End Success-Based Taxation

Neal Boortz made an interesting point yesterday about much of the opposition to The Fair Tax bill. Boortz suggested that most of the opposition to the plan has nothing to do with whether or not The Fair Tax is ‘fair’ and would seamlessly fund the federal government as it is now, but the notion that the rich are not punished under this system. He pointed out that a number of people hate the rich so much that they are willing to tax the rich at a higher rate even if it means raising their own tax rate. It’s the old ‘haves and have nots’ debate that comes around every election cycle. As a matter of fact, it is this class envy debate that brought about the income tax in the first place with the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment.

The Fair Tax authors recognize that the individual has the right to the fruits of his labors. As Americans, we do not pay taxes; the federal government TAKES a percentage of our money (property) based on how much we earn. Those who work the smartest (not necessarily hardest though hard work is more often than not part of it) and achieve the most are punished while those who do not work as smart and in many cases, as hard are rewarded. Is that fair? Absolutely not! Individuals who pursue their rational selfish desires in life not only benefit themselves, but society as a whole by providing better jobs, better products, and better services competing against others with similar rational selfish desires.

By punishing the ‘rich’ we only hurt ourselves. Savvy businesspersons base many of their decisions on their bottom line. Can we blame them for that? The same people who are angry that so many corporations are going overseas are usually the same people who want to stick it to the rich. Why do you think these corporations go overseas? Could it be that doing business in the U.S. is too expensive due to government regulations and punitive tax policies? The Fair Tax would reduce expenses tremendously by making the United States the biggest tax shelter in the world, creating an incentive to move businesses here.

Hopefully more Americans will start rewarding achievers rather than punishing them. Neal Boortz’s Fair Tax Book is currently #1 on The New York Times Best Seller List. Could his book’s success translate into retiring the punitive income tax code we have now? We can only hope.

Related Posts:
We Can Make April 15th Just Another Day
The Virtue of Selfishness
What I Have Learned from Air America: Part IV

Brad Warbainy of The Unrepentant Individual has written a two-part series on the Fair Tax and tax policy in general (Part I, Part II,). Go check it out!