(Tuesday, October 18, Kalamazoo, Michigan) – Herman Cain wisely perceived the “bumper sticker mentality” of many American voters much better than did the FairTax folks with his catchy “9-9-9” Plan to catch the attention of inattentive voters.
Herman says his 9-9-9 Plan is a short term plan to move America to the FairTax, which he says is the ultimate solution to the depressed U. S. economy.
What about the 0-0-0-11-0 idea? Well, it actually is the FairTax expressed mathematically:
* Zero payroll tax
* Zero income tax
* Zero corporate tax
* 11% national sales tax on only new goods and services
* Zero tax on income saved, invested, or gifted.
But I thought the FairTax was a 23% inclusive sales tax. Well, after the prebate, a family of four spending $58,000 per year on new goods and services will pay only 11% on what they spend (even less as a percent of income if all income is not spent on new goods and services). The prebate offsets the sales tax up to the poverty level for all legal households, so everyone’s effective tax rate will be reduced (see “prebate” at www.fairtax.org).
When asked “is the 0-0-0-11-0 FairTax plan not a 23% sales tax plan?” Michigan Fair Taxer Roger Buckholtz says that “the FairTax is a 0 to 22.9% plan, based upon how much a family spends. Higher and lower expenditure levels will result in higher and lower effective tax rates, but that’s more details than can fit on a bumper sticker. Yes, the FairTax Act is 131 pages long, but compare that with the 72,000+ pages of the current tax code, and any flat income tax proposal will do little to reduce the size of the current tax code.”
Thanks to Herman Cain’s ingenuity the FairTax Plan can now fit on a bumper sticker so that inattentive voters can be informed about the ultimate solution for our economy.
More information on the FairTax, including how citizens can become involved in the tax reform effort, is available at: www.fairtax.org
