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BHI label

There has been some back and forth on affixing the label of "a conservative think tank" to the Beacon Hill Institute. What would conservative mean here... Right, Right of Center... In the artile statement addressed (the study referenced) was done in partner with Larry Kotlikoff, who is a democrat. In fact, he is the economic adviser to Mike Gravel. Labels labels.. Does it make the article any better? No.. We have not attached labels to every other organization in here.. Ludwig von Mises Institute, Argus Group, Arduin, Laffer & Moore Econometrics, Brookings Institution, National Bureau of Economic Research, National Retail Federation, or Citizens for an Alternative Tax System. Personally I don't think that most people know that Brookings is liberal. If I don't know, I can click on the wikilink and read about their background. I don't think it is proper, necessary, or even correct at this point to affix such a label. We don't affix labels to the different economist. I don't say "conservative Bruce Bartlett", "democrat Laurence Kotlikoff", ".. William Gale" or whatever.. it only polarizes the article unnecessarily. There is no place in the article where we affix labels of conservative or liberal, left, right, etc. - it only adds bias. Add it to the organization article itself. Morphh (talk) 21:10, 09 December 2007 (UTC)

I think it is only fair to give the reader a little backround on an organization being cited, at least a word (I've reduced my characterization to "conservative"). The BHI was founded by a conservative businessman/politician, it is funded in part by national conservative heavyweights like the Coors family, and I have added several in-state references to the article referring to it as conservative (I'm sure I could find more if necessary). The BHI calls itself "grounded in the principles of limited government, fiscal responsibility and free markets" (from their "mission statement"). And as for labels in general, I'm not sure it would be a bad idea to add background on some of the other organizations cited. The Laffer in Arduin, Laffer & Moore is of coure Arthur Laffer of Laffer curve fame, for instance, responsible in large part, for good or bad, for Reaganomics. Brianyoumans (talk) 21:26, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
The inclusion is intended to give the impression that the estimate has conservative bias (whatever that would mean). It is a polarizing statement. However, the study being referenced was done in partnership with Laurence Kotlikoff of Boston University, who (as I stated above) is a democrat and the economic adviser to Mike Gravel. So to balance this out, I would have to include that the study was coauthored by Kotlikoff and his political influence.. and what about the other authors.. it gets messy and it is unimportant for the encyclopedia (at least for this article). We're implying bias where we have no evidence of such. The rebate calculation likely uses the exact same formula used by William Gale of Brookings, since their study used Gale's methodology as a base. Morphh (talk) 0:29, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
BHI is mentioned multiple times in the article; this is just the first mention of it. Whether or not it is important to give a little backround on it here, it is important to give that information to the reader somewhere. I don't think Kotlikoff's politics are relevant here; anyways, Gravel is a marginal candidate well outside the Democratic mainstream, his advisors are not guaranteed to be liberal or even Democrats. Brianyoumans (talk) 08:18, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

As someone who has closely followed the FairTax, and is aware that many so-called "think tanks" are funded by various politically-motivated groups with a particular agenda, I agree with Brianyoumans that the affilliation/policital leanings of various groups that produce studies that support or refute the FairTax is important.

For example, the fact that the ONLY studies that support the FairTax were done by (i) Arthur Laffer group, who's clearly hardline Republican/Libertarian, and (ii) the BHI (which, until Brianyoumans pointed it out, I had no idea was a conservative group funded by the Coors, who tend to fund super-conservative causes) is extremely relevant. The fact that the BHI study (and, I suppose, the Laffer study) were funded by AFFT is also relevant.

In contrast, the fact that neither William Gale, the President's Tax Reform Commission, or the Joint Committee on Taxation receives any funding from any group actively opposed to the FairTax is pretty darn relevant as to who is the most credible when it comes to producing a study. Now I suppose you could say that Larry Kotlikoff is liberal, and that is true, but it's also true that he views the FairTax as a way of forcing retired folks to pay a bigger share of the Social Security and Medicare by increasing their tax burdens. That, of course, is not explained anywhere in the article. And I suppose you could add that some people view the Brookings Institution as being liberal (just as some people will always insist that the mainstream media is liberal), but I suspect you would be hard pressed to find any objective evidence of that.

As you know, Morph, I think yoiu do a great job of keeping this article pretty balanced, but if the BHI is a conservative think-tank funded by Coors, I personally think that is pretty significant and certainly calls the objectiveness of their analysis into question.

64.94.224.248 (talk) 19:39, 10 December 2007 (UTC)GeorgiaTex

I'm not suggesting that philosophies of the included organizations are unimportant. I fully support describing these in the article about the organization and the wikilinks are there for anyone to learn more about any particular subject, person, or org. The sources are also there for the reader to gain more information. I'm sure we could each make arguments about why this org or person is such and such influenced in whatever way. I could go on for about an hour on how the Tax Panel and JCT are the least credible. For neutrality, we should try to stay above the partisan claims and just describe the study. Tax panel said this, BHI said this, Brookings said this. I've been around wikipedia for a while and I have seen several articles biased and overwhelmed by labels. I don't want to go down that road with this article with insinuations of bias for this and that. It is very well done and I'd hate to see it turned into some partisan back and forth piece. As for Brookings, there are several sources that say they are on the left (even the directories like Google) but again.. it seems petty to include it. Gale did a great study and I don't want to "boost or reduce" his work by using a slang label meant to imply that his work is biased. He deserves better than that. Kotlikoff deserves better than that. The other authors of the BHI study deserve better than that. We're an encyclopedia - not a tabloid, not the news. I may not agree with them in some cases, but I do respect them. Describing the background of an organization in an article about the organization (or person) is one thing, it is something different to inject a label to that organization or person on every article they're included in. Morphh (talk) 20:50, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
We aren't a tabloid, but I think it might be reasonable to give the reader some hint that they might wish to evaluate the credentials of the studies cited. On one hand we have, say, the Brookings Institution, one of the oldest and most respected public policy research organizations (which the Wikipedia article labels as "centrist", by the way)... and on the other, we have the Beacon Hill Institute, a research group founded by a conservative businessman/politician with an explicit conservative/free-market agenda, at a fairly second-rate university, funded in part by strongly conservative national foundations, and which other than this issue appears to stick to mostly Massachusetts-related matters. I think it is more than fair to flag them as "fiscally conservative"; the only question in my mind is whether to include more info about BHI in this article, since so much of the supporting work on FairTax is published through them. Brianyoumans (talk) 20:12, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
Brookings is described in our article as an "independent research and policy institute with a left-liberal inclination." The progressive watchdog group FAIR called them centrist. Again, that's what the wikilinks are for. This is not an article about Beacon Hill Institute or Brookings and we should not poison the well to slant the reader's view with partisan labels. Morphh (talk) 20:36, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
I think it is a bit extreme to call adding one label "poisoning the well". If I put a sentence in the article saying, "Economist Brian Youmans calls the FairTax a load of hooey" (I did minor in economics, many years ago), then you could always put in a link to an article on me which revealed that I had very few credentials, but how many people would follow that link? Putting a quote in the article by someone with dubious credentials would obviously be a mistake. By quoting both BHI and BI, this article in effect puts the BHI on the same level of believability as the Brookings Institution, and gives the reader no info - other than the "fiscally conservative" label - about BHI's self-proclaimed small government/free-market bias. Brianyoumans (talk) 23:01, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
Who are we to assign "levels of believability" or to say that BHI should not be believed as much as Brookings? That is not our place or the place of an encyclopedia. We should not get mixed up in this sort of thing in some ancillary article. I did move the statement to a study that is just BHI (and not partnered with Boston University's Kotlikoff). I also removed the references since they are cited in the main article on BHI. They are not needed in the FairTax article. I only challenged the statement as there were no sources in the main article at the time of inclusion. Morphh (talk) 22:51, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
If we are not assigning "levels of believability", we aren't doing our job as editors. Brianyoumans (talk) 12:19, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
That is not the proper role of an editor and against our NPOV policy. NPOV policy requires views to be represented without bias. The intent of adding the label is to imply bias, and thus the material can not be fairly represented without bias. Representing "levels of believability" sets up the perception that one view is more correct then the other. NPOV states that none of the views should be asserted as being judged as "the truth". It should also not be asserted that the most popular view, or some sort of intermediate view among the different views, is the correct one to the extent that other views are mentioned only pejoratively. Readers should be allowed to form their own opinions. The label is applied to BHI in the attempt to add a pejorative inflection to the data presented. Morphh (talk) 5:00, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
It has been a month and this addition still really bothers me. Fiscal conservatism is typically used to refer to the idea that governments should be small, and tax lightly. In the reports that the Beacon Hill Institute has written on the FairTax, it has always started with the assumption that a FairTax would be "revenue neutral" - i.e. would neither raise nor lower total government revenue (as measured in purchasing power terms). The use of the term "fiscal conservative" in the current context is clearly designed to pejoratively imply that the work of the Beacon Hill Institute lacks credibility and should be taken with a pinch of salt. This is clearly against our NPOV policy as pointed out in my last comment. Morphh (talk) 14:32, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Distributional Effects and BHI Study

After reading the comments above about the BHI being funded by the Coors family, I went back and reread the BHI's 2007 study of "A Distributional Analysis of Adopting the FairTax." What I read blew me away as to how intentionally deceptive the FairTax advocates really are. (Sorry to be POV here, but it's the truth.) There is so much economic mumbo-jumbo in the study that it is very difficult to read; so I, like most people, initially just read the introduction and conclusion, where the BHI asserts that the FairTax is actually progressive. However, when one actually READS the report, you will find the exact opposite.

In particular, if you look at the effect of the FairTax on various income groups (see Table 6), you will see that the FairTax REDUCES net income of every income group under $75,000, while INCREASING net income of those over $75,000 per year. Families at the lower end of income, those makeing under $30,000, will see their net incomes drop by over 25%. On the other hand, families with the highest levels of income (averaging $2 million per year) will see an average gain of 20%!

Conclusion: THERE IS NO WAY IN HELL YOU CAN CALL THE FAIRTAX PROGRESSIVE. So, how does the BHI get away with doing so? Easy, they say that those who spend less under our current system will spend more under the FairTax (presumably because the price of goods will go up), so they claim that the FairTax is progressive when it comes to spending.

Morph, even you have to admit this is just NONSENSE! This is a total sham! What more proof do you need? At least be honest in the article and point out that AFFT's OWN STUDIES show the FairTax will benefit the rich and hurt the poor, i.e., it's regressive as hell.

64.94.224.248 (talk) 21:19, 12 December 2007 (UTC)GeorgiaTex

  • I haven't read the study, but basic economic principles and common sense are sufficient to tell anyone that a sales tax, once you get beyond the level of the rebate, is regressive with regards to income. Rich people spend a smaller percentage of their income than poor people do, because they invest large amounts of their income. The poor and middle class spend most of their income, so most of their income will be subject to tax. Bill Gates probably only spends 1% of his income, so he would pay only a tiny percentage of his income - maybe 0.23% - as taxes under FairTax. The only way you can call it "progressive" is to say that it is progressive as to consumption - which is technically true, but not a very good way of measuring progressivity/regressivity. Brianyoumans (talk) 23:14, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
  • To be clear, there was I think only one or two grants from the Coors family foundation. But there were a lot of grants from something called the Roe Foundation. This is more obscure, but basically it seems to give grants to conservative research organizations nationwide, including people like the Heritage Foundation, which has a Thomas Roe Institute. Roe was a Republican businessman from South Carolina; he was on the board of trustees of the Heritage Foundation in the late 1980s. Here is some info on Roe, on the site of an organization he founded. Brianyoumans (talk) 23:31, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
I removed this statement for a bit until it is discussed a bit more. "However, that same study also showed that the FairTax would reduce the net income of families making les than $75,000 per year, while increasing net incomes of families making over $75,000 per year." I'm trying to understand the table 6 and I'm a bit confused. -9,853 net income when your gross is $5,000, so did they spend $15,000 to get this? How can you have a -$9,853 net income? Did they add the prebate as income and taxed the entire amount, instead of using the rebate to reduce the tax burden of their gross income. I don't get it - I'll need to review it more. So this may need more explanation. I rather take a direct statement but I want to make sure we're using the correct context as well. That is why conclusions or introduction are the best source, to whatever study we use on Wikipedia. When you start analyzing charts of a static tax incidence half-way through a study (which may have been set up for a later dynamic analysis or something else) and then draw a conclusion, you may be misrepresenting something. As far as the tax base used to measure progressivity, it should be based on consumption, since consumption is the tax base. Progressvitiy is essentially based on effective rate, which is a measure of the true tax burden applied to the tax base. Using income is an arbitrary correlation and assumes that you never spend any savings. Also consider what this debate really is, all personal consumption is taxed so what you have left is investment (that which grows the country) and education. When investment is used for any personal consumption, it is taxed. So they take a tax base other then the one tax, use cross-section time frame, ignore any future spending of savings, and then dismiss the benefit of untaxing investment - this is how you get regressive. Doesn't sound like a proper way to measure it to me. Then under the current system they ignore wealth when doing their calculation, since it is only based on income. Anyway, there are analysis methods that measure tax incidence - Gini coefficient, Tax concentration coefficient, etc. - the FairTax has been show to be more progressive using these analysis methods. Either way.. it reminds me of the 23% / 30% debate.. two methods of presentation. Everything seems like a political gimmick from either direction. Ways to pluck the goose with the least amount of hissing, class-warfare, etc. I can understand the vandals that just blank a page and replace it with "taxes suck". Indeed. Morphh (talk) 22:16, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
Morphh, I think the explanation for the -$9,853 net income is that these are people who are not working (taking a year off, retired, unemployed, living off their boyfriend, etc.) but still spending a good amount of money and hence paying the tax. (Note in panel 1 that those negative numbers go away when we break things down by expenditure.)
I think you might be right about analyzing charts ourselves in Wikipedia (even if some of us do so in our real lives ;) ) because that starts to border on original research. Perhaps a quote from that last paragraph of point A? (Provided that it is noted that that quote is only in reference to static effects.)
Cheers, HalfDome (talk) 18:38, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
I don't think you are going to convince very many people that it is better to discuss progressivity/regressivity in regards to consumption, as opposed to income. Income or wealth seem like better measures; they are certainly what people are currently used to thinking about when the term "progressive" is used. "Changing the yardsticks" - measuring progressivity against consumption instead of income, stating sales tax rates as a percentage of the total instead of a percentage of the base price - is of course a classic way of confusing an argument. And about the -$9853 net income... seems very simple to me. If you earn only $5000/year, you will be getting ~$15000 from the prebate, and so you will end up with a negative income at the end of the year, the government will be subsidizing you to the tune of ~$10,000. What's confusing about that? This would presumably replace welfare/food stamps/etc, which have much the same effect. And just for the record, the info you removed should definitely go back into the article, at a prominent location. Brianyoumans (talk) 12:14, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
It is only a yardstick as Americans are much more familar with an income base. That does not make it the correct definition or perception of actual tax incidence. This is an international economic term used to describe incidence and is certainly applied in a much broader sense. Political use has dumbed it down and in doing so, lost some of the meaning. Consumption is a measure of wealth (when not limited to a cross-section time frame) but income is something very different. The first thing you do when you become rich is reduce your income. At any rate, this is not a discussion for this talk - better served on a blog. Perhaps I'm missing the obvious but I still don't understand what table 6 is saying. It does not replace welfare/food stamps/etc. Those earning 0-10 are below the poverty level, so they would have a negative effective tax rate if they spent 100% of their income. They would receive their untaxed income, get a $2,852 prebate for the year (if the family size was just one adult - more if larger), and possibly an increase in benefits for any inflation. When you compare this against payroll taxes, there is no way the poor are paying more in taxes. So how does this reduce net income by $9,853. I'm going to e-mail the authors of the study and have them explain it to me unless someone here can make it clear. Since net income, I expect, is income minus taxes, to have a -$9,853 of net income, you would have to pay $15,000 in taxes (or pay three times more in taxes over what they make), which would be a consumption level of $65,000 (for single person household making $5000 a year). A family of one can spend up to $10,000 tax free - so how do you get a negative net income if you pay negative taxes? I'm not saying the data is wrong, I'm just saying that we might not be reading it correctly - we may be misrepresenting the data. Morphh (talk) 2:36, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Morphh, did you read my possible explanation of the -$9,853 above? HalfDome (talk) 08:40, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
I did. In that case, the person is not using their income for consumption but someone elses. So that doesn't make sense. They never had an income to make negative. The example also says an income of $5,000. Morphh (talk) 15:18, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Just so everyone is aware, I did e-mail BHI and asked for further explanation and if we were reading the table correctly. Morphh (talk) 14:52, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Morph -- With all due respect, you should show what you just wrote to an intelligent friend (who knows nothing about the FairTax) and ask him or her to explain what you just wrote. You are straining to use the most convoluted logic to defend something that you've bought into (with the most honorable of intentions) and are resorting to mumbo-jumbo rather than stepping back and looking at the reality of the situation.

FairTaxers CLAIM that the FairTax is "revenue neutral". But there own studies show that even in a best-case scenario (with zeron tax-avoidance), it would create a deficit of $500 billion.

FairTaxers CLAIM that the FairTax is "progressive." But there own studies show that this just isn't so (unless you redefine progressivity to mean spending rather than income.)

FairTaxers CLAIM the FairTax is a tax on wealth, except that when you look at their studies you see that this only occurs using "generational accounting,", where decendants of the rich supposedly spend accumulated wealth over generations.

FairTaxers CLAIM the FairTax is 23%, but only if you redefine how sales taxes are calculated.

I do agree that this is probably too much to put in an encyclopedia article and it can easily wind up with too much POV, but as a reasonable and intelligent person, I hope you are beginning to realize that the emperor, in fact, has no clothes.

By the way, I sent Kotlikoff an email asking about how the FairTax could work if each family had to spend, on average, $138,000 per year. I haven't received a response yet. Did you ever post the same question on the FairTax Groups board? I'd really like to learn what the response would be.

Best, GeorgiaTex —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.211.16.125 (talk) 16:42, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

This is not the place for this type of discussion. Shoot me an e-mail if you really want to discuss it. I haven't posted anything to the blogs. Personally, I've realized that the emperor usually has no clothes regarding anything in politics. I've become cynical about most issues and have lost interest. We've talked before, I don't care if we get the FairTax, Flat tax, VAT, or your tax plan.. I think the current system is destructive in so many ways and it needs to be addressed. I think there are benefits and drawbacks to each method. I only stick around here on Wikipedia now because I've put so much work into WikiProject Taxation, tax related articles, and particularly the FairTax article - I don't want to see them degraded in quality. I've worked very hard on them, trying to make them as encyclopedic (per Wikipedia standards and policy) and neutral as possible. I now find such editing and blogs more work then fun.. in fact I find them quite stressful and time consuming. I have a family and I much rather be doing things with them. Morphh (talk) 2:36, 17 December 2007 (UTC)


Morph -- I feel for you, man. You aren't being paid for this, you're volunteering your time trying to contribute to our collective knowledge, and look at all the grief you take (especially from me!) I realized I was getting a bit outside the proper bounds for discussion here, but I got carried away and couldn't stop myself. Besides, I lost your email address so I couldn't discuss this with you offline. (If you send me an email, this time I promise I'll save the address.)

Talk about "No good deed goes unpunished." I think one of the circles of hell must be being forced to edit a controversial article in Wikipedia. Who was that guy doomed to enternity to push the boulder up the hill, and just when he almost made it to the top, it rolled down again? Here you are, slaving over this article, and you think you've JUST ABOUT made every reasonable (and some unreasonable) changes that anybody could possibly want, and along comes someone like me to mess up all your hard work.

I apologize, Morph. And we really will have that beer sometime. (P.S. I posted on fairtaxblog.com, which is up again, and we're having a lively debate on how much spending would be needed to make the FairTax. I've clearly gotten under a few folks' skins. Heh! Heh!

