never payed taxes on wholesale goods.

Your points seem a little short-sighted. Let me explain, a porche is not used if it has not had a previous owner irregardless of how many miles it has on it (this works the same as it ever has for any vehicle). As far as the mansion is concerned, ever hear of property tax? You are also implying that middle/poor individuals would never buy used houses.

You do not seem to understand the true nature of the fairtax, look up the prebate. This is how the poor get their “redistribution” just like the rest of us. If they spend it then good, if not then better. You say the wealthy “accumulate” property, this implies paying taxes because property is taxed. Real estate is still taxed on the local level and purchasing of new goods is still taxed. (Also, the majority of used homes are not bought by the wealthy, they are bought by ordinary people and fairtax makes used homes more affordable.) Do not even try to tell me that the wealthy will just buy everything used, try watching TV shows on the wealthy and you can not help but see the overpriced NEW crap that they love to purchase on a monthly, weekly, and daily basis. This “NEW” stuff also includes services provided to the “wealthy” by the way.

The fact is there is no such thing as a perfect system, but the only alternative on the table at this point is a flat tax which is how our current system started. Seriously, if you never had to have withholding taken out of your paycheck and got a prebate from the government every month, how much extra money would you have every month?

Let me give you an example:
You make $2000 a month, your estimated income tax liability as a single would be about $1950, not including Social Security, etc which amount to another 7.65%. Coming out to a grand total of $3,786 withheld annually from your paychecks before you ever see the money.
Now with the fairtax system, you get to keep this money in your paycheck, but you also receive a monthly Prebate, which comes out to about $2,196 annually. The prebate offsets the cost of goods based on the poverty level of your household size and everybody receives it (wealthy and poor alike, get it the “Fair” in FairTax). So under the FairTax you would get to decide the fate of $5,982 that you would have otherwise never have even seen under the current system. I do not know about you, but I trust my own judgement when it comes to my money much more than the federal government.

Bottomline: If you make $24,000 a year would you rather have $20,214 aftertax withholding to spend, or $29,982 before taxes to spend (the catch here, as you said before, is that you can buy used goods and not have to pay taxes on the purchase, which mostly poor people do anyway, so they would not only get out of paying taxes, but would also get the prebate that can supplement their low income). The economic implications of this are massive and could boost consumer spending to heights it has never achieved before.

In addition, consider the current Social Security collapse. Under our current system it is solely supported by the middle class working taxpayer. As you may well know, the percentage of retired persons is quickly outnumbering the working persons. The FairTax can alleviate this issue by using the national retail sales tax as its base of support therefore not just taxing workers, but also taxing tourists, non-workers, and any other group that does not pay income taxes.

I concede this system is not flawless, but it beats the heck out of what we have. The rich have so many loopholes as it is in the current system that they barely pay taxes. Fairtax just seeks to level the playing field and eliminate the loopholes that only the rich can take advantage of. (Example: if a rich person can buy a used car|house|etc. so can any other ordinary citizen). There are no alternative brackets or grandfather clauses to keep them out of paying taxes.

You are right, you will not change my mind, but I hope that I have at least enlightened you a little as to the finer details of the FairTax. Deferring taxes to the point-of-sale is the way to go, just think of it as a short-term 401k. Instead of having to wait until retirement, you can spend the pretax money any time you please.

I beg to differ, the purpose of the tax system is to provide funding for the constitutionally mandated operations of the Government. In a socialist society it is to redistribute the wealth. Last time I look the top 5% of income earners pay more than 50% of the taxes in the US. Is that not enough? for crying out loud!