“Just what do we tax under our current system? Work, that’s what. Hard work and productivity. The harder you work, the more you achieve. The more you achieve, the more you’re taxed. To make matters worse, under our “progressive” income tax system, the harder you work, the more severe the punishment actually is!”

“History lesson, folks: The tax system we have today—the one we've come to know and love—began ninety-four years ago as a (drum roll, please) flat tax! The monstrosity you see today is a flat tax on income after nearly a century of very imperfect evolution. At first, only a very small percentage of Americans were asked to pay income tax. In fact, that’s how they sold it to us—as a tax on the rich! Well, that all changed with World War II. The cost of the war effort led to an expansion of those who paid federal income taxes—and we were off to the races. The tax code was flattened again, if you will, in 1986. Since that time it has been amended 16,000 times. We now have more than 67,000 pages of statutes and regulations—which helps explain why, last year, nearly two-thirds of all tax filers had to seek professional help with their tax return.”

“Because consumption comes from three sources: income, savings, and borrowings. Stating the obvious, income comes only from income. Our point? FairTax opponents will tell you that the consumption base, the base for national sales tax, isn’t stable and can’t be trusted—but in reality it’s the income tax base that’s unstable and can’t be trusted. The consumption base is much more predictable.”

“[A] Harvard University study [showed] that, on average, about 22 percent of what you pay for any consumer item or service represents the embedded costs in that item—that is, the embedded costs of our current tax system. Taxes, like some other similarly offensive substances, roll downhill, and you the consumer are standing at the bottom.”

“Let’s look at the state of tax cheating under the current system. In 2001, the last year for which information is available, the IRS reports that it collected $345 billion less than it was owed—or about 16 percent of all that was owed, a figure known as “the tax gap”.”

“One word: power.The more politicians can control your access to your own wealth and earnings, the more powerful they are. The more politicians can affect businesses and important business decisions with tax policy, the more powerful they are. The more they can adversely affect the financial picture of one segment of our economy for the benefit of another, the more powerful they are. The more politicians can pander to the petty fears and jealousies of people by punishing high achievers for their efforts, the more powerful they are.”

“The joint committee invited economists of many economic stripes to model what would happen if America switched from the current code to a unified income tax or a consumption tax. Every economist who modeled reported that the consumption tax would increase long-term economic growth.”