Best, GeorgiaTex —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.158.224.28 (talk) 04:16, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Just wanted to post an update. I did hear back from the e-mail to BHI and one of the study authors stated that he would post a reply on the talk here. Morphh (talk) 19:40, 02 January 2008 (UTC)

Every tax change has winners and losers but this article does not discuss this. For example, a retired couple who are living off investment income saved from taxed wages would now get a 30% increase in their living costs from food to apartment rent - surely they lose? A couple able to travel could easily purchase high value items like fashion or jewelry overseas and pay for their trip - isn't that an advantage your Walmart customer will not have? Sure you could control the borders but how do you that without taking an inventory of everyone entering the country? Not only will you have to take off your shoes at airports - a customs official will be writing down what they are worth. How does a heavy tax affect tourism - surely a hefty sales tax discourages inwards and promotes outwards vacations? How do internet based services work - how does the US tax service collect the salestax from US customers downloading from overseas servers? Seems the well paid have a wealth of loopholes, while the poor have very few. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.234.231.99 (talk) 01:06, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Morpph, I will move my edit to somewhere else in the article if more people think I should (also needed: someone to add Table 11 from the page I cited), but you really need to step back and look at most of what you have said here and some of the editing you have done: it clearly shows that you are biased FOR the Fair Tax and immediately jump on things that bring into question the true effects of such a sales tax, even when the cite is from Beacon Hill. The edit does not "twist the study conclusions," it doesn't reference the study conclusions, because said conclusions are clearly biased by Beacon Hill's desired result( i.e., support for this tax) -- again, see Table 11 on the page cited, it very clearly supports the edit -- and the edit was adding a position of "opponents" to balance out the position of "proponents" laid out in the first sentence of the paragraph. I know you feel this is your baby, but your editing bias is bleeding through. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.53.247.186 (talk) 16:47, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I moved your sentence to the area on tax distribution, as I believe this is the proper place for it. It repeated a statement already in the lead (second paragraph, second sentence) "However, opponents of the tax argue that while progressive on consumption, the tax could be regressive on income,[7] and would accordingly decrease the tax burden on high income earners and increase the tax burden on the middle class.", which is intended to be a concise summary and lay the groundwork for the article content. We do not want to bring up particulars of a study in the lead, particular when it is positioned to one point of view without including additional rebuttal (within the same study). The source listed did not reference opponents, but the study itself (an appendix). BHI has an entire study on tax distribution which goes into much more detail regarding consumption and income related to well-being. I have no problem including this material (it's easy to understand) but the lead is not the place for this sentence. It is better suited for the discussion of that topic and could probably use some rebuttal that discusses the study's assumption in that table and overall conclusions, in addition to BHI's other arguments regarding income as a poor indicator for ability-to-pay, time-frames, etc. However, I have no plans to expand on it at this time - I'm fine to leave it as is. Feel free to add proponent rebuttal yourself, but this should probably be done in the sub-article.
To your other comment... Most people are biased in some way for or against a particular topic they edit. I don't deny that I favor the plan as I do many tax reform plans (I created Competitive Tax Plan, Efficient Taxation of Income, Taxpayer Choice Act, and I edit several others). I feel the U.S. system is a complex mess of special interests and does not properly tax wealth, help the poor, compete in a global economy, and will not raise sufficient revenue for unfunded future liabilities (60 trillion). I edit several hundred tax and economics articles on wikipedia and know this topic quite well. I do my best to be balanced and treat all edits with equal scrutiny. Morphh (talk) 20:59, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
Yes, we are all biased, but the thing is one must be very careful to not let this intrude into the editing of the article. Look at the "think-tank" discussion, and then ask yourself why you don't jump on the word "large" in the bit about the Fair Tax having a "large grassroots"... what is the definition of "large" there (other than being just a bias word, that is)? More than ten people? More than ten thousand? Pretty subjective, because I consider it "Small and backwoods"...
Again, I readily admit my bias also, but not to edits-- and yet your bias showed through when you claimed I was twisting the conclusions of the study, WHEN in fact, if you carefully look at the study, you see that BHI is twisting the data (basically averaging the benefits of those making more than 150K$ down through the population, and, perhaps more significantly, averaging the INCREASED utility of those making less than $10,ooo up thought the population)... I had much more here but damn key-combo typo erased it, anyway, I edited a couple of other things, feel free to move that cite to some other sentence it supports,if you unbiasedly think it should not be where I put it, and consider that "large grassroots".... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.53.247.186 (talk) 18:56, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
I stated it was twisting the conclusions because the conclusions of the study presented a different point of view than that presented in your statement. It is original research to make our own conclusions (or for me to make my own conclusions about what they did above $150K). There was more to the table and the conclusions that were not mentioned. BHI stated directly after that table "However, a stronger incentive to invest and save would cut into consumption, and the greater incentive to work would cut into leisure. These effects occur because of the efficiency gains from the FairTax. These are reflected in higher growth rates of capital, output and investment, and labor supply. The additional work and investment would raise consumption and generate a higher level of utility to households." This was the focus of the entire study. They also stated "Now let us consider a more realistic scenario, ..." so they considered the table "unrealistic". They concluded with "In sum, while not everyone would gain from the introduction of the FairTax, gainers would outnumber losers by a factor of more than ten to one, and none of the losses would be large. There are few, if any, policy opportunities in the U.S. that offer such large gains to so many people. Moreover, households in all income groups would, on average, experience increased welfare under the FairTax." So does the statement that you added that the FairTax would negatively impact the well-being of middle income earners lack something with regard to the post table statements and final conclusions of this study. Does it twist the BHI conclusions above? I thought it did and that was my point. It cherry picked a statement, which was fine.. I'm alright with including it but I do feel the additional information would be beneficial to include. I don't see how that makes me biased as it seemed like an honest assessment that any observer should raise.
As far as using the term "large", that is the term used in the reference (Committee on Ways and Means) and the context is tax reform grassroot movements. In fact, it states they are the "largest" grassroots tax reform movement. As far as tax reform movements go, they're large. I'm not sure what the general figures are around grassroots movements as a whole, but AFFT claims hundreds of thousands of members and volunteers - doesn't seem to be small and backwoods.
With regard to your most recent changes. I'm ok with the change of "could" to "would", but we should change the second "would" to "could" (which is similar to the preceding progressive statement), if that makes sense. :-) I'm going to update the reference using a different format but it should still point to the same data. Morphh (talk) 21:01, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
I think they make sense as both "would" because we're presenting and contrasting the arguments of each side, not questioning the veracity of those arguments. If we, for the sake of argument, agree that the FairTax would be regressive on income, it therefore logically follows that the comparative tax burden on higher-income taxpayers would decrease relative to today's progressive income tax. We can change "could" to "would" in the preceding statement, making it clear that we're referring to federal tax burden, and making it clear the level of spending that would equal a zero tax burden. FCYTravis (talk) 21:28, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
The FairTax is not just compared to today's progressive income tax but all the federal income taxes including regressive payroll taxes (80% pay more of) and regressive corporate taxes (which is often not factored). I see the arguments as two different points, but I'll think about it more and review the references. It is difficult when your discussing tax burdens in relation to income, as income is not what is taxed. Anything not spent that year is assumed as non-taxed income (not tax deferred). It's an arbitrary correlation. Family size, used goods, and education are other factors to consider.
Anyway... with regard to the many economists statement, there is a discussion below were things were reworded sightly (A few issues). The statement says "Many mainstream economists and tax experts like the idea of some kind of consumption tax -- in fact, the superiority of consumption taxes is almost conventional wisdom these days." Now we didn't get into the superiority bit... We state that Many economist like consumption taxes, and then we have a sentence describing the reasons. The next sentence details out the serious problems discussed in the article. I don't think this is taken out of context - we provided the context. I also see that you changed Economist to Some economists. Since we're talking about the reasons that the "many economists" like consumption taxes (conventional wisdom), I don't think the "some" description fits. Stating "Economists" does not mean all economists, just that many make the statement. Just like in any field.. Journalists state... Computer security experts state... Doctors state... We seem to use terms like this often in wikipedia (opponents argue, proponents state, etc). I don't think it implies that all proponents state it or all opponents argue it or even that all agree, only that a large enough portion to make it attributable. You're a journalist.. does such a statement really imply every group member around the world? Seems like a impossible standard to satisfy. :-) Morphh (talk) 14:46, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

HalfDome changes

I'm going to address the recent changes by HalfDome point by point here. I've made comments in the summary but it appears we need a longer discussion.

  • The change that discusses the tax rate percentage does not improve the article. It makes a reference to the subsection, which is not good practice in a lead. This is a major point in presentation and should have a very brief explanation - there is an entire section on it and more if you count the sales tax section and other areas throughout the article. It is one of the first attack points and probably the most visible dispute of the tax. Saying that some say this and some say that is not enough and implies right and wrong, or a difference on what is "correct". It also doesn't clarify what the legislation states, which is the primary black and white source - everything else is opinion on what it should be. We don't take a position - The way it was written, it presented both views as correct rates with different methods of calculation. It is important to present this elementary aspect in the lead. This sentence structure has been in the lead for quite some time and reviewed over and over - I dispute the change and you have no consensus at this point to change it.
Well, all of your smug claims here (about whether the article is improved, what is good practice, whether right and wrong is implied, and whether law, which is written by politicians who definitely have political agendas, is a "black and white source") are generally baloney. Still, it's sounding a little better to me now than it did before - I think the wording was improved somewhat. I'm adding an additional clause to make the concept a little clearer, particularly because "total register price" is a phrase that is not used enough for people to be familiar with the precise defintion. But otherwise, I think it is not too bad. HalfDome
I'm going to reword this as it doesn't make sense to me. "23¢ of every $1 spent in total, including the tax payment itself" Your additions are in reference to a percentage, but we're not discussing the percentage in this example. If we said 23% of every $1 spent, this would make sense. We set up the percentage and this is an example of how the dollar is applied. We also have to consider this is a summary, where more information is presented in the article. Morphh (talk) 14:50, 05 January 2008 (UTC)
Hm, I cannot see how that could not make sense. It seems really straightforward to me. (What part of "23¢ of every $1 spent in total, including the tax payment itself" don't you understand? ;) ) Maybe it is because it is lumped into the parentheses with the comparison with income taxes. I know this is a summary, but we should make the idea clear to readers. The real problem I think is the phrase "total register price". Typing that phrase into Google, only 238 hits come up, where all but 17 of those are "very similar" to the ones already displayed. In addition, nearly all of those 17 seem to be copies of this article or earlier versions of it. I'm going to try rewording it a different way now to just clearly lay out the definition for "total register price". I think this should make things clear for everyone. 24.59.148.187 (talk) 03:29, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
I read and reread this change and the prose just doesn't seem clear and concise to me when presented like this. What does that mean - "23¢ of every $1 spent in total, including the tax payment itself"? I know what you intend for it to mean but I don't read it like that. You're meaning to refer to the total price, which includes the tax payment itself. However, 23¢ is the tax payment, so it doesn't make sense to me as including the tax payment? The $1 spent in total includes the tax payment itself but it is confusing when you say 23¢ of every $1 spent includes the tax payment. It is not clear that you're talking about just the $1 but instead "23¢ of every $1". I think it is much clearer and concise to just say "23% of the total price including tax (23¢ of every $1—calculated like income taxes)". The 23¢ of every $1 is an example of how the total price includes the tax. We also have the example of 30% (30¢ on top of every $1) to balance this understanding. I'm open to changes to the term "total register price", which could be stated as total retail price, final retail price, final price, or total price. In fact, I'm going to remove the term "register" and just make it "total price". Both the terms "final" and "total" convey that it includes the tax (as on any receipt) but I'm fine with stating "including tax" as a form of compromise and it does seem to make it clearer. Morphh (talk) 15:09, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Production cost - defined as "the price of an object is determined by the sum of the cost of the resources that went into making it. The cost can compose any of the factors of production (including labour, capital, or land) and taxation." As referenced, the FairTax removes taxes embedded into the cost of production via the income tax system. The FairTax is added on after (at the point of final sale). There is nothing that is "alleged" here. This just biases the statement like only proponents suggest it. Do we have any opponents that suggest otherwise? Not talking about prices here.. The article does provide numbers in the section "Theories of retail pricing".
I think you are confused here about the definition of "alleged". Something can be both alleged and true at the same time, and without a doubt this is alleged because you, in fact, are alleging it. To say that it is absolutely true that production costs would fall, you would have to prove that no matter what the circumstance, it is impossible for production costs to not fall. It is very difficult to prove such statements because, well, we have limited cognitive capabilities and it is quite difficult to be sure that we have thought of every possible circumstance.
So, as an example that might be helpful to you, consider the issue of tax cheating. As I read in a textbook at some point, when sales taxes get above 10%, tax cheating becomes an significant issue (i.e. people trading with each other, not reporting it, and hence not paying taxes). With this tax rate being much higher than that, there is a possibility of significant tax cheating, and as such it is possible that the government would require businesses to keep more thorough records, follow more regulations, etc. that would push production costs up. And, moreover, it is possible that this increse could be large enough that it would offset any drops in production costs.
Now, if you are foolish, you might ask me to reference that. But, of course, I do not have to (and I'm not going to waste the time looking through my textbooks) because, of course, the burden of proof is on you here. To actually make the statement that you want to make, the burden is on you to prove that it is impossible for what I just described to happen (and impossible for anything else to happen that could possibly push costs up). Knock yourself out if you want to try, but until you do, it is still only alleged and not absolutely true. If the real problem is just that you do not like the word "alleged" itself, it's probably fine if you say "argued" or "claimed" or "stated by person X" etc. instead. HalfDome
NPOV policy states - By "fact" we mean "a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute." There is no serious dispute here. You don't have to prove that no matter what the circumstance to make a factual statement. Do we have someone of significant weight and reliability that argues that removing tax costs would not reduce production costs? Consider we're talking about all corporate income taxes and the employer share of payroll taxes (which have their own compliance costs) - a significant amount of taxes. The FairTax also pays the retailer .25% to cover some compliance and administration. There is no serious dispute here to turn this into something that people allege or argue. I'm going to change it to "expected", which leaves the possibility of other circumstances while still providing some aspect of common belief. Morphh (talk) 14:50, 05 January 2008 (UTC)
I think there is dispute which is serious, but I also think that the word "expected" works well to resolve the concern I had. 24.59.148.187 (talk) 03:29, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
  • "Technically speaking," - This implies that 30% is correct and that 23% is just technical mumbo jumbo. We can't present it that way in Wikipedia for neutrality.
I have no idea where you get this from. "Technically speaking" means, well, speaking in a technically correct way, rather than in a more common, less technically accurate way. And, that is exactly what that statement did. How can you call being technically correct "mumbo jumbo"? It's the exact opposite. Still, the statement has been modified since you reverted, and I think it is better now. HalfDome
  • "fiscally conservative " - I did not remove this statement, I moved it - see this edit. With the recent change, it is now in there twice. I moved it to a study that was done strictly by BHI and not in partner with Kotlikoff. Please see the BHI Label discussion above where Brianyoumans agreed to moving it, although I still don't agree with the inclusion. I even moved it to a section which would hold more weight with the statement - the section on distribution effects. Was the prebate cost a better place?
Okay, I see what happened there. I think it is probably best to have the label mentioned the first time BHI appears in the article, so a reader will be aware of it every time BHI comes up, as they read through. HalfDome
I don't see where you removed the second statement when you added it back in again to the first placement. The placement doens't matter to me. While I think it violates NPOV to included it (see BHI label talk above), it should only be in there once if it is in there. I'm going to remove the second instance. Morphh (talk) 14:50, 05 January 2008 (UTC)
Yep, that's fine. 24.59.148.187 (talk) 03:29, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
  • "Some economists" - the statement of many mainstream economists is a direct quote from Money Magazine "Many mainstream economists and tax experts like the idea of some kind of consumption tax -- in fact, the superiority of consumption taxes is almost conventional wisdom these days." I don't mind putting in a however statement but lets not reduce the statement without reason.
Okay, well, it should definitely be pointed out then that that is the opinion of Money magazine, particuarly because they do not list the "many" or provide a source themselves. We should leave it completely to the readers to decide for themselves whether they think Money can be believed. HalfDome
I added the word "these" here to point out which economists. 24.59.148.187 (talk) 03:29, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
  • "however" - I'm fine with including a however statement but it needs some context and integration into the summary statement. I'm not sure why the challenge with this since I only moved it where it made the most sense. It should not be some independent sentence - this is a summary of the subsections. Morphh (talk) 16:16, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
You are getting smug again about "what made the most sense". However, reading it over now, it seems okay to me. I think before I missed the additional "howevers" at the end of the paragraph.
Cheers, HalfDome (talk) 09:36, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Ok, I made some changes to try and address a couple things. I reduced the rate statement in the lead from the prior by removing some duplication. I added "associated" to reference the costs being discussed. I changed BHI in this instance to include all the economists. Again the statement of fiscally conservative is still present in the other section. I took the exact wording of the inserted material but just placed it into the summary where it made the most sense. Morphh (talk) 16:54, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Double-taxation

Thanks for this article. It was an interesting and informative read. I was "for" the FairTax up until I read the part about potential double-taxation. As a saver, my savings has essentially already been taxed at my marginal rate. When that money is spent, I will pay another 30% tax. This is a real deal killer for me. Can anyone explain what ways FairTax proponents might make their proposal more appealing to those such as myself? 68.55.138.238 (talk) 19:04, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

The argument for taxing illegals and the underground economy with a modified sales tax is sort of a paradox, since a modified sales tax also taxes those who saved their money specifically for future consumption, including senior citizens have money in 401K or a IRA and even those people who will receive benefits from their insurance plan. On the other hand, the wholesale prices of goods and services will drop approximately by the amount of the FairTax, keeping retail prices where they are, more or less. That means retirees, illegals, and the underground economy will pay sales tax, but they won't necessary spend more money to get what they want. Heck, they could consume abroad by importing goods from the US free of FairTax! ***Remember that many retirement plans include corporate investments would not longer have capital gains taxed.Kmarinas86 (talk) 20:57, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
I think the above is confused. There is no reason why savings in a 401(k) or other tax-deferred account would be double-taxed; no income tax was ever paid on that money, and if the income tax is abolished, then none ever will be. But anyone with after-tax savings from before the FairTax was instituted would get screwed, unless a special exemption were made for these funds. I have not seen any proposals for that exemption.
The same thing happens e.g. to a saver who works abroad, and then returns to the United States to retire. (Current income tax law will usually make it possible to pay the higher of the tax rates in the two countries, not the sum.) On the other hand, the FairTax creates a very good incentive for US workers to retire outside the country.
I am not sure why wholesale prices would drop by the sales tax rate, and retail prices would stay constant. I don't know whether you mean the retail price including or excluding tax, but neither makes sense. If it's including tax, then we've created something out of nothing, because 23% of that is now going to the government, so the merchant is only getting 77% of what they were before, and somehow delivering the same product. (The FairTax proponents argue, correctly, that some fraction of the price is embedded corporate taxes and such. So the price before taxes should go down, but not by the full sales tax rate, since those embedded taxes are only a fraction of the taxes that the single sales tax replaces.) If it's excluding tax, then the illegals are clearly paying their way, because they're now paying the same tax rates as everyone else was before, if you believe that the FairTax is revenue-neutral. (Note that even now, someone who does not pay income tax, and lives in a state with no sales tax, still "pays" the embedded taxes.)
The proposed FairTax would apply to imports. Most sales taxes do.
The math that's given below is wrong; a 30% income tax (inclusive) would be replaced by a 43% sales tax (exclusive). And the point made in the original comment is, as far as I know, completely correct and not addressed by the FairTax proposal. 74.61.11.168 (talk) 21:01, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
The best place for that discussion is http:\\www.fairtaxblog.com or http:\\www.fairtaxgroups.com. This page is mainly for discussing the article. As for paying another 30%, I'd say that such would be an impossible effective rate. Also consider you may be flipping from inclusive to exclusive in your statement. A 30% income tax equates to a 50% exclusive rate, which is how you were quoting the FairTax. So not sure what you mean by "another". I suggest you go the the FairTax.org website and read there full content regarding savings - perhaps The FairTax benefits seniors. Then read some opponent viewpoints. Morphh (talk) 2:47, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Social Inequality

