A jeweler's view of a national sales tax.(reader's forum)

Jewelers Circular Keystone, May, 2005 by Hamel, Leo

The Fair Tax Act of 2005 (House Resolution 25 and Senate Bill 25) is a national retail sales tax, also called a consumption tax, which would completely abolish the Internal Revenue Service and the entire income tax code and replace them with a simple-to-administer sales tax called the Fair Tax (see "'Pro-Business' Congress May Consider a National Sales Tax," JCK, February 2005, p. 112). Other proposals by other names would leave the IRS in place and are not desirable. The Fair Tax would eliminate all of the following taxes: personal, corporate, capital gains, estate, payroll (Social Security and Medicare), alternative minimum, and self employment. And abolish the IRS.

Every year since 1999 the Fair Tax Act has been submitted to, and routinely ignored by, the...