The House Republicans have essentially declared war on the IRS. They are now not just stripping it of its funding but are also considering legislation that would abolish both it and its reason for existence.
House Republicans voted last night to strip the IRS of most of the extra funding it received when the Democrats and Biden Administration rammed through the Inflation Reduction Act. Stripping the IRS of $70 billion, the Republicans have limited the ability of the IRS to audit and harass ordinary Americans.
But that’s not all they’ve done. Now they’re also going to vote on a bill that, if passed, would both abolish the IRS completely and eliminate the much-hated income tax. They’d be doing so by voting on Georgia Rep. Buddy Carter’s “Fair Tax Act,” which replaces the federal income tax with a national consumption tax and gets rid of the IRS, which would be made unnecessary by getting rid of the federal income tax.
In fact, the Fair Tax Act, if passed, would not just get rid of the federal income tax but would also get rid of other taxes, replacing the whole federal tax scheme with one national consumption tax.
The vote on the sure-to-be controversial and unlikely-to-succeed bill is happening because of the deal that Rep. Kevin McCarthy, now Speaker of the House, struck with members of the House Freedom Caucus who otherwise would not have voted for him to become Speaker of the House. So, thanks to the intransigence of Gaetz, Boebert, and others, Congress will have the opportunity, however slight, to demolish the extortionate income tax and replace it with a fairer, easier to understand and comply with consumption tax.
More details on what the Fair Tax Act would do can be found on FairTax.org. That organization, describing the vision for the bill, who came up with the idea, and what they hope getting such a tax law passed would lead to, notes that:
Americans For Fair Taxation® (AFFT) was founded in 1995, by three Houston entrepreneurs.
It is a nonpartisan 501(c)(4) grassroots organization solely dedicated to replacing the current income tax code with a national retail-level consumption tax.
AFFT began as a research organization. Extensive polling and focus group studies were commissioned with a financially, ethnically and politically diverse group of taxpayers. The results of these studies led to a nonpartisan team of economists who developed the FairTax® plan.
Today, AFFT is the largest tax reform organization in the nation. We have a clearly defined mission and vision for the American people:
MISSION: Pass the FairTax®
VISION: A reinvigorated U.S. economy with millions of new, well paying jobs under a federal tax system that:
-
Encourages a culture of savings and capital formation
-
Provides adequate funding for current and future national spending priorities
-
Restores the freedom, dignity and privacy of the taxpayer and,
-
Positions the U.S. to compete globally
It seems unlikely the legislation will pass, particularly given that the Democrats still hold the Senate and Biden is the POTUS, so a veto-proof majority would be needed in the House and Senate. But, still, if the House GOP manages to pass the bill, that will put the onus on Democrats to explain why Americans have to keep paying the hated income tax and the vote itself will help the GOP signal which members are real conservatives and which are RINOs.
"*" indicates required fields