Wikipedia should remove the star from this article as an article of excellence. There is very little critique of the fair tax in this article and the section stating that the fair tax would reduce inequality is unsubstantiated by empirical research and the reference is an opinion piece. There is no mention of the Gini Coefficient or other standard measures of social inequality and no discussion of the fact that the proposed fair tax would only offer a rebate to those UP TO the poverty line. Thus, if a family of four earned $21,000 annually in 2007 they would not be eligible for a rebate under the proposed 23% plan. Nowhere are the critiques of the underclass and the working poor explored. Social science research by William J. Wilson, Dalton Conley, Melvin Oliver and Thomas Shapiro speak to these concerns for those most disadvantaged into society and should be reflected in this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zoostation (talk • contribs)

You are incorrect regarding the prebate, it is not limited to those below the poverty level. The rebate is given to all citizens and legal resident aliens to untax purchases up to the poverty level - it is based on family size, not income. So lets get your facts strait before you come in here blasting at an article that has had significant review. The information in there is not only opinion pieces, it contains all known studies regarding the distributional effects of the FairTax. The information stating that the fair tax would reduce inequality is based on the only research (several studies) done on the FairTax legislation, so I'm not sure where you get that it is unsubstantiated. As far as I know, there has been no empirical research that states otherwise. The tax panel is the only negative study that I know of and that is not a study of the FairTax, although we have included it in the article anyway. The information on the Gini coefficient and more information can be found in the sub-article. This is a summary presented here. I searched for the social science research you described but found nothing in regard to the FairTax. Could you provide a link for the research that discusses the effects of this legislation? Could you provide links to the material that critiques the FairTax (other than what is already included) regarding the underclass and working poor. I'd be happy to review and include other material that is relevant from reliable sources. Morphh (talk) 18:03, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
While Zoostation might have that particular incorrect, the essential question of turning a regressive sales tax into a 'progressive' tax remains. It appears that the term progressive makes sense only if we narrow our focus to lower and lower-middle income families. However, broadened to include the entire spectrum of economic levels, it become apparent that as always, sales taxes are regressive.
Sadly, supporters invariably answer this issue by saying "Well, the wealthy don't pay taxes anyway," which seems both a non sequitur and false. Such a statement simply doesn't answer the question.
Is there a substantive answer whereupon a regressive tax is turned into a progressive?
--UnicornTapestry (talk) 13:28, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
What are you using to measure progressivity? The FairTax is similar to a progressive flat tax that exempts income to a certain level. If you use strictly income to analyze consumption and limit the time-frame to one year for all income levels, it will look regressive. However, many economists don't look at it this way. For one, that would assume that you never spend any savings. Even under the current system, certain investments and savings can be deferred to future tax periods, which goes to the base argument of when savings and investment should be taxed. The income tax system largely taxes it before and consumption taxes it after. As you might know, annual income is not an especially accurate measure of one's ability to pay. Households at the high end of consumption often finance their purchases out of savings, not income. A household's consumption tends to fluctuate less from year to year than its income does, and in some respects offers a better measure of a family's sustainable standard of living. Many economists feel that averaged over periods longer than one year, which smoothes out fluctuations in annual income, expenditure comes closer to reflecting "permanent" income and is the more appropriate measurement. Economists have also used lifetime income when measuring the progressivity of a consumption tax. In doing so, research of the FairTax shows that it is more progressive then the current system when you factor the replacement of regressive payroll taxes. Proponent economists argue that taxing consumption is effectively the same as taxing wages plus taxing wealth. So to answer you question, many economists and politicians consider it a progressive sales tax. We present both points of view in the article. Morphh (talk) 14:08, 05 February 2008 (UTC)

New Bruce Bartlett source

I'm not going to dive in with edits, but for someone who wants to, here is a new Tax Analysts source where Bruce Bartlett criticizes the fairtax in much more detail than in the sources already cited in this article: [1]. Fireplace (talk) 01:57, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll have a read and include them. I don't think I'll be able to get to them all today, but I'm making notes of the points of criticism and will include them this week. Morphh (talk) 21:56, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

It's going to take me a little longer to finish including this... hopefully I'll have it done next weekend. I've been spending all my time on these talk pages instead of working on the material. ;-) I've also down to the areas in the study that are a little more complicated to include. They require more thought with integration into summary style sections and sub-articles. Some points I'm trying to consider what would be the best section for inclusion. Morphh (talk) 20:18, 06 January 2008 (UTC)

BHI has just released two new studies Fiscal Federalism: The National FairTax and the States and Tax Administration and Collection Costs: The FairTax vs. the Existing Federal Tax System. So I'm also working on reading them. BHI is also writing a rebuttal piece to Bartletts publication. ...And the FairTax: The Truth: Answering the Critics is due out February 12th. Too much stuff... I think I need a drink. Morphh (talk) 17:15, 08 January 2008 (UTC)

On his web site, Lawrence J. Kotlikoff has provided a new article titled “Why the FairTax Will Work - Bartlett’s Unfair Attack on the FairTax”, a response to Bartlett’s criticism of the FairTax in the December 2007 issue of Tax Notes. Morphh (talk) 15:48, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

New Tax Notes article Memo to Bruce Bartlett: Just Do the Math. Morphh (talk) 22:12, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

A few issues

I generally think the article is fair, ballanced without adgends. When I looked at Jonn Linders web site a few months ago it appeared that what might be called a marriage penelty had been illiminated. This is also true of table in the article. If two adults (18+ years old?) with the same address file as separate head of household they get about $1000 (in the older table)more in prebate than if they file as a couple. Determining if they are really each a head of household will sometimes be subjective and our auditers should not have to get envolved. Worse some people change their status more than once per year. Let's hope this is a real change for the better.Ccpoodle (talk) 02:16, 10 January 2008 (UTC) I suppose a child can only be claimed if more than 50% of the child's support is provided by the head of household. This will mean some children cannot be claimed by anyone. IE 3 head of households each supplied about 33% of the child's support. My guess is fewer grey areas than in the present IRS code, and cheaters will typically be caught at less cost than IRS. Congress does however have the abillity by amendments to make the Fair Tax less fair.Ccpoodle (talk) 02:02, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm admittedly fairly ignorant about this topic, but there are a couple things I'd hoped to get out of reading the article that I didn't. First, I'd like to know how much support and opposition the FairTax proposal has among experts (surely the NYT/WaPo/etc has mentioned this somewhere). Second, while recognizing that Wikipedia is not a crystal ball, it would be helpful to know whether experts believe the political capital exists to get this through Congress anytime soon. (e.g., Bruce Barlett, in the Tax Analysts piece, says the chance of this getting through Congress is zero, while the Money Magazine piece quotes a YLS prof saying 'don't underestimate it's momentum.' Both are interesting.) Relatedly, the lead states that "Many mainstream economists and tax experts argue that... [pro-FairTax stuff]", followed by three citations. But the first citation doesn't seem to support that claim, and the second and third are both to FairTax-associated sources. It would be better to cite an independent source for claims about what "many mainstream economists and tax experts" believe. Fireplace (talk) 01:20, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. It is difficult to tell how much support or opposition the plan has. I don't know that a nationwide survey has been performed. We have included the cosponsor count and showed the correlation to other tax reform legislation. We also discuss that it is never been voted on in Congress. The first few sentences in the third paragraph in the lead tries establish the standing. AFFT has done polling that shows that something like 85% of informed citizens support the plan, but we haven't included that - I'm not sure how formal it was. You could show how many dislike the current system (there has been surveys on that), but I don't know that it would correlate. We could include some economist opinions in the legislative history section. I guess we hadn't in the past as it seemed like a zero sum that didn't add anything. So in so says it won't pass, so in so says it is inevitable, so in so says it has momentum. In the end, your left with a general statement of people disagree. Many support their own version of tax reform that doesn't exist in any legislation. Does criticism equal opposition? We may have that some think it is the worst form of taxation, except for every other type. Other factors may be relevant in the future, such as how well Mike Huckabee does. It is a long shot; any large tax reform proposal is... I'll read up and see how best to include this information. As for the "many mainstream economists and tax experts", I believe that is a statement from the Money Magazine article discussing consumption taxes in general. The other sources support the statement in regard to the generally accepted benefits of a consumption tax. Our article then goes into arguments against this type of consumption tax. So it sets up some of the general benefits of a consumption tax that apply and then criticizes specific aspects of the FairTax plan. Morphh (talk) 14:21, 01 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply -- I'm really not informed enough about this, so I appreciate it. Just one follow up... the Money Magazine article says "Many mainstream economists and tax experts like the idea of some kind of consumption tax -- in fact, the superiority of consumption taxes is almost conventional wisdom these days", which I don't think fully supports the sentence it sources in the article: "Many mainstream economists and tax experts argue that consumption taxes, such as the FairTax, would have a positive impact on savings and investment (not taxed), ease of tax compliance, increased economic growth, incentives for international business to locate in the U.S., and increased U.S. international competitiveness (border tax adjustment in global trade)." Fireplace (talk) 17:50, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
I think I see what your saying. The first source references that economist like consumption taxes (which the FairTax is) but it doesn't say what is superior about them. The second and third source discuss the benefits of consumption taxes, which is used to state the general reasons why these taxes are liked. The mulitple points have been brought together in a summary form in the lead. The article itself goes into more detail regarding these areas and more reference information can be found there. In addition, there are references below that apply to the entire article that discusses these concepts. Do you feel the information is incorrect or misrepresented? I'll try to find a source that has it discussed as a more direct statement. Morphh (talk) 20:09, 01 January 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, I feel like there's a bit of OR behind the jump from (1) "many economists like consumption taxes" and (2) "here are reasons some people like consumption taxes" to (3) "many economists like consumption taxes for these reasons." If there are references further down that explicitly support (3), they should be brought up into the lead. Fireplace (talk) 20:18, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
No problem, it should not be too hard to find something that states this more clearly. To the thought, we're not explicitly saying that they only like them for these reasons. These are just some of the common arguments in support of consumption taxes. I guess we're making a small jump that they like them for the reasons that are commonly argued. For now, I'll see about spliting the statement into two parts. After I finish integrating the Bartlett article material, I'll try to find a better source for the joined statement, which may be in a later reference. Morphh (talk) 22:18, 01 January 2008 (UTC)

The most visible proponent of the FairTax today is probably Mike Huckabee -- perhaps he should be mentioned directly in the lead. Fireplace (talk) 16:24, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree that he has become one of the more visible proponents in the last couple months due to his success in the primaries. Several months ago he was just one of many, although he was probably one of the most vocal. John Cox out voiced him in the beginning on the issue but then dropped off the map. There were a couple cosponsors that were running and then you had Mike Gravel pushing pretty hard on the Dem side. Thompson got a bit of attention on it for a while. McCain said he would sign it as well. The topic was brought up in a couple debates. Since Huckabee has been gaining in Iowa, and now won Iowa, it has brought him more into the light. I was waiting for him to move a little further along. If he continues to do well, then it will be more of an issue, if not - then he'll probably disappear. I have no issue with including him at this point in the lead. If he fades away, we can remove his name. In the third paragraph, something like "...and additional visibility is being gained in the 2008 presidential campaign (candidate Mike Huckabee being the most vocal)." Is this what you had in mind? Morphh (talk) 19:57, 06 January 2008 (UTC)
Yup. I added it sans the parentheses. And you're right -- if/when his star fades, it should probably be taken out of the lead. Fireplace (talk) 20:24, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Worked example

I have some problems with the worked example added. For one, the data is from 2004, when 2006 data is available for poverty figures (from the Census) and 2005 available for historical effective rates. In addition, it uses a household of 2.6. While average, the family consumption allowance does not break down like this. It is either two or three. A family of two would have a poverty level of $20,420 for 2007, not $14,000. A family of three would have a poverty level of $23,900. The poverty level is based on the figures from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, not the U.S. Census Bureau (they don't appear to be the same figures). While I don't dispute the figures and math, the combination of this data in this way is a "Synthesis of published material serving to advance a position" - original research. If we used 2005 data for effective rates, the figure would be 14.2% on $58,500 for the current income system. Using 2007 poverty level figures and rounding up the 2.6 to 3 for household size, the figure would be 13.6% for the FairTax. If you rounded down (household of 2), the rate would be 14.9%. Using 2005 figures for the rebate, the figures were $19,140 for a couple and $22,400 for couple and child. So the rates would be 15.4% (2) and 14.1% (3) for 2005 on $58,500. Like I said, I don't have a problem with the math, but I think this is a synthesis of published material serving to advance a position, either way - for or against the FairTax, it is OR. Morphh (talk) 14:16, 03 January 2008 (UTC)

To see this in terms of realistic numbers, we can turn to the CBO figures[1] on household income and total federal tax rate. For the middle quintile of American households, all federal taxes consumed 14.1% of the $58,000 average income. With the poverty level set at approximately $14,000[2] for an average household size of 2.6,[3] that household would pay FairTax on $44,000 of its income, for an effective federal tax rate of 17.4%.

Another thing to add... the reference to household size (2.6), (2), or (3) does not correlate with anything on the income tax side. It just compares the middle quintile and then it makes a jump to the average family size for the baseline of poverty. What if the middle quintile has a larger family on average? Also note that the section this was removed from is a summary style, so this information should first be present in the sub-article. Morphh (talk) 22:18, 03 January 2008 (UTC)

Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

The failure to move any of the above argumentation and analysis to the "Fair Tax" wiki-page, and, (what amounts, by resource allocation and by deletion, to) effective censorship incurred by wikipedia members (not to mention users) by being prevented from entering links to credible academic sites offering peer-reviewed critical-analysis, affords "Fair Tax(ers)" a ringing endorsement by wiki during national party primary season. As provided above, in a link from economist Greg Mankiw's website, the economist Bruce Bartlett rebuts the Fair Tax. By doing so, Bartlett hangs out a great deal of the dirty laundry hidden behind the well-funded (bought and paid for) research put forth by the class-warriors promoting this fallacious charade. Let's call the "Fair Tax" what it is: Britney Spears economics. Look's good, taste's good, and feels mighty fine--until one wakes up and has to pick up her dirty laundry. By labeling this think-tank-vetted submission an "article of excellence" wikipedia appears to be endorsing a political ploy. Will the wiki-editors fight for and defend the economic version of cold-fusion, very recently endorsed by no less of an authority on the economics of taxation than a preening religious huckster with presidential ambitions? Will God sanction the fair tax? The jury is still out. Due to the time-sensitive nature of this important political topic during peak presidential primary season, and, considering the widespread traffic beating a path to wiki--the seedbed of all information--at the very least provide a link on the "Fair Tax" page to contrasting opinions immediately, most notably to Bruce Bartlett's link as mentioned above in a half-dozen talk page entries. Most importantly, thanks to all of you for your active stewardship of wikipedia. keenbean

Where do you get that there has been failure to move the above argumentation into the article, or that there is censorship, or that anyone is being prevented from entering links to credible academic sites. I've been adding the Bartlett material all week and the Tax Notes article is sourced at least 10 times and I'm still adding material. Give me a break - We've had it less then a week! It's only in one post, not have a half-dozen. The link you added is already included in the sources. Most of what I've been adding for the past two months has been mainly Bartlett criticism. Morphh (talk) 14:18, 05 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply morph. Adding a direct link to Bartlett's article at the bottom, along with all of the other considerable efforts you have made, would be a step in the right direction. Incidentally, the censorship I refer to is that of members being prevented from offering opposing opinions--i.e., it is an issue of who is controlling the printing and editing of on-page information. My assumption is that you are that person--and for that I thank you for taking on a thankless task. When I attempted to add a simple link to Harvard economics professor Greg Mankiw's site first thing this morning, not knowing there was a war of words ensuing on the talk page, I was rebuffed. Providing a direct link to the original source (Bartlett) would allow casual readers (non-academics) critical insight into this important topic during presidential primary season. Tax policy is an absolutely critical topic to Americans seeking to inform themselves regarding policy platforms. The way the article reads--even today--strikes the reader as a ringing endorsement of tax policy cold fusion. Along with many other critical failures, the shameless huckster with presidential ambitions I refer to was just quoted in national news as endorsing the "Fair Tax." Along with the implied endorsement of his campaign by GOD, the fair tax pledge is an equally devious throw-out to a certain regressive faction of the American landscape--i.e. the "privileged one percent" and "white sheet voters." Hence the urgent need for broader information. My personal training is as a political scientist with deep experience with the issues faced by poor working families--whose needs it is increasingly un-fashionable to protect; my father is a Harvard trained corporate tax attorney; my childhood friend is on the staff of the BHI. I disagree with both of them, wholeheartedly, and have presented a qualitative critique simply seeking to broaden the debate above. To repeat, providing a direct link on the page of the "Fair-Tax" page is critical to broadening the discussion. Thank you for your efforts. keenbean (talk) 15:57, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't quite understand - you removed your own link according to the article history. However, adding links should follow the guidelines in external links. I'm not sure it would be a good addition there as it is already in the references and highly sourced (and will be more sourced in the next week as I include more of his criticism). However, it is just one of many many articles - why should he get such a link over anyone else. Wikipedia is not a linkfarm. They can search Google to find more direct critical articles. I don't see that any one is using censorship to prevent opposing opinions. However, we do have to work within the rules and policies of Wikipedia. Morphh (talk) 15:18, 05 January 2008 (UTC)

Points well taken. Although the initial link was not removed deliberately by me, my hope is that it has been restored using the same model as the other links provided. If not, since you have considerable experience, perhaps you could help me to do so. My argument is this: if a key contrasting article published by a peer-reviewed source is not provided in the "References" section alongside prominent links provided to those sponsoring the article, then the lay-reader will not be privy to equally-accessible critical contrasting information. For this reason, (concerning technical references, please understand that I am not a routine wiki-reader or contributor) I suggest that a link to a contrasting opinion/article be provided to offer balance to the materials supporting the subject which are posted prominently in the "References" section. Again, the thrust of my criticism is that equal resources might ought to be devoted to contrasting opinions--considering the importance and timeliness of this issue. And while we agree that Bartlett's key article is but one of many, the prominence of the References section--added to the fact that there are no direct links therein to provide contrasting opinions--is what is troublesome, particularly considering facility of access for the lay-reader. With that, since I am not a wiki-professional, I defer to your judgement. Good day.keenbean (talk) 15:57, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

The items in the refernece section are books, not articles. Bartlett's article is already in the notes section and referenced as footnotes in the statements. By the time I'm done, it is going to be one of the most sourced references in the article. Let me look at the guidelines for this and get back to you. It would seem to be bias to add this one specific Bartlett opponent article as web reference, when we have no others that do the same. We have many other opponent pieces as well as proponent articles - not sure why this one should get any particularly favored placement. Morphh (talk) 17:33, 05 January 2008 (UTC)

My mistake. My input above should read "External Links" (section) in every case where I erroneously wrote "References" (section). Does it not strike you as odd that the references to Bartlett in each of the various wiki-entries related to Fair Tax are identical, and (perhaps rightfully--in retort) seek only to narrow contrasting opinions? It appears Bartlett did pen the Scientology-Fair Tax link. Did Scientology seek a fair tax platform, but fail to brand and market it in the way that Fair Tax proponents have succeeded in doing? Chicken and egg, or, was Bartlett engaging in smearing opponents with a broad brush? Is that brush broad enough to denounce his rebuttal? Has Bartlett replied, or sought to clarify? Does the Scientology linkage entirely discredit all opposition to using an inflated national sales tax as the fundamental source of revenue? Are Bartlett's economic policy points--along with those of others--worthy of outright dismissal? The world waits and wonders. Thanks for engaging this important topic. Good day.keenbean (talk) 17:23, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

The external links section is fairly specific in what it is used for and I don't think an article like this fits this role. All references to any specific article will use the same number as a footnote. At the Notes section, that reference will have a (a,b,c,d,e) linking to each reference in the article. This is just the formating of footnotes for wikipedia and does not intend to narrow opinions - contrasting or otherwise. As for Scientology, they had they're own national sales tax plan that was different from the FairTax. It was pushed by an organization called CATS (Citizens for an Alternate Tax System). Americans for Fair Taxation was a separate organization that did their own research, polls, and came up with their own plan, the FairTax. I'm not sure why it matters in tax policy - seemed like a way to smear based on guilt by association, since most people dislike Scientology. I would take some of Bartlett's criticism lightly. Some is very good and some is just factually incorrect. Throughout his WSJ articles and this one as well, he has made many factual errors. Until this article, he was still saying the prebate was based on income, which it is not. In this article, Bartlett states that family age is required on the FCA application, that failure to refile will result in an immediate cut off of the prebate, and that the prebate WILL go to members over the age of 18. None of which is accurate. He presents the tax panel study as the FairTax in the tax distribution (table 5), which the tax panel never stated. The tax panel's reference to the FairTax was when they discussed the rate and the tax base. He's quick to point out (pg 1252) the Tax Panel tax rate only includes income taxes when discussing the tax rate but completely ignores it when he's discussing tax distribution. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, three-fourths of taxpayers pay more in payroll taxes than they do in income taxes. I don't mind an honest critique but some of the things Bartlett writes are misinformation in my opinion. So just be careful how much you take a face value. Morphh (talk) 17:59, 05 January 2008 (UTC)

