The Chairman’s Report August 27, 2021

BUSINESSES CRAVE STABILITY 

Today’s Chairman’s Report is written by Jade Walle.  Jade is a partner of a CPA firm and is on the board of Americans For Fair Taxation.  Jade uses the analogy of putting a golf ball as he explains how government regulations and income/payroll taxes make it more and more difficult for businesses to survive and prosper.

The United States of America was set up to be the premier business marketplace, where free enterprise was the status quo and the only limitations to one’s success was the quality of their product or service.  

The putt was short and makeable so to speak, as long as the product or service was desirable and of good quality.

In fact, our 10th Amendment ensures, at least in theory, that the federal government will stay out of the way of our business endeavors.  It says that powers not specifically granted to the federal government by the Constitution belong to the states, and the original Constitution delegated as little power as possible to the federal government.

It is a good and proper thing that regulations and restrictions on our commercial undertakings are limited.  Anyone who has owned a business, been a partner or co-owner of a business, managed a business or even worked at a for-profit business inherently understands the challenges and complexities associated with business management.  

The most difficult aspect of starting, owning, or successfully running a business should be whether or not the product or service being offered is desired by the marketplace and whether everyday people like you and me find value in what is being offered and sold.  When regulation, including U.S. corporate and other taxation, enters into the business paradigm, an inexorably complex and multifaceted web of tortuous and byzantine rules and laws become an everyday aspect of running a business.  

The putt has been significantly lengthened. 

The U.S. payroll and income tax, the latter of which has been a part of our U.S. business universe since 1913, began small, but has grown into a monstrosity that consumes 8.9 billion hours and approximately $600 billion per year of our U.S. citizens’ and business’ time, treasure, and talent.  The fact that every few years, significant changes to our U.S. income tax code are enacted into law exacerbates the already convoluted amalgamation of nearly 77,000 pages of U.S. income tax laws and regulations that every single one of us are responsible to fully understand, apply to our personal and business activities, and accurately comply with.  

The putt has been lengthened even further.  I can barely see the ball now. 

The FAIRtax is a simple, transparent and effective means of funding the federal government at the same level as the income tax, but it does it without the complications, difficulties, barriers, and other hurdles that our income tax system imposes on individuals and businesses.  

Just imagine, with the FAIRtax as the law of the land and the 16th Amendment repealed, businesses would not have to worry about frequent changes to corporate, partnership, S-corporation or other business-related income taxes because there would be no income tax whatsoever and the U.S. becomes the world’s tax haven at the same time.  

The putt is shortened considerably and the golf ball is perhaps no longer on the fringe but actually back on the green. 

Let’s go a little further.  Not only would enacting the FAIRtax ensure that companies would not have to anticipate, guess at and ultimately plan for changes to corporate and business income tax rules and regulations, but they would not have to plan for, budget for, pay for and otherwise deal with any form of business taxation whatsoever.  

Companies would be free to concentrate on what they hopefully do best, which is make, market and distribute great products and/or services to their customers.  

The putt is dramatically shortened again.  

At this point, in golf parlance, we would call this a gimmie.  For those of you who don’t play golf, a gimmie is where the ball is resting so close to the hole that you don’t even make the player tap it in.  The FAIRtax, just like a gimmie in golf, results in the American people picking up their ball and moving on to the next hole, without spending billions of hours and dollars figuring out how they are going to make a 40-yard putt.  In this case, Americans can move on to their next endeavor, free of the impediments that our income/payroll tax system has made us so accustomed to. 

CONCLUSION

Many of us may not be golfers but all of us can understand the point that Jade is making.

We often ask the question—why don’t our Members of Congress see this plain truth?

The answer is that they do, but their strings are being pulled not by us but by the Ruling Class.  The Ruling Class is only looking to help themselves and people who pay them.

To them, we are just little people who only have to be tolerated, but we have a lot more leverage than most people realize.   We the people have to power to demand that our representatives do what is right or face getting thrown out of office.

What can each of us do?

We can write letters and make calls to our elected representatives demanding that if the government really wants to eliminate the burden of filing income tax returns, they should enact the FAIRtax and do away with tax returns altogether.

The great 18th century Irish statesman Edmund Burke made a statement that applies in many ways,

“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.”

If you want to prevent the IRS from being further weaponized to punish those of us who may object to the D.C. opinions and dictates of what is good for us, then help us PASS THE FAIRTAX!

The IRS will be gone and we will pay our taxes when we make purchases.  WE and not D.C. Elites will decide how much federal tax we pay!

If you have friends who don’t know about the FAIRtax, send them to FAIRtax.org.  Have them watch the white boards under “How It Works” and, if they agree, ask them to please join us.

Then contact your Members of Congress and the President and demand that Congress pass -the FAIRtax—the only fair tax.

Remember, if we don't continue to tell the truth and demand a change, then this quote from George Orwell's 1984 may foretell our children's future:

“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”

Is it hopeless?  When confronted with a seemingly impossible problem, remember the statement attributed to the author George Bernard Shaw who wrote, You see things; and you say “Why?”  But I dream things that never were; and I say “Why not?”

Isn’t it time for us to ask, “Why not?”