I will try to address a few concerns yet I am not a spokesperson for the Fair Tax – I am simply adding to the conversations here. This is a long post and most of this information is on the links already posted. The IRS is an abusive politicized boondoggle of an agency. Doing the same thing over and over expecting different results is by definition insanity. A couple of corrections and clarifications. Regarding the comment about Warren Buffet’s secretary paying more taxes. I should have said the secretary has a higher effective tax rate and that is because, as has been posted, Buffet has LT capital gains not ordinary income. Also I stated abolishing the IRS = 16,000 people. I was wrong as that number is actually 74,454 and the budget savings would be around 12 billion. There are trillions more reasons to get rid of the IRS as outlined below.

I failed to mention that one big benefit of the Fair Tax plan is it pretty much eliminates cheating on taxes and tax evasion as it is a consumption tax that you pay ONE time upon new purchases. This addresses this comment: “What would stop large numbers of Americans from doing most of their purchasing under the table, buying things at yard sales and so on, in order to avoid this huge sales tax?� The tax is on NEW purchases only.

Decomposed you asked “I'm also curious as to how the Federal Government would implement it.� The Federal Government would not implement this – the system is already pretty much in place. Sales taxes would be collected by retailers on a local level as they do now in 45 states and they would be compensated 25 basis points for their collection efforts. Details here: http://fairtax-structure-psyclone.netdna-ssl.com/client_assets/fairtaxorg/media/attachments/56c4/aedf/6970/2d1c/f609/0000/56c4aedf69702d1cf6090000.pdf?1455730399

You also stated: “My guess is that HR 25 would result in the average household paying 28% or so of their income... er... of their SPENDING. The Motley Fool article I posted earlier today said that the average household is now paying 14% of their income. How do you resolve this and still conclude that the FAIR TAX is an improvement? (I have a suspicion what the answer might be, but I'd like to give you a shot at it before I speculate.)� You have commingled two separate and vastly different concepts, one being an effective tax rate and the subject at hand, replacing the ___% income taxation with a National sales tax of 23%. You “guess� that an average household would pay 28% of their income vs. 14% now. BOTH of those are moot points as there is NO INCOME taxation. ZERO. The Fair Tax is ONLY a tax on new purchases and it is not a guess. It IS 23%. In an earlier post I posted a list of a multitude of improvements so there is nothing to speculate about how I might answer that either. I do appreciate the opportunity to add to that list. So far I have added 12 billion additional reasons to end the IRS. Perhaps the missing link is the embedded hidden taxes in all goods and services estimated to be 12% - as high as 20%. BEFORE the tax law that Trump passed the minimum tax bracket was 15% plus the 7.65% SS & Medicaid/Medicare taxes. That is 22.65% - pretty close to the 23% proposal. And do not forget the prebate that ALL Americans receive. Because the 23-percent FairTax rate of $0.23 on every dollar spent is not imposed on necessities, an individual spending $30,000 pays an effective tax rate of only 15.5 percent, not 23 percent. That same individual will pay 17.3 percent of his or her income to federal taxes under current law.

Personally, I HATE having to comply with filing taxes on 4/15 every year and I doubt anyone here enjoys that either. Another statement was “What would stop large numbers of Americans from doing most of their purchasing under the table, buying things at yard sales and so on, in order to avoid this huge sales tax?� Again this is a tax on NEW sales only so shop away as there is nothing under the table. Measures are in place so that people cannot claim to be a business to buy items tax free.

A study by the Government Accountability Office estimated that the federal tax system imposed efficiency costs on the U.S. economy of two to five percent of GDP. Under the FairTax, within ten years average Americans will be at least 10 percent and probably 15 percent better off than they would be under the current system. That translates to an increase of $3,000 to $4,500 per household, per year. Job creation booms. Residential real estate booms. Financial services boom. Exports boom. Retail prospers. Farming and ranching prosper. Churches and charities prosper. Civil liberties are enhanced. In short, it is difficult to imagine the far-reaching, positive effects of this change. Though this tax policy is exactly what our Founding Fathers counseled us to do with the Federalist Papers and the Constitution.

Another reason to implement the Fair Tax is the TAX GAP – aka unpaid and evaded taxes. This is a link to the estimated Tax Gap for the individual income tax for the period 2017 through 2026 lies within a range of between $3.8 trillion and $6.8 trillion: estimated Tax Gap for the individual income tax for the period 2017 through 2026 lies within a range of between $3.8 trillion and $6.8 trillion.
http://fairtax-structure-psyclone.netdna-ssl.com/client_assets/fairtaxorg/media/attachments/58c0/2c41/6970/2d32/56b7/0200/58c02c4169702d3256b70200.pdf?1488989249

Business compliance costs estimated to be $161.7 billion are lowered by a 95 percent. Prices will become lower because of the removal of embedded hidden multiple layers of taxation and by market competition. Here is a link showing how the cost of a new automobile would be lower: http://fairtax-structure-psyclone.netdna-ssl.com/client_assets/fairtaxorg/media/attachments/56c4/abe2/6970/2d06/a719/0000/56c4abe269702d06a7190000.pdf?1455729634
Under the FairTax, American manufactured or grown goods and services no longer enter the marketplace burdened with hidden corporate taxes, the cost of compliance with such taxes, and Social Security employee matching. This amounts to an average cost reduction from 12 percent to in some cases more than 20 percent. Said another way, American goods become 12 to 20 percent more competitive.
http://fairtax-structure-psyclone.netdna-ssl.com/client_assets/fairtaxorg/media/attachments/57be/78aa/6970/2d1f/f238/0d00/57be78aa69702d1ff2380d00.pdf?1472100522