From Wiki-Guidelines: "On articles with multiple points of view, the number of links dedicated to one point of view should not overwhelm the number dedicated to other equal points of view, nor give undue weight to minority views. Add comments to these links informing the reader of their point of view. If one point of view dominates informed opinion, that should be represented first. For more information, see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view—in particular, Wikipedia's guidelines on undue weight." Unpacking this policy is an exercise in itself. My reading is that the Fair Tax site verges on a near one-sided policy pronouncement. Thus it needs a contrasting opinion--provided by an "other equal point(s) of view." Thus, since the Fair Tax points-of-view, as evidenced in the "External Links" section, are represented first (and thoroughly), there ought to be room for an "External Link" to equally popular points of view. That other points of view are equal, and not to be given "undue weight to minority views" is evidenced by the finding that a significant portion of the intellectual and academic community seek to illustrate the perils of such a policy position for a very significant portion of the population--in their view... In my view, the way the article reads now verges upon that of an Advertisement for a minority policy proposal--however well funded. It also appears to have been lifted from papers produced by the organization itself, if not created by a member. All that aside, it appears the ascribed rules above permit the publishing of an "External Link" to Bartlett's paper in the section set aside for external links--based upon the contention that Bartlett's rebuttal supplies a contrasting opinion of--equal--(if not greater) weight (and not a minority view) which ought to be allowed to be made readily accessible on the existing "External Links" section. Thanks again for your considerable devotion. keenbean (talk) 17:55, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I would completely agree that this article still reads like, if not an advertisement, at least a very carefully written advocacy piece. Brianyoumans (talk) 20:05, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
You've been around wikipedia long enough to know this doesn't help. Broad statements like this do nothing but cause wikistress, issues, and arguments - leading to the main reason why people leave wikipedia (see Raul's first law of Wikipedia). You also probably know that every controversial article is normally perceived to be biased if it does not line up with the reader's preconceived views. We've had this reviewed by tax experts, proponents, opponents, editors with no interest, peer-reviewed (twice), GA-reviewed, FA-reviewed (three times). We've even had people from other countries review it that have no vested interest in the plan but are knowledgeable on taxes. If you have a particular issue with the article, bring it up and we'll work to address it. Not saying there is not room for improvement but this is just the way things tend to go. We're all volenteers here just trying to make things better. Personally, if I use a broad brush - I think the article is biased against the FairTax as it includes much criticism that is not of the FairTax plan but other made up sales tax plans. However, the material should be included and any rebuttals should be included. Morphh (talk) 1:39, 06 January 2008 (UTC)
The links in the external link section are not to articles though. They are to main sites that provide more information. Many of the external links are seen as neither pro / con. They serve a function to the reader beyond the context of the article. Once I finish adding in the Bartlett points, there will be no additional value in providing such an external link. See "Links normally to be avoided" (1) and "What should be linked". If there is opposing opinion that is not present in the article, where you can find a reliable source for, then we can look at including it. Please don't charge one-sided bias without providing examples of where we have not included proper criticism from a reliable source. Such is not helpful in improving the article and only causes stress and arguments. There is usually reasons why things are worded the way they are. This article has gone through many editors and has had significant review by both proponents and opponents. Morphh (talk) 18:19, 05 January 2008 (UTC)
Keenbean, since I have not finished including all the pertinent Bartlett points, I'll be OK with adding the link for now. Morphh (talk) 1:39, 06 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks morph. It would be great to have additional contrasting opinions threaded into the article in such a way that does not continue to lower the Fair Taxer's to the appearance of denigrating those holding opposing views. As we both know, Bartlett's decision to link Fair Tax to Scientology was either a mistake based on historical firsts, or, possibly disingenuous. Likewise, smearing Bartlett with his own Scientology blunder--as it currently reads on the page--distracts the reader from his pertinent points (tarring him with a broad brush). The very idea that every single one of the "External Links" is a site put forth by supporters of the Fair Tax platform, while a lay-reader seeking insight is stuck sorting through dozens of bibliographical references to divine opposing views such as Bartlett's, smacks of narrow advocacy. We all know that the lay reader will turn to what is made available through the External Links first, before sifting through the dozens of (out-of-order) bibliographical sources. We also know that the sites listed currently are not neutral--each one is a Fair Tax proponent or resource including a Fair Tax calculator. This subject is too important for such an outcome, which is why providing a link (maybe to Mankiw's site?--linked to Bartlett--a poor substitute for a fancy website--until some well-heeled donor sends academic authors such as Bartlett millions to create a website to respond to every new Intelligent-Design-like proposal that is foisted upon Americans) remains important. Thanks for volunteering to manage what is clearly a very important issue. keenbean (talk) 13:39, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I removed the word "however" after Bartlett's statement on Scientology, which perhaps makes it less contrasting. As far as the external links, we have to include the first one as they are the FairTax (AFFT) and the second is the bill sponsor. They have additional information regarding status, studies, etc. They do not link to anything in particular - the entire sites are dedicated to the FairTax. The last two are the bill, which is neither pro or con. So you're left with the Forum, Scorecard, and Calculator. The forum will take questions and posts from both opponents and proponents. Information can be learned from either group. We're only suppose to include generally one forum if it is well promoted as the main form, which this one is. I don't know of an "opponent" forum that is well promoted and dedicated to the FairTax. The Scorecard can show opponents or proponents who favors the bill and who doesn't - I see no issues there - the information is reliable and I don't expect that an opponent site would be any different if there was one. The last is the calculator, which could show that you lose or gain under this system. I don't know that the calculator is biased but if expected, I would remove this link before adding a direct link to an article. Makiw's site is a blog and would not be appropriate for Wikipedia. I'm not sure how many people use external links but Wikipedia is not a link farm. It is intended to be very limited and link to some well known central websites of information beyond the article. It is not intended to link to specific articles, that is what the body of the article is for - to lay out the opinions of such articles. If someone wants to skip reading the article and jump to the external links, they have the wrong place - try a google search instead. I'd much rather remove links then add unless you find a reliable opponent site that is similar in function to the ones discussed above. I'm flexible on removing John Linder's link (since this is not highly published site) or the calculator and perhaps the forum, if this would improve things. I agree that they could be considered proponent sites but I have no similar opponent sites and in some cases I'm not sure it would matter based on the content (like the scorecard). It is important that this section stay within the proper role for External links. I don't want to start adding article links in here for the sake of adding opponent sites - balance applies if we have similar sites on both sides to include that fit the context of the section. Thank you for discussing the issues. Morphh (talk) 19:33, 06 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm troubled by the way Brianyoumans's assertion was dismissed, to wit: "this article still reads like, if not an advertisement, at least a very carefully written advocacy piece."

Unlike religion and politics, economics and taxation are measurable and quantifiable, and don't have to depend upon opinions (like "my political party is better than your political party").

I'm furthered troubled that outside the polite and respectful realm of this wiki forum, questioners of the FairTax are usually shouted down and ridiculed. Finally, I'm concerned that so much of the FT presentation has been obfuscatory, if not deceptive. (i.e, the way rates are calculated, etc.) Supporters place a lot of emphasis on the utopia that will be and not the mechanics of how it works.

I approach tax issues as an economics instructor, so I like to think I have less bias than most, but I have to agree with Brianyoumans, that there's a bit too much advocacy and insufficient critical challenge. The lack of critical references is usually attributed to a paucity of opposing 'quality' articles on the web, but I've encountered articles by the Brookings Institute that I thought were well executed.

A friend recently made the observation that people hate the IRS so much, they're willing to take on any other devil-in-disguise to be rid of it. That doesn't reflect my own thinking, but the comment is worth bearing in mind.

--UnicornTapestry (talk) 13:55, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I did not dismiss Brianyoumans. We've been talking on this article for quite some time. I asked him to address specific concerns. Could you provide a reference to an area that has insufficient critical challenge along with a reliable source to a point of view that is not present? In which area do you find there is a lack of critical references? We've included many references to the Brookings Institute or more specifically to William Gale. Morphh (talk) 14:20, 05 February 2008 (UTC)

Joint Committee on Taxation

The article states that the Joint Committee on Taxation would be part of the process of passing this proposed tax legislation. Correct me if I'm wrong, but normally the Joint Committee is not part of the process. Somebody may be thinking of the conference committee that is typically formed when the House and Senate pass differing versions of the same proposed legislation. Can anyone explain why the Joint Committee is mentioned in the article instead of the conference committee?? Famspear (talk) 21:45, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Got me on this one - I'm not that familar with the process when it gets to that level. It should be the same as any other tax legislation. I change it to conference committee and if anyone disagrees we can discuss it further. Thanks Morphh (talk) 23:40, 06 January 2008 (UTC)
I ended up just removing that statement. Feel free to correct it or reword it as needed. Morphh (talk) 23:43, 06 January 2008 (UTC)

Clarification needed?

The article includes this statement:

John Linder plans to include a sunset provision in H.R. 25 during the 111th Congress that would repeal the Sixteenth Amendment within 5 years after the implementation of the FairTax or the FairTax goes away.

You cannot repeal a constitutional provision with legislation -- sunset or otherwise. Constitutional provisions can be repealed only by action of the states under Article V -- in other words, by ratifying still another amendment to the Constitution. That ratification process can be initiated by the Congress, but cannot be completed by Congress. The applicable language needs to be clarified or removed from the article; I doubt that this language accurately describes what Linder is trying to do. Famspear (talk) 22:02, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Note: This is separate from the problem of the effect of repeal of the Amendment. As the article already more or less notes, what the Fair Tax proposal includes is a proposed hard or aggressive repeal. Merely repealing the Sixteenth Amendment itself (a soft repeal), without more, would not remove the power of Congress to tax incomes. To prevent Congress from having the power to tax incomes, you would actually need specific language (e.g., in the repealing amendment) that would say "Congress shall have no power to tax incomes" or words to that effect. The article does not go into detail on the complex legal reason why this is so (and perhaps does not need to do so), but fortunately the article does mention it. Famspear (talk) 22:09, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Famspear - what the sentence was intending to say is that the FairTax will go away if the 16th Amendment is not repealed within 5 years. H.R. 25 itself would not repeal it, as you stated. So I'll reword it. "John Linder plans to include a sunset provision in H.R. 25 during the 111th Congress that would require the repeal of the Sixteenth Amendment...". Thank you for pointing out the error. Morphh (talk) 23:35, 06 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Famspear (talk) 00:39, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

2nd Chart in "Distribution of tax burden" is Not Representative of the FairTax

I'd like to suggest the removal of the 2nd chart in "Distribution of tax burden." It's a chart from a completely different sales tax plan and is not representative of the FairTax. This is probably confusing to those first learning about the FairTax here at Wiki.

The President's Advisory Panel made up their own version of a national retail sales tax. Quote from: Lawrence Kotlikoff

Thus, the panel ignored a main advantage of the FairTax—eliminating the regressive payroll tax—and required the sales tax to generate more revenue than the FairTax stipulates.

So the chart shows a more regressive and higher sales tax than the FairTax which can easily give many readers the wrong impression and thus the chart should be removed.

I would also like to suggest that a new article by Lawrence Kotlikoff be considered for inclusion in the list of external links since it's a direct reply to Barlett's.

Off Topic: My research about the FairTax eventually led me to Wikipedia. I must say you have a pretty well balanced article, especially so since I also read the entire discussion. The discussion dismayed me a bit because I perceived what can only be called an attempt to inject political bias into a subject that is supposed to be non-partisan. I can only imagine what goes on daily here at the entire Wiki. Morphh, to put up with this stuff on a regular basis you are a better man than I. Thank you so much. Dculling (talk) 16:21, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. I agree with you on the chart, but for the sake of neutrality, we've included it. I argued that same point a while back - it is not a graph of the FairTax, and therefor should not be included as an example of tax distribution. It was argued that there were no opponent charts in the article, which presented bias and that we should replace the FairTax chart with the Tax panel chart. To compromise, we've left both charts but with a statement that hopefully makes it clear that this is not the FairTax but a hybrid model. If you have some suggestions on how this could be presented better and still neutral, feel free to comment or make changes. While we know it is not the FairTax, it is what opponents use to attack the FairTax. We can be clear and truthful about what it is, but to remove it may remove a point of view. Looking at the narration, we could probably be a little more clear that their income tax replacement excludes payroll taxes. With regard to the external links, I rather not have either link there. They don't belong in that section. The only thing left on Bartlett's paper to include are some criticism on revenue neutrality and tax burden, which need to be first included in the sub-articles. We can also begin on including Kotlikoff's points. I don't want to make the external links section some repository for anything we haven't yet included that was recently published. Part of the criticism with the external links was their were too many pro-sites. So I'm planning on reducing this to the essential sites and the Bartlett link will go as well. Morphh (talk) 18:49, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

By the very nature of the name "Fair Tax" the proposal inked above IS political. To divorce policy proposals (especially those which would change the economic and political landscape radically) from politics is itself dishonest. To refuse to provide contrasting opinions (through equal access--external links) speaks for itself. We remain happy that the Fair Tax advocates advocate for the fair tax. keenbean (talk) 19:26, 15 February 2008 (UTC)keenbean

I would like to suggest another possible issue with these charts. They compare the tax burden resulting from the FairTax and the current income tax as a percentage of income for various income levels, and this implicitly assumes that the natural coordinate for evaluating tax burden is as a fraction of income. This is a common and legitimate perspective, but it is also possible, and arguably informative, to plot the actual number of dollars taken in Federal taxes as a function of income. If anyone knows where such a representation exists, I suggest that perspective be included here as well.74.192.15.25 (talk) 16:44, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Good point, Income is surprisingly poorly correlated with expenditure and the ability-to-pay. If I see such a chart or table, I'll post here and we can consider inclusion, if not in this article maybe the sub-article. Morphh (talk) 17:39, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Tax avoidance issue

The article mentions the problem of tax evasion (people not paying the tax they legally owe). It's silent, however, about tax avoidance. As I learned it in law school, this means structuring your affairs so that you legally owe less tax.

This article about the "Fair Tax" proposal suggests that people would have an incentive to buy in Canada or Mexico to avoid the tax. Under the most common forms of the proposal, how would such transactions be treated? U.S. citizens living in Detroit drive over to Windsor, Ontario to do their grocery shopping. They bring their purchases back into the U.S. and consume them here without reselling. Do they owe the sales tax? JamesMLane t c 17:59, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I do believe they legally owe the tax in this situation, so I think this would be evasion if they got away with this. Such transactions are to be enforced by the U.S. Customs Service. If they consumed the groceries over there and didn't bring anything back to the U.S., then this might be considered avoidance but it is the intentional effect of a destination principle tax. I'll give the article a read. Morphh (talk) 18:04, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
The term black market in the article seems to imply evasion (since it is illegal) rather then avoidance, which is covered by the term underground economy. I'm including a statement on tax avoidance in the section "Tax compliance and evasion", since they use the term avoid and reference Canada and Mexico. Although I'm not sure if that is what they meant, I think it is a valid concern that should probably be included. Morphh (talk) 18:30, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
After reading the tax evasion definition on Wiktionary, I do think the article was talking about evasion. Wiktionary defines it as "illegal avoidance", which would follow the terms used in the article. So, now I think I may have introduced original research with this entry as I'm not sure the source supports the statement. The source states "..if consumers seeking to avoid the high sales tax develop a strong black market that sucks money out of federal coffers. Buying in Canada or Mexico would have the same effect." Does "same effect" refer to avoid, which might expand to legal tax avoidance or does it refer to the the aspects of black market and illegal tax avoidance (evasion)? It seems to me to imply buying goods and brining them back to the U.S., which would be evasion, not avoidance. Thoughts? Morphh (talk) 19:10, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
There are aspects of both. A Detroit family books the daughter's wedding reception at a hall in Windsor, to avoid the tax. Some of the guests hit a Canadian supermarket on their way home, and by not mentioning the groceries at Customs they evade the tax. Both would be problems for this plan. JamesMLane t c 00:14, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
For decades, Americans who could afford to do so buy their Mercedes or Lexus overseas, drive them for a week, and bring them back to the States as used cars with a reduced excise duty. The so-called FairTax only increases the incentive to buy overseas, thereby reducing manufacturing at home.
--UnicornTapestry (talk) 13:10, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Americans buying a Mercedes or Lexus overseas would be subject to the tax laws of that country - the VAT in this case (and other embedded income and business tax costs). The VAT (Germany being 19% inclusive / 24% exclusive) is removed from exports when imported to the U.S. for domestic purchase. So if they purchased overseas, not only would they be subject to foreign taxes, they would still be required to pay the FairTax by U.S. Customs when they brought it home. Used is defined in the legislation as something that has already had the FairTax paid, and there is no provision that I know of for a "reduced" duty. The argument of reducing manufacturing at home is inconsistent with research and other aspects of the plan. With the reduction of the corporate tax rate to zero, bringing manufacturing to the U.S. is one of the largest promotions of the FairTax. Princeton University Econometrics did a survey of 500 European and Asian companies regarding the impact on their business decisions if the United States enacted the FairTax. 400 of those companies stated they would build their next plant in the United States, and 100 companies said they would move their corporate headquarters to the United States. If you have a reliable source that states that the FairTax would reducing manufacturing at home and we have not included it, then please present it. Morphh (talk) 14:12, 05 February 2008 (UTC)
Could you point me to the provision relating to duties and the FT? I mention German as one example of a country that has programs to attract foreign buyers by providing a loophole for customers to buy a car without the standard VAT, drive it, and (under the present system) bring it into the US as a used vehicle. No one's proposed eliminating duties (anathema to conservative economists) as far as I've heard. Exactly how would this work?
I see your point about manufacturing here, but it's possible that might not translate into buying here (as I believe was suggested earlier). One reason the US remains popular with foreign tourists (not counting the dollar being trashed in recent years), is that products have been cheaper to buy here than in Europe and Japan. I'd like to see that continue, but can it? Thank you.
--UnicornTapestry (talk) 18:10, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
I believe the section that covers this is CHAPTER 1--INTERPRETATION; DEFINITIONS; IMPOSITION OF TAX; ETC., in particular SEC 101 (c-d). I understand your point on it translating into purchasing, which I expect is an argument with most destination principle tax systems. From what I've read in this regard, the gains outweigh the losses. Prices increasing or decreasing would be dependent on if monetary policymakers expand the money supply. If they expanded it, employees would take home their gross paychecks and prices would increase, if they don't - prices would stay about the same and employees would take home net value. For Americans, the purchasing power in either situation is about the same. I'm not as familiar with how this may effect the dollar value to foreign visitors, although I'm not sure this is a large enough portion of GDP to be of concern if such did decrease. The macroeconomic studies I've seen on the FairTax plan show growth in consumption and purchasing power, among other areas. See "Simulating the Dynamic Macroeconomic and Microeconomic Effects of the FairTax" by Laurence Kotlikoff & Sabine Jokisch — "A Macroeconomic Analysis of the FairTax Proposal" by Arduan, Lapher & Moore Econometrics — "The Economic Effects of the FairTax: Results from the BHI CGE Model" by the Beacon Hill Institute. Morphh (talk) 19:19, 07 February 2008 (UTC)

All of the external links appear to be proponents of the FairTax. Would be nice to link to some critics as well, if there are sites of that nature. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.150.152.178 (talk) 18:35, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

All the links have to fall under the policy of external links. We've reduced the external links to the primary official sites that are dedicated to the FairTax and provide research, publications, and discussions beyond what the article would include. I've searched through the top 100 google hits and did not find any opponent sites that fit such a criteria. If your just looking for opponent articles, then a simple google search will turn up critical viewpoints. We will also have such links contained in the footnotes and references from the positions presented in the article. Morphh (talk) 21:46, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Garnered the same response for my suggestion. It appears that the only solution is for some advocate to construct a "primary official OPPONENT site," which, at present, does not exist. This gives enormous advantage on Wikipedia to "primary advocates" as each and every variation of a single-issue advocacy-pronouncement does not result in private funding necessary to construct a responding commercial site. (This speaks volumes about the perils of commercialization, and about those who would presume to be the "gatekeepers" of wiki, but no room here.) This is in spite of the fact that significant contrasting peer-reviewed (academic, not funded-institute) articles are readily available on the net. While only a writer myself, perhaps collating the various peer-reviewed articles under a single umbrella--to be "linked" on this "fair" tax page would be a good project for a designer. keenbean (talk) 19:48, 15 February 2008 (UTC)keenbean

Many of the articles, studies, and links you describe are present in the article as footnotes to the critical content. So even if you did put together a site that just linked to critical information, would it provide research beyond what the article already includes? The external links are sites that contain a large amount of additional research beyond what the article covers. Since opponent research pretty much gets added instantly to this article, while a vast amount of proponent data does not, the external links guide them to find the additional research. Even the large researchers BHI and Kotlikoff do not have external links to their research, which vastly dwarfs any "opponent" research. Their material is referenced as footnotes in the article to the content, just like opponent research. Morphh (talk) 18:23, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

There continues to be confusion here, expressed by many in this discussion thread, and not exclusively "Democrats" or "opponents," about whether this is a one-sided article, or, the product of well-funded think tanks. BHI and AFT are well-funded think tanks, describing themselves as "non-partisan," whatever that refers to anymore. Echoes of "Fair and Balanced" come to mind. As we know, the political machinery pays less and less heed to the legions of unwashed Americans. Is this a panacea to needy Americans? There is a distinction between bought and paid research, and peer-reviewed work, though that is growing ever more indiscernible. That is why arcane policy changes are battled out between academics for years, if not decades, and why the wheels of government are right in moving deliberately slowly--particularly in times of a national crisis. That said, it is good now to find the "Footnotes" section in a more prominent place than at the bottom of the page. P.S. Might be good to include wiki's "progressive taxation" link along side the one for AMT as a salve those concerned about balance and access. keenbean (talk) 19:48, 15 February 2008 (UTC)keenbean

New study by Kotlikoff

New study by Kotlikoff - The FairTax and Middle Americans – A Case Study Morphh (talk) 20:54, 30 January 2008 (UTC)


Thanks for the link, Morph. I have to say, I'm really disappointed in Kotlikoff. I'm surprised he could publish that with a straight face.

