by Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
Neal Boortz does not like the government and he’ll tell anyone who will listen.
And it seems many want to hear about it as more than 600 people attended the November monthly meeting of the Northeast Florida Builders Association’s Sales and Marketing Council to hear the syndicated talk show host speak.
Boortz spent the first 30 minutes or so of his speech bashing government and telling stories and jokes. He took jabs at soccer moms, minivans, U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown and New York’s U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, leaving the audience in stitches.
He finally got to the topic everyone came to hear about - his new book, “The Fair Tax Book,” which he wrote with U.S. Rep. Jerry Linder.
Boortz and Linder are rallying everyone to contact members of Congress to help phase out our current tax system and enact the Fair Tax Plan, which would replace the federal income tax and withholding system with a 23 percent retail sales tax on new goods and services.
The Fair Tax Act would repeal all corporate and individual income taxes, payroll taxes, self-employment taxes, capital gains taxes, estate taxes and gift taxes. It would impose a revenue-neutral personal consumption tax on all new goods and services at the point of final purchase. Business-to-business transactions and used products (which have already been taxed) are not subject to the sales tax. The act would allow for rebates on the sales tax on all spending up to the poverty level.
In short, Boortz said enacting this law would dramatically reduce the costs of goods and services by 20 to 30 percent, allow people to keep 100 percent of their paychecks, pensions, and Social Security payments. He said interest rates will fall 25 to 35 percent and the gross domestic product will increase by almost 10.5 percent in the first year after enactment as well as many other benefits to the public.
Boortz said the Fair Tax law would make America’s tax code truly voluntary without reducing revenue, replace today’s tax code with one simple sales tax, protect lower-income Americans by covering the tax on basic necessities, eliminate billions of dollars in embedded taxes we don’t even know we’re paying, and bring off-shore corporate dollars back into the U.S. economy
“The FairTax offers long-needed tax relief in the form of lower prices, nearly nonexistent compliance costs and the ability to choose how much to spend in taxes to all Americans, while eliminating the income tax and allowing Americans to keep 100 percent of their paycheck,” Linder wrote his Web site. “The Fair Tax will dramatically reduce prices, protect and ensure funding of Social Security and Medicare, empower the low-income earners, and put choice and control back into the hands of every American.”
Boortz said that under the Fair Tax Act no one would have to pay sales tax on the basic necessities of life.
“Every single household in this nation whether you earn $15,000 a year or $50,000 a year gets a check at the beginning of each month equal to the national sales tax that they would be expected to spend on the basic necessities of life that month,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what your income is. The calculation is that you would spend about $490 in sales tax on the basic necessities of life, so at the beginning of the month, you would get a check, debit to a credit card, debit card or checking account in the amount of about $490 from the government. No one has to pay that sales tax on the basic necessities of life.”
Realtors and builders would benefit greatly from the Fair Tax Act.
“The economy would grow at a record rate. Personal savings in this country would go up about 76 percent the first year. What happens when people save money? What is the first thing people go out and buy when they have saved a nest egg? A home.”
So why hasn’t the Fair Tax Act passed in Congress?
“It was truly bipartisan,” said Boortz. “Today, it sits up there without one Democratic signature on it. Why? Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and Congressman Harry Reid have ordered the Democratic members to not put their name on that bill. Why? Because now it has the attention of the American public. It is political power base in Washington. They don’t want anything like this to be passed with the Republicans taking credit for it. This would be the largest transfer of power from the federal government to the people of this country since the Constitution went into effect. The government does not like to give up power.”
Visit www.fairtax.org to learn more about the Fair Tax law and to contact your members of Congress to ask for support.
The Fair Tax Act will be debated and voted on after the first of the year when Congress is back in session.
“Ride your Congressman hard,” said Boortz. “Let him know you know what the plan is, that you aren’t going to let him change the terms of the law and that you need his vote.”