The Neal Boortz Fair Tax Book: a snake oil cure!

Major flaw found in H.R. 25 [Fair Tax proposal] and is reported in Money Magazine.

But Neal Boortz, a talk radio show host and co-author of The Fair Tax book snaps back and points out the book‘s introduction says“…the book isn't about saving a penny in taxes " and promises to make a correction in a reprinting of his book. But the painful truth is, the Boortz/Linder book has conveniently confused tens of thousands of readers into believing something which the Fair Tax will not do, and obviously turned them into wishful thinking fair tax supporters because of misleading information.

For the Money Magazine article see: Just how fair is the 'FairTax'?

The following is quoted from the article:

“What The FairTax Book fails to mention is that prices can only fall this sharply if companies cut wages. I asked Jorgenson about this, and he agreed. Say your salary is $100,000 a year today, but you take home $80,000 after taxes.[/i]

Your company is still paying that extra $20,000. In a FairTax world, it will save that money, and be able to lower its prices accordingly, only if it can reduce your salary to $80,000. In other words, your take-home pay is the same as before. Sure, you'd get to "keep 100 percent of your paycheck," as Boortz and Linder repeatedly write, but it would be a smaller paycheck. That's kind of a big thing to leave out.[/i]

I pressed the point with Boortz and Linder. Boortz denies that the book intentionally overpromises. The introduction, he notes, emphasizes that "this book isn't about saving a penny in taxes." But he concedes that the book is confusing about this, and vows to correct it in later printings. Fair enough.”[/i]

Meanwhile, these guys want to replace the entire tax code, they've ignited a populist movement to get it done, and tens of thousands of copies of the uncorrected book make the FairTax sound like magic.” [/i]


For a thinking person’s view on tax reform see:
An answer to the Steve Forbes flat tax

Regards,
JWK


The only stinking tax reform we need is for the American People to demand their employees in Washington add the following words to our Constitution:

The Sixteenth Amendment is hereby repealed and Congress is henceforth forbidden to lay “any” tax or burden calculated from profits, gains, interest, salaries, wages, tips, inheritances or any other lawfully realized money. [/i]