If example of the middle class family that pays less under the FairTax is clear enough. But EVERYBODY pays less under a 23% tax-exclusive rate, which is why it cannot possibly raise enough money to fund the government.

But then at the end, he gives a totally ridiculous example of a rich family who's taxes supposedly go up under the FairTax. First he assumes that they currently only pay taxes at a 7.5% rate on their income. Then he assumes that the family spends 100% of its income on taxable goods of services. Both assumptions are basically ludicrous. Plus, he ignores the estate tax. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.166.114.11 (talk) 17:20, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

He recently published another one titled: "Why Democrats Should Love the FairTax". Morphh (talk) 18:31, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm telling you, Kotlikoff is going to lose his hard-won reputation as a serious economist. To keep repeating that the rich don't pay taxes is just crazy and can clearly be refuted. Moreover, he should talk to an estate planning lawyer before he makes assertions that the wealthy can avoid estate taxes with the proper planning. It doesn't work that way. You can have certain assets given a somewhat lower valuation for estate tax purposes, but once your assets exceed a few million, you're pretty much stuck paying estate taxes unless you give it all away. I hope AFFT is paying him well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.166.114.11 (talk) 23:55, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Splitting hairs on terminology

I moved the references to "corporate tax" and "capital gains" tax so that they are inside the parenthetical for the "income tax." The U.S. federal "capital gains" tax is simply one component of the federal income tax. Similarly, the "corporate tax" refers to the Wikipedia article on corporate tax -- which is simply a kind of federal "income tax."

By contrast, the FICA taxes, gift taxes and estate taxes are already properly shown as separate elements (i.e., they are not income taxes).

By the way, some people mistakenly think of FICA taxes as being "income taxes." Although, from the standpoint of an employee who has the FICA taxes (both Social Security and Medicare) withheld from his or her paycheck, it might be difficult to see the difference, the FICA tax is actually not an "income tax"; it's an "employment tax" imposed under Subtitle C of the Internal Revenue Code. By contrast, "income" taxes (individual, corporate, etc.) are imposed under Subtitle A. The estate and gift taxes are "transfer" taxes (taxes on some, but not all, transfers of ownership of property), and are imposed under Subtitle B.

Ain't taxes fun? Famspear (talk) 17:59, 12 March 2008 (UTC)


Question

I have a quick question, would this proposal affect the tax systems that the states use? I ask since Oregon and 5 other states don't have sales tax, so what, if any affect would this have on them? -IkonicDeath —Preceding comment was added at 20:17, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Talk pages are for discussing the article. You might want to direct your questions to http://www.fairtaxgroups.com, but here is something go get you started. Fiscal Federalism: The National FairTax and the States Morphh (talk) 15:10, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I know, I was just curious since there was nothing in the article about it, and if it was going to have noticeable affect I figured it should be in the article. -IkonicDeath —Preceding comment was added at 22:22, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

The article makes several statements regarding the states in this area - see the third, forth and fifth paragraph under "Tax compliance", third paragraph under "Underground Economy". One thing regarding those States that don't have sales taxes, they are not forced to collect the tax. It can be administered by the Fed or a neighboring state if they so choose. You may want to review Fair Tax Act: Chapter 4. State and Federal Cooperative Tax Administration, and here is the plain English version. Morphh (talk) 1:54, 18 April 2008 (UTC)


comments on intro section

Morphh,

I haven't looked at this article in a while, but reading over the intro section now, the language I think has gotten very good and balanced and referenced and NPOV. My compliments to you for your role in making it be as such. The one small objection I have though is singling out the AMT as something that would be replaced. I can see mentioning corporation taxes and capital gains taxes because many people might not be familiar with the fact that they are also considered income taxes. I do not think there is much lack of familiarity about the AMT being part of income taxes though. If you are going to mention it, why not also mention that income taxes include dividend taxes, interest taxes, taxes on tips, etc.

Otherwise, though, it looks quite, quite good.

Cheers, HalfDome (talk) 08:15, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Either way is fine with me, but I prefer to include it. There has been a lot of talk regarding the AMT, particularly for tax reform. Most tax reforms considered in congress focus on replacing the AMT. So for that reason, I thought it important to mention that it does replace the AMT, which some people think of as separate from the personal income tax they know. I also often think of the personal income tax and the AMT as two separate things. However, I certainly concede the point that it is part of the same income tax code. I only see that it clarifies what it replaces but it doesn't really bother me if it is removed - I can live without it. Morphh (talk) 16:36, 06 May 2008 (UTC)

I changed the opening sentence to remove the IRS. It read that the IRS (a government agency) was going to be replaced with a national retail sales tax (a method of taxation), which doesn't make sense. If someone could rephrase it to state that the IRS will be gone, that's fine. I tried, but couldn't come up with anything. I also changed "corporate taxes" to "corporate income taxes" because excise taxes could be considered corporate taxes and they would remain under the FairTax. Tom Joad 2k (talk) 21:56, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Works for me... Morphh (talk) 14:48, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

More Studies on the FairTax

Morph -- I assume you will update the Wikipedia article with the recent study by Diamond and Zodrow, et.al concluding that even without any tax evasion the FairTax rate would need to be higher than proposed.

I also came across the following from a few years ago stating that the National Retail Federation had commissioned a study which concluded that the FairTax would have a substantial negative effect on retail sales, at least in the short run.

http://retailindustry.about.com/b/2005/03/03/retailers-question-greenspan-on-consumption-tax.htm

Accordingly, I think you might want to rewrite the article a bit to give some more weight to the fact there really is a lot of valid criticism of the FairTax. I would be happy to do so, but you'd probably delete my revision and ban me from Wikipedia.  :) 68.158.142.167 (talk) 11:50, 4 July 2008 (UTC)GeorgiaTex

I've already added the Diamond / Zodrow study on rate in the revenue neutrality section, but plan to add a bit more when I have time, along with the material that was the focus of their study. We also already have the NRF study included, which was done on the Individual Tax Freedom Act, it's in the economic section and the sub-article. I think we've done a decent job of covering both sides and the readers can decide what they think is valid. If there is a valid criticism that is missing, I'd certainly like to work it into the article. I do intend to expand the bit on tax evasion and include some of Gravelle’s research. Morphh (talk) 13:46, 04 July 2008 (UTC)

There is a conceptual issue about the Fair Tax rate that is independent of whether the revenue-neutral rate would have to be higher. Although I believe the Kotlikoff-Beacon Hill study from 2006, which shows data and methodology, is credible, let us assume that the critics on that point are correct. The consequence would be that the federal government today is already extracting that amount of revenue from the host economy. The Fair Tax does nothing more than shift the tax burden from the productive sectors of the economy to consumption without doing harm to consumption and in a manner that is fair to low and middle-income people.

Thus any argument that the Fair Tax rate, as proposed, is inadqeuate is not really a reason why the Fair Tax will not work.

~~Jim Bennett —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jbennettatty (talk • contribs) 15:31, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Revenue Neutrality Section

This section states "Moreover, these studies did not account for the expected capital gains that would result from a reduction in the real nominal value of U.S. government debt..." It seems to me "real nominal value" is a contradiction in terms. It's either real value or nominal value (I believe in this case it's real value). 128.249.96.253 (talk) 14:32, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Excellent catch - it should have been "real value of nominal U.S. government debt". Thanks Morphh (talk) 14:54, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Needs 'Lacks Neutrality' header

This is getting ridiculous. This is dictatorship of editing by a few users who seem to have an agenda. As evidenced by the countless objections to its content voiced on this talk page, this article is clearly disputed and it is not for any editor to declare otherwise. This talk page is overflowing with valid and, as of yet, unresolved disputes.41.245.133.130 (talk) 15:14, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

This article is most often visited by those opposing the plan, so a flood of posts after the main page is not unexpected. Discussion will determine what is valid, what disputes are reasonable and agreeable, and what should and should not be "resolved". As for a "Neutrality Header", which is to imply that a significant point of view is not present in the article - No such argument has been made on this talk, except for the one I made regarding a proponent POV not being present, but my point was illustration not correction. Morphh (talk) 16:19, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
No. The neutrality of this page is definitely in dispute. You argued with me back and forth defending an obviously incorrect word and while you eventually made the change you continue to argue against it. This page and the subarticles are simply too long to fight you every step of the way over every instance of clear bias. This is either a minor political issue, as you sometimes argue, undeserving of hundreds of k of text on the issue in which case the article should be edited down to a much smaller size and be removed from FA status or this is a serious political topic in which case the article needs the heavy handed pro bias removed which it is clear you are uninterested in allowing. At this time I'm respecting the rules of wikipedia by not putting the NPOV disclaimer on every time I visit the page and simply editing the entire thing since that would simply result in a fruitless back and forth series of edits. It seems clear to me that this is where we're headed if you refuse to acknowledge that the multitude of editors who have expressed dismay at the bias of this article have a point.Kbs666 (talk) 19:52, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

This article carries an obvious bias on a hot and current political topic. It should be flagged as such. It also uses weasel words and phrases. 24.155.23.207 (talk) 16:57, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Some weasal words may be acceptable in the lead if given attribution in the article content. We're trying to keep the lead to a summary and as tight as possible to convey the article content. I don't believe the topic is "hot" any longer (its more likely dead) and as far as bias, please provide some examples of critical material that is not included. Many editors have worked hard to present both sides of the arguments from reliable sources. If something important is missing, than we'd like to include it. Morphh (talk) 17:12, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
The lead, and its third paragraph in particular, is "tight" only in the sense of "packed with non-essential information."
  • The fact that an allegedly large movement supports the proposal is not important enough for the lead (sentence 1). The actual number in the footnote is 600,000, something like one-half of one percent of the registered voters in the U.S.
  • The names of the non-economist promoters don't need to be in the lead (sentence 2).
  • The fact that the bill has the highest number of supports of tax reform is not important enough for the lead, especially since nothing has happened in either House with the bill since it was referred to the respective committees more than a year ago (sentence 3). This bill is no more likely to pass the 110th Congress than the annexation of Newfoundland.
  • Even the fact that it hasn't been voted on in nine years is not important enough for the lead -- though it's a hint that support for the bill is less than overwhelming. (sentence 4).
  • Sentence 5 ("The plan is expected...") is especially weasel-y, since this belief is presumably that of its supporters, who don't appear till halfway through the ungainly sentence. At a minimum, it should read "Supporters believe the plan will..."
All of those could (and should) disappear from the lead. I would take them out myself, but you'd put them right back. OtherDave (talk) 11:05, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for the examples. I agree with some, disagree with some, and will discuss the background on others.
  • The third paragraph was requested and required per the FA. It summarizes particular sections in the article per WP:LEAD and WP:FACR 2(a). Since much surrounding the FairTax is about the movement, it was important to describe what significant events / organizations created the FairTax (such as AFFT, the Book, and the recent 2008 election). It seems important for the user to understand the base of the topic.
  • This article is not about all citizens. It is particular around the FairTax and tax reform in general. AFFT is significant in regard to the topic, not U.S. politics or the base of the U.S. population.
  • It seems important to list the bill sponsor and the primary promoter of the FairTax and the book which brought the topic into view. It is an important part of the topics notability.
  • I can slightly agree with the comment regarding the sponsorship, which has been reduced a large bit already. This again was part of showing the status of the legislation in regard to other tax reform measures, and while not voted on (which has to do with the committee chair), the sponsorship seems significant for a major tax reform bill.
  • I agree that the fact that it has not been voted on yet is not important enough, but can understand that this may also show the status of the legislation.
  • In regard to sentence five, I have an issue with making everything "supporters believe" because in many cases it's not just supporters. This limits the base, contrasting that opponents don't believe, which is not always the case. If opponents don't dispute that the plan would increase transparency (even agree with it), I find it bias to limit the term to supporters. There are parts of tax reform that both sides can agree on - not every aspect of the plan is bad or disputed, most of the significant criticism focuses on just a few topics, which they believe makes it unworkable. You'll notice that the second half of that sentence says ", and supporters believe..." separating the points.
Let me read through the policies and FA reviews, perhaps even pull in those editors that made those suggestions to further the discussion. Morphh (talk) 12:58, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
So the goal is to get FA status? Good, that's done. Now why not make the article less of a press release for FairTax? We're dancing another round of the shuffle between movement and bill ("oh, it's in the lead because the group is significant" "oh, that's in the lead because it got introduced as a bill"). Move the minutia into the main article -- specifically the FairTax Movement and Legislative History sections.
The notion that the bill is significant because it has more sponsors than similar bills is much like claiming someone's remarkable because he's the tallest Irish-American in Idaho. I found 141 House cosponsors to reauthorize the Secure Rural Schools Act, and 130 to provide research on postpartum depression.
Your reply to the last point is, frankly, bogus. "The plan is expected..." by whom? I'm sure you can find somebody who's not already on the FairTax board who said something positive about it. I can find people who were pretty sure the Iraq invasion would be a cakewalk.
This is an slanted lead, from its misleading impression that the bill has languished in Congress lo these many years (the clock starts anew and all bills must be reintroduced with each Congress), to the pointless belief of supporters that a tax reform will improve the environment. Despite frequent evocation of WP:Lead, I don't see that "the relative emphasis given to information in the lead [is] reflected in the rest of the text."
I keep waiting for a comparison that starts with an item currently costing $100, which I think is an easier figure to grasp that the beloved-by-advocates $77. As in, say:
An MP3 player sells for $100 before tax. A traditional sales tax rate of 30%, applied to the purchase price, would bring the total cost to $130. Looking at that total cost, FairTax proponents say that the $30 of tax makes up 23% of the total. In both cases the final cost is the same; the difference is that the FairTax rate of 23% is "tax-inclusive" while the traditional sales tax rate of 30% is "tax-excluded."
I suggest that's both easier to read and more straightforward. -- OtherDave (talk) 16:47, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Call for removal of this article or a rewrite

 THIS ARTICLE DOES NOT EXPRESS A NEUTRAL POV

IN AN ATTEMPT TO APPEAR CREDIBLE, MANY REFERENCES ARE INCLUDED, UNFORTUNATELY, HOWEVER WELL REFERENCED, THESE SOURCES THEMSELVES ARE ONLY OPINION PIECES, AND EVEN THEN, ALL OF ONLY ONE OPINION. Just considering the leed. The sources 5 and 6 are books by the same person who is proposing the FairTax bill in congress! Other sources are OPINION pieces from Neoliberal Conservative news prints (eg ref 2 3 4). As far as I am aware, opinion of this sort may only permitted if the editor makes it abundantly clear the view stated is the opinion of an individual and NOT generally accepted consensus. Here this is not the case.

For example, in the leed, it reads "Since income taxes have a hidden effect on prices,[4] it is expected that moving to the FairTax would decrease production costs (due to the removal of business taxes and compliance costs), which is predicted to offset a portion of the FairTax effect on prices (degree based on monetary policy).[5][6]"

When to be an honest reflection of the sources sited it should read something like this, "THE POLITICIANS WHO ADVOCATE THE BILL CLAIM THAT since income taxes have a hidden effect on prices,[4] it is expected that moving to the FairTax would decrease production costs (due to the removal of business taxes and compliance costs), which is predicted to offset a portion of the FairTax effect on prices (degree based on monetary policy).[5][6]

Anyone familiar global socioeconomic issues, even someone who has never heard of this topic, would apon reading this easily be able to dissern its authors clear right-wing neoliberal sympathies.

