David Cay Johnston - Problems with a "Fair Tax"

Complete Video at: http://fora.tv/2008/04/14/David_Cay_Johnston_Talks_About_Free_Lunch

Author David Cay Johnston criticizes plans to replace income taxes with a "fair tax," otherwise known as a national retail sales tax.

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Since 1995 when David Cay Johnston turned his investigative reporting skills to explore the murky waters of tax law, Some tax policy officials now consider him, as one tax law professor put it, "the de facto chief tax enforcement officer of the United States."

Johnston will detail how a strong and growing economy lends itself to job uncertainty, debt, bankruptcy, and economic fear for a vast number of Americans. As tax season draws to a close, come find out who is getting a free lunch and who is picking up the bill - The Commonwealth Club of California

David Cay Johnston was an investigative journalist for The New York Times now focusing on the subject of taxation. He accepted a buyout offer from the Times in April 2008 and is now an independent reporter.

He most recently published Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense and Stick You With The Bill, about hidden subsidies, rigged markets, and corporate socialism. It follows Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich - and Cheat Everybody Else, a New York Times bestseller. Johnston received the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting "for his penetrating and enterprising reporting that exposed loopholes and inequities in the U.S. tax code, which was instrumental in bringing about reforms." He also won the Book of the Year award from Investigative Reporters & Editors.

Robert Saldich is the Chair of the Board of Governors at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, CA.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• irs
• income
• government
• fair
• taxes
• taxation
• policy
• national
• retail
• sales
• huckabee
• vat
• value
• added
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• foratv
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[lonenut2000]

This idiot never even read the book; what a surprise he was a reporter for the New York Times...

[Diskatop]

The "Fair" Tax aka National SalesTax-Inclusive aka NASTI is pretty much a dead issue, as the bill will never move in Congress-- most Representatives and Senators are hesitant to support a bill that would on average massively raise the taxes of those making from $15,000 to $150,000 a year while lowering the taxes of those making more than $150,000 a year-- this is not an arguable point, if one accepts the fairtaxorg's own data (BHI), because that is were that fact comes from.

[B17Boy]

@decay1861 - Bingo! You have two possible tax structures. Both collect the exact same amount of money. However, one is done without enforcement while the other has a very heavy-handed enforcement by a gov't agency that has a history of constitutional and civil rights violations. Which one does the gov't want to keep? You guessed it -- the one WITH enforcement. Presidents have been known to put their opponents through a yearly wringer of an IRS audit. Without that, there is no gov't control.

[B17Boy]

This guy is so full of it. First off, the tax is only on NEW goods at the RETAIL level. If you buy a used house or used car, there's no tax. And if you try to avoid it by cheating, you'd have to cheat on a large ticket item like a house or car. The tax is so minimal on things like cigarettes, DVD players, books, cellphones, it wouldn't be worth the effort.

[nickfranky]

BOOOOOO old dude!!!

Long live the FairTax!

[SamSlay46]

This guy has not read the FarTax. He has lost his mind. Florida and other states have operated on a similar tax system for over 40 years just fine. So he simply has no credibility.

[EchoMike03]

This 1 million mile car argument is kind of silly.

No car would ever run for 1 mill miles on it's own from the factory without, first of all, standard schedule maintenance which is either acheived by a person providing the service, at which point you would pay the Fair Tax, OR you'd have to buy the supplies and equipment to do it yourself which also requires a purchase and the fair tax is collected.

To suggest that some people will stop buyiong cars to avoid paying taxes seems like a stretch

[sly14all]

The issue isn't that "nothing in the constitution prevents it" but rather "nothing in the constitution allows it." Read the rest of the tax clause. It doesn't allow any and every tax.

[decay1861]

So tax administrators don't like the FairTax? Sounds like a recommendation.

He admits we have a Black Market in drugs and says everything will be like that with the FairTax. Funny that the government doesn't give up on failed drug prohibition, yet is worried about another Black Market?

The Black Market is a red herring -- the government wants control. The current system is not about revenue but about controlling you. It's about gathering personal info on you and manipulating you into debt.