Dear Rep:_________________
Subject: H.R. 2525, the Linder-Peterson Fair Tax Act of 1999
Regarding the hearing scheduled before the House Ways & Means Committee
April 11 on H.R. 2525, the Linder-Peterson Fair Tax Act of 1999, this email is
to express my opposition to a national sales tax. This will only add one more
layer of sales taxation, on top of state, county, and some local sales taxes.
It was reported at last year's ALEC meeting that more than 35% of sales taxes
are evaded, both legally and illegally. We can look to the income tax,
adopted in the early 1900s, to see how a tax just becomes more and more tiered
and burdensome and complicated with exemptions once the federal government
adopts it.
Taxes on sales, as well as income, are taxes on labor, and that is
counterproductive to economic well-being. The more wages are spent on taxes,
the less the worker has to spend on goods and services, and consequently the
less stimulation of production of goods and services. The sales tax is a
regressive tax. A national sales tax, at 23% initially, is just as bad an
idea as the burdensome income tax, and is not a good substitute.
The United States is regretably known for not collecting fees for values
created by government agencies, values of natural resources and community
created values, of which there are trillions of dollars of publicly created
values. For more information, we invite you to visit Common Ground-USA's web
site, http://www.progress.org/cg. Please especially note the "What's New"
section and articles, "Environmental Tax Shifting" and "Alan T. Durning
Speaks," about Durning's book, "Getting Taxes Off Our Backs and On Our Side."
Tax bad pollutants, and please do not impose taxes on labor and capital which
suppress economic production.
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