When Forbes published the 4th sited article: . "The American Dream Improving OUR Lot", by "our" does the author mean the rich capitalist class who FairTax would undoubtedly benefit tremendously from, or the vast majority of the worlds population who live in poverty at their expense? 41.245.133.130 (talk) 03:29, 16 July 2008 (UTC) Simon, RSA

As per WP:Words_to_Avoid placing a sentence as suggested like "Politician X Claims..." would most likely have the opposite effect and should be avoided. "By itself, the word "claim" does not carry POV. However, it has a high potential for abuse because it can often suggest or imply that a speaker is not being truthful. In general, it is best to avoid using "claim" to describe a statement from a person about their own mindset. Since it is impossible to get inside the person's head and know what he or she is thinking, and therefore it is impossible to prove or disprove such a statement, editors may resort to using "claim" as a way to encourage readers to doubt the speaker's sincerity. In general, do not juxtapose a statement of objective fact with a person's subjective "claim" regarding that fact." Wikihonduras (talk) 04:00, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
As per WP:Verifiability -- Self-published sources Policy, and this applies to references 5 and 6.
"Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, blogs, forum postings, and similar sources are largely not acceptable." In response to Wikihonduras above posting, you correctly assert that my suggestion stating "Politician X Claims..." such and such would be cumbersome and would be in an unacceptable in this case, I merely intended it to highlight the controversial claims this article makes, and their origin, that are presented as general consensus.
Furthermore: As per Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#News_organizations this applies to references 2, 3 and 4:
"Material from mainstream news organizations is welcomed, particularly the high-quality end of the market, such as the The Washington Post, The Times of London, and The Associated Press. ***However, great care must be taken to distinguish news reporting from opinion pieces***. Opinion pieces are only reliable for statements as to the opinion of their authors, not for statements of fact. When citing opinion pieces from newspapers or other mainstream news sources, in-text attribution should be given."
It is self evident from user comments on this talk page that many users have questioned that this article is NPOV and it should be duly noted as such. Please refrain from removing notice templates acknowledging this fact until such time as these concerns are addressed. I now replace that indicator on the article. 41.245.133.130 (talk) 17:18, 16 July 2008 (UTC)Simon
The sources are not considered Self-published per what you describe. They have a publisher and they're NYT bestsellers, not some online self-publish. In addition, the other references are given attribution in the article body. They are not attributed in the lead due to the space requirements of keeping a lead summarized on the article content. Also, attribution normally requires some dispute of the matter (that it is opinion and their is other opinion). It is not generally needed for statements that are considered fact, meaning there is no serious dispute. (For example, do you have any source that states that income taxes and complaince costs have no effect on price - this is a law of economics). In any case, a small dispute is not reason enough to add the tag to the entire article, particularly when it has reached this level of review. I'm not trying to dismiss your objection but you must provide some examples and participate in the discussion. NPOV is presenting one side and not presenting the other. We do not apply a tag for small attribution disputes or general claims without any evidence. In such a case, every controversal article would have someone adding a tag. We don't want this to escalate into an edit war so please discuss the particlar issues you have. Thanks Morphh (talk) 17:26, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
Here is a fairly simple example of the pervasive problems with this article "Moreover, these studies did not account for the expected capital gains that would result from a reduction in the real nominal value of U.S. government debt and the increased economic growth that most economists believe would occur" with 4 references. However none of the references show that the majority of living economists were polled for their opinion on this matter. Therefore the use of the word "most " instead of "some" is completely unjustified and in this case indicative of bias. After going through the references I find that much of them are drawn from a website called fairtax.org a fairly obviously biased source and after examination of the documents linked I found a lot of opinion pieces and not much data supporting the claims made. Kbs666 (talk) 20:52, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
When we're talking about economists, we're referring to those that have studied the plan or similar sales tax plans. Economic growth with a consumption tax is something that is almost universally agreed on, even the economist critics such as Gale. Most economists that have studied a national sales tax believe it would result in economic growth. They may dispute other areas, but economic growth is not generally one of them. The Money Magazine article calls it conventional wisdom. Obviously not all living economists have given their opinion, nor does such a statement seem to imply that. If it does, we can clarify it. Using sources from the organization that commissioned much of the research on the plan is not out of place in an article that is about that topic - they essentially are the FairTax. Morphh (talk) 21:20, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
No when we write "most economists" without other restrictions we mean most. Since that is clearly not the case here the use of the word is wrong and seems clearly biased. As to fairtax.org show me the research you claim is there. This article links to, among other things, an open letter signed by some economists, a broken link #22, a lengthy FAQ with a total of 4 footnotes and no endnotes or in document references, and several opinion pieces that make unsupported assertions but no studies supporting any of the claims made. I know the program hasn't been tried anywhere but making assertions as statements of fact, which as pointed out are everywhere in this article, would serve to confuse the casual reader. The best that can be said would be something along the lines of "Many economists believe the FairTax proposal would be beneficial to the economy." Furthermore the source for the material is named several different ways while all coming from the same domain this further serves to confuse the reader into believing there is wide consensus in favor of the topic when factually the proposal was dismissed completely by those who would vote on making it law. Kbs666 (talk) 06:48, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
While I thought the context of the entire sentence (and paragraph) was sufficient to limit the group to those researching the plan, I've specifically put that statement in there to hopefully address your concern. It now states "most economists researching the plan believe would occur". I've added several more references (now 8), and could likely double that if needed, however, I already think were at a point where it now looks ridiculous and biased by having too many supporting references (like we're trying to make a point). I think 4 or 5 is the max we should do so it doesn't give this appearance. The statement can also rely on other sourced content in the article regarding economic growth. I didn't have any issues of dead links regarding those already present (but I might remove or move a couple of them as stated above). Morphh (talk) 14:15, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
I did find the dead link and changed it to the archive site. Using information published by the central research authority on the FairTax is not an issue when on the article topic. I think we address the bill's position in Congress in the lead and Legislative section, so their should be no misunderstanding that it has not been placed for a vote by the committee on ways and means. I don't know that we address or could address "favor" but we should provide all the significant topic points with both proponent and opponent research, which I believe we do. What makes this article difficult for many is that the opponent research is greatly dwarfed by proponent research, which gives the appearance in some cases of imbalance. However, I can give examples of where we try to adjust (perhaps unfairly) for the sake of giving the opponent research more weight. Under the economics section we state "Opponents offer a study commissioned by the National Retail Federation in 2000 that found a national sales tax bill filed by Billy Tauzin, the Individual Tax Freedom Act (HR 2717), would bring a three-year decline in the economy, a four-year decline in employment and an eight-year decline in consumer spending." There is no rebuttal to this, which might clearly violate NPOV by not representing the proponent side. Here is the rebuttal "The FairTax has different features than the Tauzin bill and that the study done by the NRF makes many adverse assumptions and does not take into account the removal of embedded tax costs or the inventory credit that refunds 23% of the cost of held inventory. The study, which represents supporters' worst-case scenario for a consumption tax, predicts that the economy will grow only 3% more in ten years than it would have under the income tax and that the increase in consumption will be 1.15% less in the first year relative to what it would have been under the income tax. The study concludes that consumption will be higher in the fourth year and every year thereafter than it would have been under the income tax." Clearly here we're not talking about a slight understanding regarding context. We intentionally left out proponent rebuttal to make the opponent case stronger. There are several places we do this. In other cases, we've excluded particular proponent research or opinion that was not part of the main debate (meaning there was no significant points of criticism). Much of the research we present on the opponent side is not even of the FairTax plan and dramatically different in some cases. I personally think we've biased the article in the other direction based on the amount of information that could have been included. NPOV on Wikipedia does not mean 50/50 as some seem to think (this is not directed at you in particular - just speaking generically). My comments are not to suggest that I don't think we can improve the prose for better balance. We're working on that through discussion - much appreciated. I'm also trying to gather more critical points from the opponent research we do have as they become available. Oddly, this article has probably had more review, editing, and commentary that any tax article on English wikipedia. Personally, I don't know why a stagnant bill gets so much attention. You would think the actual existing legislation might be a higher priority. Morphh (talk) 16:14, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
"most economists researching the plan believe would occur" is still a statement of fact that no one can prove. The appropriate word would be "many" or "some." I prefer "some" since it most accurately reflects the truth of the matter but would accept "many." As to the con study from the National Retail Federation it points to another bad link (that's ref 64). Furthermore the number of references seems to be an attempt to support the FairTax simply by volume of supportive references. This isn't a dissertation and all those authors aren't on your committee. On other matters the explanation of inclusive versus exclusive tax rates is off topic for the article. At some point a one sentence explanation should be given with links to the wiki pages, created for the purpose if needed. That would trim one section roughly in half and provide the important information, the decptive tax rate number, quickly and clearly. On the subject of article length and sections, there are a number of sections with subarticles which also contain lengthy explanations including statements that require references. These should all be trimmed to short summaries of the subarticle as detailed in Wikipedia:Summary style or the subarticles should be deleted and the entire article trimmed to a manageable length. I'm uninterested in continuing a lengthy debate over every single instance of bias in this article. It is clear from comments on this page that many who read the article for the first time find the article to not have NPOV. If this can't be fixed by the editors who put so much work into this article then I will nominate the article for removal from FA status and start rewriting it myself.Kbs666 (talk) 17:20, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
A statement of fact as defined by Wikipedia is one where there is no serious dispute. The list of economists that have researched the FairTax that don't believe it would provide economic growth is extremely small (a tiny minority). Even on a larger scale of consumption taxes, the list is extremely small. You have not provided anything to the contrary, where I can source pretty much every economist that has worked on the plan (opponents included). It removed the corporate income tax and untaxes investment. It may fail in many areas, but economic growth is not often one listed. For the sake of compromise, I will change it to "many", although I find it to be factually inaccurate. I'll check on ref 64, sometimes links go bad. I'm not sure what you mean by the number of references or the relation to a committee. We address the major points and source as needed. The exclusive/inclusive is the largest debated point on the plan in general circles. I do however think it is duplicated too often. Those other sections are already summary style which try to condense an entire article into a few paragraphs. As far as first time visitors, that is the nature of controversial articles - I've been involved with my share. Let me note that this section was a prior consensus between several editors (more against the plan than for - one editor being a published critic). I'm willing to work with you on issues but this type or reteric will quickly wear out good faith. Morphh (talk) 17:55, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
A statement of fact not defined as being a verifiable truth is simply wrong. In this case as I've pointed out "most" clearly means that 50%+1 of a group is in some subgroup. Show me the proof of precisely how many economists have studied the FairTax proposal and show me the proof, even if it is counting coauthors on papers, that fall into the subgroup. If you can't, and we both know you can't then "most" is clearly wrong. As to your invocation of good faith who deleted a clearly deserved NPOV and weasel word disclaimer from the article? I just spent my lunch hour reading through the talk page archives for this page and in its 3 year history it has had consistent complaints about its clear bias. I've used wiki for many years and seen plenty of articles without the level of bias displayed in this article with NPOV dispute tags. Since I'm uninterested in engaging in tit for tat editing I'm trying to reach consensus with the single editor who removed that richly deserved tag and you accused me of wearing out good faith? Would someone who knows more about how wiki works point me to some way of getting this clear deadlock resolved.Kbs666 (talk) 19:49, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
If you want to get a deadlock resolved then research the topic and come up with valid sources that negate the statement in controversy. Then most likely both sourced statements would be includible and would result in one statement distinguishing the other. You will have to find some valid and legitimate source that says "most economists do not find" to counter a sourced statement that says "most economists do find." The ball is in your court to prove your belief rather than requiring other people to prove the the truth of sourced statements.EECavazos (talk) 20:20, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
There's no source that says "most economists" support the FairTax. That's a ludicrous claim, and thankfully it has been removed. FCYTravis (talk) 21:46, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
Nobody made such a statement. We're talking about the FairTax promoting economic growth regarding those economists that researched the plan. The microeconomic and macroeconomic studies of the FairTax are overwhelmingly positive. One source says "virtually all economists". The money magazine article referred to this as "the superiority of consumption taxes is almost conventional wisdom these days" - they were talking about economic growth. The sources supporting it are numerous. We had a source listing 80 economists supporting this statement. I have yet to see one source brought forward to rebuttal this. This is not even a close call. The FairTax has many challenges and issues, but economic growth is rarely if ever listed as one of them. "most" / "many".. whatever. If it will get us pass this issue, I can live with the concession. Morphh (talk) 23:33, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
I would have to agree that "most" most likely fall under the WP:Weasel guideline. Unless we could account for 50% + 1 of the members. Alternatives could be "some" which has not size attached to it OR we if can cite a source which expresses that "most" economist say agree, something like "XYZ stated that most economist agree that...." Wikihonduras (talk) 20:39, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
I believe one of the alternative you posit currently exists. The statement is cited with a source that is footnoted. Perhaps you would prefer the source to be taken from the footnote and put into the actual text, which would be reasonable unless this standard as applied to the rest of the article would result in most citations being transferred to the body of the article thereby resulting in clutter.EECavazos (talk) 21:44, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
It should also be noted that the source is also brought into the statement in addition to the footnote. The statement begins with "according to money magazine . . ." EECavazos (talk) 22:02, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Simple English Version?

I'm not sure why this article is considered a featured article in the sense that the flood of jargon present reading through the sentences would render this article fairly unintelligible to a great many readers (not to mention mind numbing, but of course, just my lay person's impression). I'm no CPA, but I ace'd my macro and micro economics classes in college and I still have considerable difficulty understanding what this article is attempting to communicate at times. With a peer review completed, perhaps an editor with experience in the Simple English wikipedia can help provide some relief for those persons not so literate in the economic sciences. Thanks to everyone for your hard work on this article - I just hope this important proposal can be more easily accesible to more people, especially since it has been featured on the front page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.255.54.8 (talk) 22:03, 15 July 2008 (UTC)


Please read below - I do feel the article is fair - I just put a small simplest explanation with the Fair Tax below with facts from Harvard, Boston U., etc... Economists - as sited on article. Thanks, Elizabeth —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.154.93.164 (talk) 03:47, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Rothbard's view

Rothbard, of course, was opposed to this kind of tax, although he referred to it as a "general sales tax."[2] Should that be mentioned here? Aldrich Hanssen (talk) 00:13, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Nothing Rothbard ever said should ever be included anywhere. 66.69.194.16 (talk) 06:01, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

get it straight

We need to get our facts straight. FairTax, Fair Tax, or what? We are not kids, we need to get the spelling and terms correct. HRCC (talk) 00:26, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

The bill is called Fair Tax Act but the movement itself and the common plan name is FairTax. It should be referred to as FairTax unless stating the bill or referencing the terms themselves. Morphh (talk) 13:17, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Layout

Shouldn't the infobox be at the top of the article? Also, the anti-IRS image seems to be awfully big for it's usage. --SeaFox (talk) 02:17, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I have moved the infobox to the top as other artciles in the Taxation series have it there. The anti-IRS image at the top was already reduced in size, but I have removed it completely as its link to the subject matter was weak and suspicious in that it did not appear until today, when the article was featured on the main page. --SeaFox (talk) 03:51, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
I thought the book image was fine, then someone changed the rational to the book image, and then claimed their rational did not support the inclusion of this article. I'm not sure if I should revert it all. Morphh (talk) 13:18, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
I somewhat agree with that person, actually. I don't see the book image as the best illustration for the article, since the subject is FairTax itself, not the book written about it. It's not like the holy book of a religion, I'm sure there are other books about Fairtax. Anyway, my gripe wasn't with the book cover (it was already gone when I saw this article). But the Anti-IRS logo looked like nothing more than political graffiti on the article, especially when it was posted at such a large size. I wish I could remove it from the Main Page now, but it will be gone soon anyway. Is there an individual who can be credited with thinking up the FairTax system? A photo of that person might be a worthwhile addition. --SeaFox (talk) 23:45, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

NPOV seriously lacking

This article has a serious bias towards the pro side of the arguments and in my view fails to present a neutral point of view. Even when the arguments against are fleetingly mentioned, they are followed by immediate and biased rebuttal. It's disappointing that you couldn't give equal time to both sides of the issue here, and really disappointing that this is a FA with such obvious bias. It seems to be stuffed full of irrelevant padding about tax theory too. I think this is the most boring FA I've ever read due to the overly technical explanations. pschemp | talk 03:28, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

That has been sometimes a comment on this article however in evaluating the encyclopedic nature of it, it is pretty much a technical explanation of what FairTax would do. An article is suppose to describe the nature of its topic, not necessarily defeat it. What it would do is of course seen as "the pro" of FairTax. .:davumaya:. 03:53, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
NPOV has been discussed over and over for several years. NPOV states that all points of view need to be represented in the regard to their weight on the issue. If you have 5 pro studies and 1 con study, than you don't give the con study 5 times more weight, you give it the same as the others. The reality is their is a lot more research supporting the plan than against it, so we try to give more weight to con to balance that out, but since their is more pro research we have to include this pov and their results. If there is a pov missing or something we have not included, than please let us know. Examples would also be helpful. Morphh (talk) 13:23, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
YOu don't determine this simply by the number of studies, but by their results and the validity of the results. If you have 10 pro studies that make weak arguments, and one con study that is excellently done and water tight logical, that doesn't mean you biased towards pro on sheer number of studies. It's exactly the weight of the con arguments that is lacking. They are just as important as the pros, yet they are barely mentioned. And when they are, it's done in a format (with the tone of the piece suggesting they aren't important) that minimizes their importance. Hiding behind a strict definition of NPOV doesn't excuse the insanely pro bias this article has, nor it's biased tone. pschemp | talk 17:55, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
By what measure do you state that they make weak arguments or that the con study makes excellent arguments? Doesn't this imply bias of weighting the studies to fit what you believe? Could you give an example of where the cons are "barely mentioned" in regard to weight or where they are give tone suggesting they "aren't important". Keep in mind that if the pro side has a rebuttal, than we should include it and not minimized it. Adding the other pov is not minimizing. I don't feel I hid behind a strict definition of NPOV. The article has been heavily reviewed by both sides. Please give examples to the bias tone and your objections. Please provide the con material that is not present. Morphh (talk) 18:59, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
I disagree with the NPOV claim. It seems like every pro is followed by a con, more or less. What I took from the article, as someone who previously didn't know a lot about the FairTax thing and didn't care one way or the other about it, is that it seems like a potentially positive change to the tax laws in the US that probably wouldn't work in practice and is never going to happen (definitely no time soon). -- Atamachat 19:15, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

As a long time user of wikipedia I felt compelled to register after encountering this article on the front page. This article is very biased, shockingly biased actually. How did it get on the front page with not even a modest attempt at a NPOV? I have often used this site as a good source to point people taken in by tax evasion hucksters. This article's clear bias brings into serious doubt, for me at least, the reliability of the tax evasion info I have come to rely upon. As a new user I'm unaware how to file a complaint about this articles featured status and lack of a warning as to its lack of NPOV but I'm about to get educated.Kbs666 (talk) 22:10, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree that this article is seriously lacking a neutral point of view. This article being featured has damaged my faith in Wikipedia. Tom Joad 2k (talk) 13:30, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
I am not from the US and found the article to be well balanced, dispassionate view of the subject. I think it's great to see so many new people here commenting on the article. I am amazed the originator of this thread can say its the most boring FA they have ever read, with the amount of comment generated it has far from bored many people. My personal view is that the FairTax is one of the greatest misnomer's I have ever heard of and that no civilised government would put it into practice. Despite that this a good overview on the subject and possibly one of the most readable documents on tax I have ever encountered. I do have one or two queries which I will try to google the answers to, but may need to come back here to ask about. GameKeeper (talk) 00:24, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

No criticism section = a real shame

I have never read an FA article before and been completely disappointed. I haven't logged in for months, but I just had to in order to register my total disappointment. There should have been a sizable criticism section with a pointer to a main article dealing with the criticism for the this movement. As it is, it's an incredibly well written and well researched puff-piece. Themindset (talk) 04:00, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, that type of format is discouraged on Wikipedia (See WP:NPOV#Article structure, WP:CRITICISM). Criticism is woven into the article on the particular points of the plan. Morphh (talk) 13:25, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Don't use this argument as an excuse not to make the article more 'fair'. It is currently seriously tilted towards the 'pro fair-tax' argument. It needs a going over by a professional economist. --61.18.170.235 (talk) 17:26, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
I have to agree. The pro is given more weight, and way overshadows the con. pschemp | talk 17:50, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Customs Service?

The end of the "Sales tax rate" section mentions the US Customs Service, which has been dissolved 5 years ago. Shouldn't the article refer to Customs and Border Protection?--Dem393 (talk) 04:16, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks - will correct. Morphh (talk) 13:27, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

"Pending"?

"[P]ending in the United States Congress" seems quite an overstatement. This has virtually no chance of passage. Normally, we talk in such circumstances of someone having "introduced a bill" with some number of co-sponsors. We use that language later, but first we use the misleading "pending". - Jmabel | Talk 04:44, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree. A quick look at the paragraph given on the main page gives the misleading impression that this is future law. You have to read half the article to be told that neither the presidential candidates nor the current congress agree. I'm not too good at U.S. legislation, so could someone who knows what they're doing modify it slightly? yandman 11:24, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Technically the term is correct, since a bill is pending legislation. The FA man himself Raul654 choose this term. However, it's not a big deal to reword it, so it is currently "has been introduced". Morphh (talk) 13:34, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
The problem with the word pending is that it implies that the bill will eventually be considered and acted upon by either a House Ways and Means subcommittee, the full committee, or the House or Senate. The term pending would be more correct if the bill were actually moving and had been placed on the House or Senate calendar. However, as has been noted, the bill has been introduced in numerous successive Congresses and has never even made it out of subcommittee. It may not be dead, but it failed to garner even committee support when the party of it's sponsor was in control of the House, the Senate, and the Presidency at the same time, and now that the sponsor's party no longer controls either chamber of Congress, it would strongly imply that this bill is going nowhere. Very surprised to see this become a featured article... Narutodemon56 (talk) 22:34, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Encyclopedic?

"Individual scheduled or expected future events should only be included if the event is notable and almost certain to take place." (from Wikipedia is not a crystal ball) The article gives clear evidence that the event is almost certain not to take place.

Neither of the major parties' presumtive nominees supports the issue. Co-sponsors have left. The few difficulties that are mentioned in the article, conflict with the Sixteenth Amendment and the taxation rights of the individual states seem to be most prominent, are serious impediments to the issue.

I believe that any conscientious editor who had seen this article in its earliest form should have marked it for deletion as contrary to many policies. It still reads like a puff-piece and the event will almost certainly not occur.