Real GDP would be 8% higher in the first year than under the income tax system, 11% higher in Year 5 and 11% percent higher in Year 10. Job growth would be 12% higher in Year 1, 10% higher in Year 5 and 8% higher in Year 10. Apply these results to the current level of employment, 133 million, means in just one year, the Fair Tax would have created 13.3 million more jobs than if the current income tax system remained in place.
http://fairtax-structure-psyclone.netdna-ssl.com/client_assets/fairtaxorg/media/attachments/56c4/b27f/6970/2d56/0841/0000/56c4b27f69702d5608410000.pdf?1455731327

The most recent credible study shows that U.S. taxpayers waste an astounding $431.1 billion annually on tax compliance. If this figure is near correct, it means that we pay about 30 percent of total income taxes collected, just to … well … pay those taxes.3 Of the $431.1 billion, 88% is the time value costs borne by taxpayers: $161.7 billion by businesses and $216.2 billion by individuals. We spend much more money complying with the tax system than we do building every automobile and airplane built in the country.

The Fair Tax has a pronounced positive impact on the after-tax real wages of the American people. Real wages increase because:
Higher investment levels increase the productivity of employees.
The economy grows more rapidly, increasing the demand for workers and improving job opportunities.
The economy becomes more productive because we waste fewer resources on needless paperwork related to complying with an overly complex tax system.
American-based businesses are more competitive in the international marketplace because of the improved tax climate and lower compliance costs.
Foreign and domestically produced goods are taxed equally, instead of foreign-produced goods enjoying a tax advantage as under current law.

Another comment by Zimbler was “bait and switch� and keeping both income streams. Good to see I am NOT alone in my mistrust for Big Government!! From the Fair Tax site: “Could we end up with both the Fair Tax and an income tax?�
No current supporter of the Fair Tax would support the Fair Tax unless the entire income tax is repealed. Moreover, concurrent with the repeal of the income tax, a constitutional amendment repealing the 16th Amendment and prohibiting an income tax will be pushed through Congress for ratification by the states (filed as HJR 16 in the 110th Congress).
Is there any provision in the Fair Tax bill to prevent both an income tax and a sales tax?
The short answer is that there is no provision in the Fair Tax bill (HR 25) that would prevent having a national sales tax and the income tax. However, the Fair Tax legislation does three things that effectively dismantle the income tax: (1) it abolishes the IRS, (2) it repeals all statutory language having to do with taxing income and payroll (i.e., the Internal Revenue Code), and (3) it eliminates the filing of annual income tax returns to the federal government for over 140 million Americans. The 16th Amendment does not “require� an income tax, it only “allows� one, and the Fair Tax will have broken that egg in a million pieces. It would be extremely difficult to put that egg “back together again.� Once the Fair Tax is enacted it would be an extremely daunting task for Congress to make people start filing income tax returns again. There would be a public uproar. Once the American public has experienced the freedom from filing income tax returns it’s hard to imagine them tolerating going back. Furthermore, the sponsors of the Fair Tax are totally dedicated to the permanent repeal of the income tax. No current supporter of the Fair Tax would support the Fair Tax unless the entire income tax is repealed. There is a separate bill, HJR 16, which repeals the 16th Amendment to the Constitution but it must go through a different adoption process than HR 25. HJR 16 has to be passed by a two-thirds vote of members of both the House and the Senate and be approved (or ratified) by three-fourths of state legislatures (3. We are currently laying the organizational groundwork for this push and have already started the educational process at the state level. Finally, the reality is that we already have both an income and a type of sales tax today. All of our U.S. produced goods and services are burdened with an “embedded� tax due to the cascading of income and payroll taxes paid by U.S. employers to the U.S. Treasury at every step of production. Of course, these costs are passed on to the ultimate payer, the customer. It’s fair to call these embedded taxes a “sales tax� because we pay it every time we buy any goods or services — we just don’t see it. The Fair Tax eliminates these embedded taxes, resulting in a single-rate national sales tax visible to all.

Zimbler also said: “Let me see . . in my income bracket looks my long term capital gains tax rate is 15% . . . and your new tax scam is going to tax me at 23% . . . Gee thanks.� You MUST LOVE sending money to the IRS!! I will say this again. Your long term capital gains are taxed at ZERO. ZERO! You pay tax when YOU decide to buy something NEW. You also said “>> It is a PROGRESSIVE TAX. >>
Yes, progressively worse for the poor folks who have to spend every nickel they make.�
That simply shows a lack of ANY effort to understand the Fair Tax. Poor people get a prebate on the taxes up to the poverty level.

More info is here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairTax

I cannot imagine anyone actually liking the current 72,000+ page tax code vs. the Fair Tax and the less than 150 page plan. America did well for 123 years without the IRS and I think it is time to get rid of the IRS.

PEACE