I just realized that the image "anti-US Treasury" image could be considered defamatory and cause concern in certain quarters of the US Government, such as Homeland Security, that are not noted for their broad-mindedness or sense of humor. (Somebody's knocking on your door. Don't answer.)

Peace.

JimCubb (talk) 06:06, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that it's a terrible proposal and has no chance of passage. That... doesn't mean the concept is unencyclopedic. Indeed, it's had dead-tree books written about it, been blathered about on talk radio, drawn into a bill (multiple times) and has a small but vocal group of supporters. There's plenty of reliable sources to support the existence of an article, and we don't discriminate based on viewpoint. This is not an "expected future event," rather, an article on a proposed replacement system of taxation.
As for the image... seriously now, you think a Treasury logo with a "no" symbol around it is going to "cause concern?" All the Homeland Security people are busy making sure nobody gets aboard a plane with that dangerous chemical dihydrogen monoxide. FCYTravis (talk) 07:45, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Weasel wording

Link to guideline Wikipedia:Avoid_weasel_words

I'm somewhat concerned with the number of weasel wordings in the the intro. As examples "Many argue that..." "Many others argue..." are pretty much prime example of what we should avoid. It's a reasonably simple task to reword this with proper attribution (i.e. who exactly are these "many"), but given that this is now the front page article I thought it would be best to discuss it first. Jefffire (talk) 09:43, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

These statements are source and the source uses the term "Many", so I don't think this falls under weasel. The source does not say who the many are and when talking about economists it would be impossible to list. Morphh (talk) 13:14, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Using the same wording as the source does not mean that the wording isn't weasel. However, this can be corrected by proper attribution (eg. "source x states that many argue that") Jefffire (talk) 14:11, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Also on that note, I've cut out lots of the "however"'s in the article, as recommended by the guideline WP:WTA. Jefffire (talk) 14:27, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
I think in most cases we have made that proper attribution in the body of the article. For example, the many argue stated above is properly attributed to Money Magazine in the article body, but to do so in the lead would be to much detail in an already large lead. Summary was necessary to include all the main points of the article. Morphh (talk) 14:34, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Lead

The current lead is gigantic. Could someone please shorten it?

Peter Isotalo 10:27, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

It falls within the guidelines for WP:LEAD per the size of the article. It would be very difficult to properly summarize the article with a shorter lead. However, if there is consensus to do so, we could probably cut something. Morphh (talk) 13:06, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Not to add to your F.A. burden, I'll say here that the lead, at 650 words, is the equivalent of nearly 3 pages of text, some of it mighty dense and more than half of it counterproductive to a lead. Here's an example of a possible rewrite:
The Fair Tax is a proposed change to the tax laws of the United States that would replace the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and all federal income taxes, capital gains taxes, payroll taxes, gift taxes, and estate taxes with a national retail sales tax. The tax would be levied once at the point of purchase on all new goods and services. The sales tax rate, as defined in the proposed legislation, would be 23 percent of the final price including the tax – e.g., $23 out of every $100 spent. This is comparable to a traditional sales tax rate of 30 percent, since sales tax in the U.S. is typically added to the sales price (e.g., a $77 purchase with a 30% traditional sales tax rate comes to $100).
The plan's supporters claim that it would increase purchasing power and decrease tax burdens by broadening the tax base and effectively taxing wealth. Opponents argue that while it may be progressive on consumption, the tax would be regressive on income, and would decrease the tax burden on high income earners and increase the tax burden on the middle class.
Other potential obstacles to the Fair Tax include the need to repeal of the Sixteenth Amendment, transition effects on after-tax savings, impact to the income tax industry, incentives on credit use, and the loss of tax advantages to state and local bonds.
This version, or something like it, makes it clearer this is proposed legislation that has not been voted on; that the 30% "sales tax" rate is computed differently from any current sales tax; and drops the cheerleading for supporters that permeates the current third paragraph. I'd also suggest that since the lead refers mainly to the proposed legislation (without which there won't be any national retail sales tax), Fair Tax (two words) is more appropriate. OtherDave (talk) 16:29, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
The lead was expanded for FA and has undergone some good disucussion in this area. I don't think this version would properly summarize the article or meet the requirements. The sentences in the third paragraph were required for the FA to discuss the current status, the movement, and relationship in tax reform. I'll take a closer look though. The term FairTax is commonly one word and two words if using the bill name Fair Tax Act (or unfamiliar reporters). This also helps with the distinction between a "fair tax" and the FairTax. Morphh (talk) 16:44, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
I'm glad I saved you the trouble of reverting, then. Cheerlead away. OtherDave (talk) 17:10, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
I've reduced it to 621 words (all from the "cheerleading" area), which now puts the lead at a page and a half on Word with 1" borders, size 14 font, and 6pt sentence after spacing. Lead guidelines suggest 3-4 paragraphs for an article of this size, so I don't think we're too out of place. If we remove any more, I think we're cutting into important summary points. Morphh (talk) 17:43, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
A reduction of less than 10% does not really fix the problem. You're right that a long article usually need a longer lead, but there's an absolute limit where a lead simply starts becoming uninteresting no matter the size of the article. The dense material, the unmotivated use of footnotes (a summary doesn't even require citations) and the very quite specific topic can put off any reader, and that's without even looking at the article. I think you should try to write something that's closer to Other Dave's suggestion in terms of size.
Peter Isotalo 19:41, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Currently in the lead: Since income taxes have a hidden effect on prices,[4] it is expected that moving to the FairTax would decrease production costs (due to the removal of business taxes and compliance costs), which would offset a portion of the FairTax effect on prices.[5][6]

The footnote for "hidden effect" refers to writing by Steve Forbes; the other two footnotes refer to a book by proponents Boortz and Linder. Forbes's statement is presented as fact, not opinion, as are the beliefs of the proposal's most visible advocates. It's not like they're saying something objective like "Mars has two moons" or "a round of golf usually includes 18 holes." Leaving this sentence in the lead, rather than placing it in context in the body of the article, is not "an important summary point." Passive voice does not equal neutrality. OtherDave (talk) 13:14, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

This seems to be common wisdom in economics. Do you have any sources that suggest that income taxes have no effect on price? In all my study of tax incidence, I've never heard such a claim from economists. I believe there should be a disputing opinion if we try to limit this. Just because we choose a easily accessible source does not make it a biased evaluation. Income taxes have a business cost, which is partly reflected in their products / services. Morphh (talk) 14:12, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
Asking someone to provide evidence that income taxes have no effect on price is asking someone to prove a negative. If you claim they do, provide evidence - and I don't think an opinion column by Steve Forbes is anywhere near sufficient. And the idea that income taxes are incident on consumers is not a law of economics. The "Effect of taxes and subsidies on price" article linked to in the main article show examples of excise taxes. In fact, the income tax incidence studies I have read have concluded that the burden of the corporate income tax is shared between the owners of capital (domestic and international) and domestic labor - not consumers. The CBO recently published a study on this. For their Effective Tax Rates studies they assume only excise taxes are incident on consumers. Tom Joad 2k (talk) 18:56, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
I'm working on this (sourcing and rewording). Will comment on above in a bit. Morphh (talk) 19:12, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

How come we have the statement that it "has not been voted out of committee" in the lead twice? Once should be sufficient, particularly when we're trying to reduce the size. Morphh (talk) 14:46, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I dunno -- five or ten minutes ago, the lead looked to be a paragraph shorter, but I see it's it "recovered." I'm from the less-is-more school, myself, though so far I've resisted doing a cheerlead-ectomy. OtherDave (talk) 14:55, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
Although it seems pointless to continue (my input clearly conflicts with your view of neutrality), I'll try once more. I wasn't talking about whether income taxes affect price. I was talking about whether the opinions of Forbes, Boortz, and Linder should be presented in the lead as if they were facts. To leave them there, positioned as though there's no dispute ("SINCE" is hardly objective), strikes me as at best disingenuous.
This article is not (supposed) to be about "common wisdom" among economists (leaving aside the question "which ones?"). Even if it were, Boortz is not a trained economist (talk show host, law degree). Neither is Linder (dentist, congressman). Forbes, in the famous phrase, was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple. None of this disqualifies them from promoting their ideas, but it doesn't make their thoughts on economics ipso facto authoritative.
The article does manage to flit from talking about an advocacy group (FairTax without a space) and talking about a bill that's never gotten out of committee (the Fair Tax Act in its various incarnations). One effect of this both-sides-of-the-street approach is that an objection tending toward one side gets deflected by someone saying, "Oh, we're not talking about that. And anyway we've got footnotes." OtherDave (talk) 14:50, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
I'm ok with trying to make the lead shorter - I just think we need to do it in a way that maintains the criteria set forth in WP:LEAD and WP:FACR 2(a). I did not want to just rip out a third of a very long standing (FA and FAR approved) lead without much discussion and thoughtful consideration.
The term "since" was added yesterday (not by me). Prior to that, it was more U.S. specific but conveyed pretty much the same meaning. The statement seems to be "fact" as defined by NPOV, as there is no serious dispute regarding the statement. As long as the statements are from reliable sources, I didn't think it needed to be anything spectacular or authoritative. My thought was, we have better things to do than go hunting through academic journals looking for statements on tax incidence but I'm open to getting something else. I don't dispute your comments regarding Boortz, Linder, or Forbes though. Morphh (talk) 15:17, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
That's because my comments are facts. Opinion would be "Since Boortz is on the radio and has sold books, and since Linden managed to get elected, they know what they're talking about."  ;-) OtherDave (talk) 15:30, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
We actually have an entire article on the topic: Effect of taxes and subsidies on price but it lacks sources. Morphh (talk) 17:19, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm looking at Price Theory and Applications along with Jorgensons, Kotlikoff and Gales work (who all discuss accommodation). I don't think there is any dispute between the economists regarding a reduction of production cost (reflected by some price changes) based on the degree of accommodation. Both sides agree with this concept and I think it is important to note that we're not automatically taking about a 30% price increase. Such is dependent on the Fed, and the most likely accommodation is a partial accommodation, which would result in something like a 17% increase (or 10% decrease in production cost). No accommodation would result in little price change, where full accommodation would be the full exclusive rate increase. Perhaps we should just leave it out.. since we're trying to reduce the lead. I'll try to get to this later. Morphh (talk) 19:28, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

What about if we just stated something like "Price changes after implementation of the FairTax would be based on monetary policy." Can we all agree on that? I don't think this sentence is worth all the work that it would likely require to gain everyones support, so perhaps we can agree on something simpler that tries to address the point. Morphh (talk) 19:49, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry. Notions of what prices changes would be based on in the future are, well, notional. You don't know, I don't know, even Steve Forbes in his wisdom doesn't know. Eight years ago everybody and his brother-in-law the economist was full of plans for what to do with the budget surplus. Anyone who's ever sat in a committee markup session realizes that "based on monetary policy" is about as meaningful as "the will of the American people." OtherDave (talk) 21:15, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
We're specifically talking the change of the FairTax with regard to implementation, which every economist studying the plan states is based on the accommodation of the Fed (both opponents and supporters). There is nothing disputed here. Do you get your wages increased to gross or do you keep net? We're not talking about the future of price theory. It would be better to state it as "Income and price changes due to implementation would be based on monetary policy accommodation of the tax." This is well supported with no alternate viewpoint that I am aware of. Morphh (talk) 14:23, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

More examples

Good article over all. I'd stilll like to see some more comparisons between the current tax system and the one described in this article, mainly mathmatical examples. The $100 example is great for explaining the fairtax, but could there also be a section around there explaining how the same 100 dollars would be divided up under the current system? Pr1mus 285 (talk) 12:03, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I think the $100 example does cover how such is factored under an income tax system, which is how it is presented under the FairTax. How it is divided up might be a bit more difficult - depends what tax bracket. Should you include deductions and would it be POV? Briefly, you have about 7.6% fica (employee), 7.6 (employer), 10-35% income tax, and then corporate income tax (which does not come out of there but may be reflected in price increases). Morphh (talk) 13:11, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Book image

The main article image of the Image:FairTaxBook.jpg was removed from the article with the summary "(replace non-free book cover (reasons: image not significant for this article; no purpose of use description in fair use rationale other that "used to illustrate")" The only purpose described by our fair-use policy is for the purpose of "used to illustrate" and rational was specifically stated for this article "The FairTax Book and the FairTax article use the image to illustrate the article that discusses the topic and book in question." [3] Additional rational was generically supplied. All this rational was removed by the same editor that removed the image. As far as the significance, the book cover is the most widely distributed and known image associated with the FairTax plan (being a NYT #1 bestseller). It is regarded as the major event that pushed the FairTax into view. Thoughts? Morphh (talk) 15:49, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

FOr fair use to be OK, the picture needs to add significantly to the understanding of the topic according to our guidelines. Just a picture of a cover in this case does not add significantly to the understanding of the topic, and is just decoration. The removal was correct in my opinion. pschemp | talk 17:58, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Fair enough.. Thanks Morphh (talk) 18:46, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Main Page Pushing a Particular Political Position

Whilst I fully understand the point that it is appropriate for Wikipedia to contain information about political ideas, I feel that it is highly inappropriate for a proposed future legislative change (in any country and of any political viewpoint) to receive "featured" or "main page" status. My understanding is that there are 76 tax-reform proposals proposed for debate in the coming months. By featuring just one of these (even one with many, or at least vocal, supporters) so prominently in Wikipedia, I fear we could be construed by the casual reader (who is unaware of the exact nature of featured articles as being simple "well written", and simply uses Wikipedia as a day-to-day information source) as supporting this proposal at the expense of others (unless there are 76 featured articles of this kind, which seems nigh on crazy). If we are to be taken seriously as a reference source, we should be as neutral as possible, or little by little Wikipedia's reliability will be eroded away. It was bad enough when there was a featured article on a (music?) shop the other month, but giving this article "featured" status seems to me to set a very bad precedent. (For the record, I am broadly in favour of the approach to taxation advocated by the "Fair Tax", but I don't think the front page of Wikipedia is an appropriate venue to advocate, or be construed as advocating, this view.) WMMartin (talk) 16:54, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure that I disagree with you. I can say that it was not requested, it just got selected (perhaps randomly). I don't think Wikipedia is advocating anything by it but I can see how it could be seen that way. On the other side though, this type of logic would apply to so many FA articles and exclude them just based on topic. I'm not sure I care for the image that was chosen for the main page, which seems to imply some anti-government protest. Morphh (talk) 16:59, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree the main page image is bad. I disagree with your premise, that featuring an article implies support of it. By that argument we could never feature any articles about political subjects. Tempshill (talk) 20:08, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia isn't censored. Nuff said. -- Atamachat 21:50, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
I'm not in favour of censoring Wikipedia. Nor am I claiming that featuring an article implies support for it. What I said was that (in my view) a "casual reader" would quite possibly place such an interpretation on the "featured" status. Most users of Wikipedia are, I suppose, like me: until I delved into the matter on becoming a regular contributor to the project, I had made a like assumption. I seem to remember that we already have a policy of not doing featured articles on currently active political figures; perhaps this policy should be extended to current political proposals. WMMartin (talk) 12:54, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

neutral vocabulary

It's obviously a controversial subject and it can be difficult to stick to neutral vocabulary. I think that "non-partisan" and "grassroots" are both non-neutral vocabulary. What do people think? Johncmullen1960 (talk) 17:56, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I think it is a tax status. The organization is a 501 (c)(4) nonprofit, nonpartisan, organization. Not much opinion there and I don't see anything POV about it. I guess grassroots could be subjective but I don't know that it is disputed by anyone, certainly not anything of sufficient weight for exclusion or mention. Morphh (talk) 18:00, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

In my dictionary "partisan" means "a strong supporter of a party, cause or person". Which the campaigns for this tax measure obviously are. This is the most common meaning - a technical meaning in US tax is not to be applied because wikipedia is an international publication ( I am in France).

I think "grassroots" is non-neutral. You never hear anyone saying "what is really bad about my opponents' ideas is that they come from the grassroots!" It is political speak for "my ideas come from solid ordinary people so should agree with them" :=) Johncmullen1960 (talk) 18:05, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I've never heard the term applied to a cause, that would make about every org partisan - there would be little meaning suggesting they support nothing. As defined in 501(c) they are not allowed to support any party or person or make contributions to any party or person. Reliable sources support both the statements that they are non-partisan and a grassroots organization. Are we giving undue weight to this particular interpretation? Morphh (talk) 18:16, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
"Grassroots" like "partisan" has several meanings. The connotation of grassroots is that the issue in question has support from a wide range of ordinary citizens, as opposed to full-time proponents or hired publicists. Many lobbying groups adopt "citizen-y" names when in fact their issue has little or no support from the general public -- hence the term astroturfing, which refers to faux grass-roots organizations. That said, if one million people actively supported FairTax (the organization), that'd be 1% of the voting turnout for the 2006 general election, grass-rootsy enough for me. (By comparison, Eugene V. Debs would be downright mainstream, having gotten 6% of the popular vote in the presidential election of 1912.) OtherDave (talk) 19:18, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I think it would be fair enough to look in several dictionaries, not just my own "New Oxford". But if there is disagreement about the meaning, we have to go for dictionaries. It's also important to try to find a compromise between purely local meanings and more widespread ones. Finally "grassroots" is not just something which has a lot of support, I don't think.It has support from "ordinary people" says my dictionary. I think it is an absolutely positive term, therefor enot neutral Johncmullen1960 (talk) 19:50, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I guess what I'm confused about is what makes us think that they're not "ordinary people". AFFT is made up of volunteers and has a very small staff from what is stated to be ordinary people. Morphh (talk) 20:06, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

controversy disclaimer

This article needs a disclaimer that it deals with a one side of controversial issue. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tax-hoaxes (talk • contribs) 19:52, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Based on your edit to the article, your post was in regard to this point: Main Page Pushing a Particular Political Position. Morphh (talk) 20:01, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

While I agree that this article pushes one political point of view, I think it would need a controversy disclaimer even if it were neutral. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tax-hoaxes (talk • contribs) 20:15, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

There is a disclaimer on the top of the talk page regarding this being a controversial topic. Morphh (talk) 20:18, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

But the article itself needs such a disclaimer so those people who read it will know that. I among others assumed that all featured articles were non-controversial. Tax-hoaxes (talk) 20:36, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I think that it needs the controversial disclaimer as well. I am a supporter of FairTax and I think that the article is a bit one-sided. And it is a controversial topic. I don't see how someone can argue putting the tag up.Chexmix53 (talk) 21:25, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Introduced in Congress

Its enacting legislation, the Fair Tax Act (HR 25/S 1025) has been introduced in the United States Congress.

Right here it should say how many times it or a substantially similar version of it have been introduced; and the date. The latter is easy; can someone else provide the former? Tempshill (talk) 20:04, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

It does state this in the legislative section. You feel it is important enough to include in the lead? We're working to reduce the size of the lead above. Morphh (talk) 20:08, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
I do - I just added that it was first introduced in 1999 though I think this shouldn't be as buried as it is. May I recommend getting rid of the pro and con discussions in paragraph 2? I think arguing the merits can be eliminated from the lead, and saved for the body of the article. Tempshill (talk) 20:25, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Hmmm, interesting idea but that would remove several topic areas of summarization (particularly sections 3,4 & 6). I'm open to it but it seems like it would go against WP:LEAD and that of WP:FACR 2(a). Morphh (talk) 20:40, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
The number of times it's been introduced is nearly as unimportant as the number of pages in the bill and does not need to be in the lead. The body says that it's been introduced in four Congresses. Since bills die if not enacted at the end of a Congress, all the previous ones are dead. Despite the sponsorship of the current bill, nothing's happening and nothing will in an election year. According to Thomas, the last major action in the House was January 2007 (referred to committee), and in the Senate, March 2007 (referred to committee). OtherDave (talk) 17:48, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Its chances

The article is not complete without a paragraph assessing its chances. I assume the chances are currently generally thought to be "those of a snowball in Hell" and the article ought to mention this. Naturally I don't have a citable source using those words. Tempshill (talk) 20:20, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

You have some that say it has no chance, and then you have people saying don't underestimate it's momentum. I don't want to get into a crystal ball situation. It's very difficult to assess current support when it has never been voted on. Morphh (talk) 20:35, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately that stance unfairly favors FairTax in the article treatment. If there's no way it is going to pass this year, then a "hands off" attitude on its chances makes FairTax seem more important than it is. Tempshill (talk) 21:22, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Effects on trade

"The FairTax would apply to Internet purchases and would tax retail international purchases (such as a boat or car) that are imported to the United States"

This is very important and needs to be expanded, especially as one effect would be that many international purchases will become prohibitively expensive and no longer cost effective. It might in many cases lead to a very high taxation where a consumer who orders something online will have to pay a high sales tax both to the country from where the product is ordered and to the US, in some cases the total sales tax could then reach 40-50%. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.93.6.186 (talk) 20:49, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

If you have research on this, we can include it but it seems like WP:OR. Such an international transaction is enforced by Customs, upon importing. You're not importing an internet purchase, so I don't see how this would get taxed but you would be subject to the other country's tax code. Morphh (talk) 20:54, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
In Norway there is a sales tax of 25%, packages bought internet purchases from other countries are opened and taxed (25%). When I buy stuff online this often results in that I pay for example 17% sales tax to the country where I buy something from, and then an additional 25% to the Norwegian government. So if I for example buy something that costs 100$ before tax from a country with 17% sales tax, the listed price becomes 117$. Next upon getting the package a 25% tax would be added to the 117$ price resulting in a total of 146.25$. 129.241.214.87 (talk) 21:23, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Ah, but you're not using FairTax math. $100 is 68% of $146, so your FairTax of $46 is only 32% of what you paid. Don't you feel better? Your tax rate got lowered by nearly a third. OtherDave (talk) 21:31, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
VAT taxes are inclusive taxes, not exclusive. Morphh (talk) 21:33, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Actually, there IS a problem regardless of US tax novelties - internet sellers (one-man outfits, not the big ones) are unable or unwilling to claim export tax exemption on sales to foreign customers and, indeed, the buyer pays twice. NVO (talk) 22:31, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Rental tax?

The article says that the "Fairtax" would apply to apartment rentals and real estate. How does this reconcile with the statement that it is only charged once on a good? Also, it says that "investments" are exempt... what about investments in real estate? Though I suppose that this is only for typical consumer apartments - if you're buying a yacht you could say that it's an "intermediate business expense" for setting up your tourism line. And I suppose it doesn't apply to your live-in maid who doesn't pay any rent. Wnt (talk) 21:08, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

A rental is a service, not a good, and services are taxed. There is a section in the bill that addresses avoidance schemes and the rules about purchasing for business, but this discussion might be better suited for one of the groups or blogs. Morphh (talk) 21:19, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Currently renting and owning are seen as two competing methods to enjoy a piece of property. But if I understand what you're saying, this system would slap a 44% tax on top of your rent, making it economically necessary to package almost any apartment as some sort of condominium for sale. Is this a social goal of this tax? Wnt (talk) 21:29, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Yes, the FairTax would slap a 30-40 percent (I don't give one iota of credence to the idea that a 30% sales tax would be revenue-neutral) sales tax on every renter in the United States. Yay, FairTax! It's not enough that renters pay the property tax on the property they rent via pass-through from the landlord... they need to pay sales tax on their rental every month, too!
You'll be paying "FairTax" every time you go to the barber shop... the ATM (hey, that $2 fee is a SERVICE charge... bet they'll tax that 40% too), the auto mechanic, the electric bill, the kid who mows your lawn... all sorts of transactions which aren't taxed, will be. Non-invasive, this isn't.
Seriously, anyone who thinks the bureaucracy needed to administer this tax is going to be any less onerous and gargantuan than the IRS, is smoking something. FCYTravis (talk) 22:17, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Yes, but I guess the idea is that you're already paying 30-40%, it's just taken out of your check before you spend it. Anywho :-) Morphh (talk) 14:17, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
But that's definitely not true. The income/payroll tax burden on working-class Americans isn't anywhere close to 40% of their pay. The "FairTax" represents a massive shifting of the tax burden away from the wealthy, who spend much less of their income, proportionately, on tangible goods than low and middle-income Americans do. A huge chunk of the income of the wealthy will go entirely untaxed, as long as they spend it on stocks and bonds rather than a new flat-screen TV from Wal-Mart. That strikes me as decidedly unfair. Why do wealthy people (who own the vast majority of stock in this country) not have to pay 40% more on their stock purchases, but working stiffs have to pay 40% more for their TVs? Nonsensical. Anyway, I'll stop arguing now :p FCYTravis (talk) 18:34, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
This is really not the place to discuss this and I'm not going to get into what is fair or unfair but regarding the 40% exclusive. A a 15 percent income tax and 7.65 percent FICA tax, a total 23 percent inclusive tax, is equal to a 30 percent exclusive tax. A 25% income tax bracket would put you at 50% exclusive. When you consider the other 7.65 percent and the 35 percent corporate income taxes, are we all that far off. Point is the cost on one side has to equal that on the other and the FairTax has a broader tax base to draw from. It only brings to light the true cost of government. Morphh (talk) 20:00, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
I never did see an answer to my question about renting vs. buying: is it the intent of the tax to obtain a continuous income stream from a property if and only if one person is paying another to live there on a monthly basis? On the other hand, the companion article's talk page posits a model in which "FairTax" is paid on (I think) every real estate transfer,[4] which would have precisely the opposite effect of making people afraid to sign the papers unless they were sure it was for ever and ever. Wnt (talk) 02:53, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

"Stability of the tax base"

There is an image showing the "stability of the tax base", which is not otherwise explained in the article. This "stability" basically means that the government would tax people just as much in recession years as otherwise. Since the current regime has made a point of offering "economic incentives" even beyond the net decrease in average income, the claim of 'stability' seems far out of line with any realistic economics. Is the figure even relevant? Wnt (talk) 21:21, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

It tends to go with the discussion that consumption is a more accurate measure of economic well-being than income. As peoples incomes go up and down over the years, they're consumption usually remains more steady. Morphh (talk) 21:26, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Codswallop. Of course, since real income for most people in the U.S. has gone virtually nowhere in this century, it doesn't matter. OtherDave (talk) 21:26, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

---

For an update on personal consumption go to http://www.economagic.com/em-cgi/data.exe/fedstl/pce+1

This link tracks personal consumption expenditures (not adjusted for inflation). The latest figures available are from June and show a 6.963% rise for the month and 5.309% rise for the year. This would appear to support the Ross Korves study comparing the stability of consumption with taxable income. Personal consumption indeed is a stable tax base.

~~Jim Bennett

Inconsistent numbers

I can't see any way that the following statements in the article are both correct:

  • Furthermore, the number of individuals required to file taxes drops from approximately 100 million to 14 million,
  • Since 145 million individuals would no longer be filing tax returns, there would only be about 25 million businesses that could be audited.

Would someone who has worked on this article mind correcting one (or both) of these, or explaining why they are in fact consistent with each other? -- John Broughton (♫♫) 23:02, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

You're right. 100 million does not equal 145 million. The Statistical Abstracts of the U.S. say there were 132.3 million individual returns filed for 2006, though, so the 100 million is off by nearly a third. OtherDave (talk) 01:24, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, probably working with old data. Morphh (talk) 14:00, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
De nada. I keep trying to find numbers of corporate tax returns, but am clearly looking in the wrong places. In 2004 there were 5.9 million "employer firms" (i.e., organizations with a payroll) and 19.5 million "non-employers" (e.g., individuals filing as businesses, mostly sole proprietorships). These are from the Small Business Administration and the Census Bureau. Although these figures are for numbers, not for tax returns, the 25 million figure seems in the ballpark. Note that the average receipts for those 19.5 million is $38,000 (receipts, not tax). The Census Bureau notes that nonemployers account for roughly 3% of business activity in terms of sales or receipts. I don't believe Schedule SE is counted as a corporate tax return, but I'm not a tax accountant. OtherDave (talk) 15:08, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Rebate payment methods

I keep removing mention of payment options for the rebates. They are consistently removed without reason. The only reason I can think to mention smartcards is to sound fancy. This article does not exist to educate people about smartcards and other methods of money transfer. 129.97.140.98 (talk) 23:35, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

You should undo your last edit, you have violated WP:3RR. You should also remove the warning from my talk page, issuing false warnings is violating WP:NPA. Landon1980 (talk) 23:46, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Done. But the warning stands. You should be more careful next time. Furthermore, the false warning on my page constitutes vandalism. Of course, none of this conversation should be taking place here. Let's talk about improving the article. 129.97.140.98 (talk) 23:55, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually you were vandalizing with that edit, and your mail man edit. I don't care either way regarding this, I am here to fight vandalism. You should look up vandalism, my edits to not pertain to it, yours do. You were disrupting to make a point. Landon1980 (talk) 23:57, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Let me be more clear, adding or removing the info is a content dispute, altering the info to make a mockery of it is vandalism. You get my point, right? Landon1980 (talk) 23:59, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't see why it was important to remove useful information regarding the payment methods. Often the prebate is called a "check", so it was useful to describe the different payment methods available for the rebate, particular when discussing the cost and fraud associated with the rebate. Checks have a much higher cost and fraud rate than other methods of payment, and the option for these other methods, which most people would choose, reduced those costs. Again, I don't see why it was important to removed sourced and relevant information regarding the payment methods. Morphh (talk) 13:59, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
Your belief that the information is useful is what is being disputed. This form of money transfer does not enjoy any special status over other forms of transfer. To include a description of all possible and conjectured future methods of transfer in each and every article mentioning payment of some sort is absurd. Your believe that information being sourced is criteria for inclusion is again false. I can certainly find sources for material to expand the content regarding methods of transfer. (How about a brief history of ATM machines?) This information does not improve the article and therefore will not be added. 129.97.140.98 (talk) 15:33, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
Others might find it useful, I do. These are the forms of payment currently described in the legislation. I also think it adds to the context of discussion regarding the rebate, it's administration cost, and how it is issued. It adds to the context on fraud and the basis for a reader to form an opinion on the topic point. Each method does offer a different status and risk. I don't see what the big deal is with the inclusion. It's not anything controversial or something that would hurt the quality of the article. Morphh (talk) 15:46, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
My biggest objection is the mention of smartcards. The purpose can only be to sound futuristic. They are simply the next generation of debit/credit cards. You seem to think the validity of the FairTax proposal is relies on the ability to combat fraud. This is no more true in the FairTax proposal than any other procedure involving the transfer of money. Unless you believe that any mention of transfering money should justify the inclusion a brief blirb on smartcards, then I don't see why FairTax should. 129.97.140.98 (talk) 14:02, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
The purpose is not to sound futuristic, it is specifically stated in the bill as a method of payment. I think they put it in the bill to provide options, not to be futuristic. Even if futuristic sounding, is that a valid reason for removal - seems bias. Smartcards have been around for a while and are a simple method of payment. I never even consider the term as anything but generic, but I understand you point. I never said that the validity of the FairTax proposal relies on combating fraud. I stated that different payment methods have an effect on fraud and such was meaningful to the context of the section. I don't follow your logic regarding "any mention of transferring money". We're talking about a specific bill where we're trying to explain the rebate plan. Morphh (talk) 14:48, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I think the prebate language needs to be reworded. It's not a payment to households - it's a payment to families (specifically family members sharing a common residence). Two families in the same household would get 2 prebate checks (e.g., roommates). The bill uses the term "qualified family." The bill also states to qualify as a member of a family a person must "be a lawful resident of the United States." Obviously, not all U.S. citizens are lawful residents of the U.S. I think this "lawful resident" term is better than "citizens and legal resident aliens." Tom Joad 2k (talk) 21:51, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

The suggestions sound good to me. I do question the fact tags in the lead though. The lead does not require references unless the material is something likely to be questioned, as the material is covered in the body of the article. Do you dispute that it gained viability during these periods or that politicians don't want to loose the interest deductions? I can source them but I'm not sure I see the point. Morphh (talk) 12:56, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
I do question whether "Increased support was created after talk radio personality Neal Boortz and Georgia Congressman John Linder published The FairTax Book in 2005" is accurate and is verifiable from a reliable source.
The "The loss of this method of social incentive concerns some law makers" claim is mentioned later in the article but it's still not sourced. I think this type of claim ("some law makers") needs to be sourced. I'm not even sure how a tax deduction could be considered a "social incentive." The mention later in the article links "social incentive" to the "social engineering" article which claims "concept in political science that refers to efforts to influence popular attitudes and social behavior on a large scale, whether by governments or private groups." Is that really what's going on with a tax deduction? I think it's obvious that tax policy is used to provide financial incentives to certain behavior (e.g., home ownership, the purchase of hybrid cars), but is that a "social incentive" or "social engineering"? And even if the sentence were change to remove these terms, the claim that "The loss of this method... concerns some law makers" is a specific claim that needs to be sourced. Tom Joad 2k (talk) 14:16, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
I made the changes to the rebate as described. The only difference is that I left the household term there so it now says "all family households", which seems to follow family members sharing a common residence (as to hopefully not confuse with family members not sharing a residence or multiple families sharing a household). I wikilinked both terms to provide additional clarification, although this may be seen as overlinking of common terms. I find it helpful for the technical understanding, as you outlined above. I removed the ref request tag from the lead on the Boortz book but did add the ref into the body of the article (under the FairTax movement section). If you want the ref in the lead, we can do that but I thought it better to keep it in the article unless there was greater concern. After looking at the bit on the tax deduction, I thought it could be greatly reduced as part of the lead reduction effort. I added it to the other concerns in the next sentence, which removed the whole bit regarding it has no meaning and law maker claims. I did add a source though to the statement in the article body and plan to add another after some source review. I removed the wikilink to social engineering and removed the term social, so now it just says "incentives". Morphh (talk) 15:15, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Comments

Hi. The reason the plan is called fair tax is because when this was being studied and in trials with every day citizens such as you and I one of the people in the study said "it is so fair" that is where the name came from - not to be sneaky or deceptive marketing - a person who had no intrest or gain in the plan said that and the name stuck.

I know if this is the first time you are hearing of this it may seem complicated - I first heard about this years ago and I have studied this for one year now and finally feel that I complete understand this plan. I still learn new things regarding this plan and others ever day. Without re-writing the article - let me give the quickest, shortest, honest version of the Fair Tax.

This plan is non-partisan - NO political party is affiliated with the Fair Tax, I know democrats, republicans, and independents who support this plan. In 1913 is when the IRS started - our country was NOT founded on an income tax, it came about because political parties D & R were playing games all the way back to that time (and before) ; ). At that time 1913-1940's once a year you took out your checkbook and wrote the IRS a check. In the 1940's after World War 2 the government decided well let's take taxes out the peoples checks - they even used Donald Duck in commercials to get this passed. They quickly learned that people did not realize how much they were being taxed because it came right out of their checks and they never saw it (as is the case today). That is the history of it.

The Fair Tax plan - ELIMINATES all current FEDERAL TAXES - death tax, income tax, social security tax, FICA tax, you name it, it's federal and the IRS collects it then it is HISTORY. So you are probably thinking well how will the government get paid? How do we pay for all that our federal government does. It's easy. Right now when you and I go to the store and buy a product let's call it xyz to keep it easy. If xyz costs $1.00 at the register did you know you are paying 23 cents tax embedded into that item - in other words if there were no federal tax it would cost 77 cents to buy xyz but because of all the people who have anything to do with getting xyz into your hands they all are charged federal tax right now - but the xyz company, the truckers, the store owner that is selling you xyz does not pay that federal tax out of their pockets they add it on to the cost of the item and pass it on to you and me. So before the Fair Tax xyz costs $1.00 guess how much xyz will cost after the Fair Tax? It will also costs $1.00. I bet you are wondering how this works. Ok here is the nuts and bolts of the Fair Tax. When ALL Federal taxes are eliminated that includes corporate tax which is what the xyz company, the trucker, and the store selling you the xyz was charging you before - remember 23 cents worth. After the Fair Tax you walk into the store and buy xyz and now xyz costs 77 cents then you go to the register and pay 77 cents + 23 cents = $1.00. If you buy a used item NO TAX added, so if it is used say a car and it costs $10,000 now it would cost $7,700. You also get what is called a prebate check which is based on the number of people in your home - you can see the chart on the Fair Tax website. This goes to all legal United States Citizens every month to cover basic necessities such as food and medicine. The Fair Tax untaxes the poor. The Fair Tax eliminates tax loop holes for some and makes it the same for all.

By eliminating the IRS/Federal taxes you get to keep your WHOLE PAYCHECK. You work more you are not taxed anything extra. You will no longer be taxed for working. It is estimated by some of the top economists as listed on prior main page 13 TRILLION dollars would flood back into this country immediately because the taxation on work and businesses were eliminated. THAT IS AN ECONOMIC Stimulus plan that makes sense and could turn our economy back around. Also, people not currently paying taxes - those doing illegal activities, those who are here illegally, and those evading taxes all together would join those who have been working and paying taxes all along and everyone would pay only when you buy something (unless it's used then you would not pay anything - including HOUSES - that would turn the housing market around).

These are honest facts not spins, not lies, this is the honest truth and the quickest and shortest way I could break down for you what I have learned over the past year studying the facts. My intention was to break it down in a way that everyone could get without using economic terms - it can be more complex this is just the main facts that everyone needs to know who is intrested in the Fair Tax.

thanks for your time, Elizabeth 7/15/08 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.154.93.164 (talk) 03:43, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


Just a reminder, article talk pages are for discussing improvements to article. They are not discussion forums for debating the pros and cons of the article subject. Jefffire (talk) 13:52, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

There's a fallacy in that argument in any case: there's no way that charging exactly the same amount of tax can mean people have more money for purchases in total. If your upstream suppliers used to pay income/corporate tax and now they pay "FairTax" they still are paying tax. Wnt (talk) 03:04, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
The argument is sort of true, in a rather twisted manner. The FairTax isn't remotely revenue-neutral at its alleged 30% rate. So, yeah, if the FairTax gets applied at 30%, taxes will go down - on rich people. They'll pay significantly, massively less than they do today. The working-class will be left holding the bag - paying 30% more for everything and dealing with massive cuts in government spending, which of course the Republicans would love to see fall on social programs. It's the classic Grover Norquist "drown the government in the bathtub" ideology. FCYTravis (talk) 20:02, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
Unless there was a section in the article about where the name came from and those provided explanation could be correctly backed with sources AND if it could be done in a way without introducing any biases, this shouldn't be discussed in talk pages. The article has pros and cons already in it. The talk should not be used as debate field, but as place to discuss the article itself and how to improve it. Wikihonduras (talk) 20:09, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
I concur with Wikihonduras. I would also like to note that this article already discusses possibility of the FairTax legislation being a regressive tax on income, however the article also notes that the legislation provides for rebates to counter such regressivity where it would particularly harm working-class people.EECavazos (talk) 20:25, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
Note that this "NON-partisan" bill is signed onto by 68 Republicans and 1 Democrat in the House, and 5 Republicans and 0 Democrats in the Senate. While WP:CRYSTAL prevents me from opining on its chances of making it out of a Democratic-led committee, no special psychic power is required. Wnt (talk) 13:59, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Monetary policy

The statement "(degree based on monetary policy)" was removed with the comment "'degree based on monetary policy' is meaningless - do you mean affected by monetary policy? If so, that is irrelevant." What the statement was meaning is the degree or amount of price change or reduction is dependent on monetary policy as described in the section "Theories of retail pricing" (accommodation models). Morphh (talk) 14:39, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Excess Profits Tax?

There's nothing in it about an excess profits tax? I'm afraid such a tax system would be pure insanity (much like what we have now) without a tax on excess profits to reign in some of the surplus of the abusers of the market like Wal-mart and ExxonMobile. Unfortunately, minus that, I see this as a sort of ploy put forth by those top-earning companies to eliminate some of the tax burden put on them by the current tax system. If there was a tax on excess profits, then this system would be almost perfect. Anybody know anything about the idea to include that? 66.69.194.16 (talk) 05:59, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't think there is a mention of excess profits tax because the FairTax tax law change does not propose one. GameKeeper (talk) 19:39, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
  1. ^ http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/88xx/doc8885/12-11-HistoricalTaxRates.pdf
  2. ^ http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/threshld/thresh04.html
  3. ^ http://fastfacts.census.gov/servlet/GRTTable?-geo_id=01000US&-mt_name=ACS_2003_EST_G00_R41_US30&-ds_name=ACS_2003_EST_G00_
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