The FAIRtax: The Answer Hiding in Plain Sight
Dr. Frank Luntz's new polling paints a troubling picture of America: 70% of voters say the economic system is "unfair," 55% say they're falling behind financially, and 38% — the highest since 2009 — say they want more socialism and less capitalism.
The frustration is real. But the prescription being pushed — wealth taxes, punishing the successful — would make things worse. There's a better answer, and it's been sitting in Congress since 1999. It's called the FAIRtax.
Currently introduced as H.R. 25, the FAIRtax Act of 2025, the proposal would abolish the IRS and replace the federal income taxes, payroll taxes, estate and gift taxes, and corporate income taxes with a single 23% national retail sales tax on new goods and services.
In one stroke, the FAIRtax eliminates the complexity, the loopholes, and the hidden manipulation that is making Americans so angry.
Luntz found that 37% of voters believe the wealthy don't pay their fair share. They are correct and should be angry. The current tax code is riddled with deductions, shelters, and loopholes--obtained through D.C. lobbyists and donations to Members of Congress. All these manipulations of the income tax code disproportionately benefit those who can afford the best tax advisors and make the largest political contributions.
Many of the wealthy fund their lifestyles with borrowed money. They get loans against their assets at rates the rest of us could never obtain. Under current tax law, the proceeds from a loan are not considered to be income and therefore incur no tax liability.
If they were to sell assets at a profit, they would owe capital gains tax on that profit. Borrowing against their assets rather than selling them lets the wealthy keep their assets while supplying them with non-taxable dollars.
If the assets appreciate at a rate that exceeds the loan interest rate, which almost always happens, then this borrowing strategy lets the wealthy increase their wealth in a way that legally avoids paying any income tax.
The FAIRtax eliminates all of that. Unlike the income/payroll tax system, you can’t escape taxation by living on borrowed money. No matter how you get your money, you will pay the FAIRtax when you spend your money on new retail goods and services.
A billionaire buying a $1,000,000 new yacht and a middle-class family buying a $40,000 new car pay the same percentage on their purchases, but their net effective tax rate is not the same.
Many say a sales tax is regressive because lower income people spend a higher percentage of their income than higher income people. That would be true if you taxed every dollar everyone spent, but the FAIRtax doesn’t do that.
The FAIRtax makes the sales tax progressive. Every registered household receives a monthly prebate check — a tax rebate equal to the amount of FAIRtax paid on spending up to the federal poverty level. This effectively means that no one pays the FAIRtax on their basic necessities. Spend right at the poverty level and your effective FAIRtax rate is zero.
Beyond that, the more you spend, the more money you take out of your own pocket to pay the FAIRtax.
With the FAIRtax, workers keep 100% of their paychecks. There is no withholding and no federal payroll taxes. And those payroll taxes are what hit low income earners the hardest. They eat up 7.65% of every dollar a worker earns. There’s no standard deduction and everyone pays the same rate regardless of how much or how little they earn.
Luntz found 59% of Americans believe the Dream is less attainable today than when they grew up.
The FAIRtax addresses this by taxing consumption and not income. The FAIRtax:
- Eliminates corporate income taxes. This dramatically reduces the cost of doing business and will put downward pressure on prices.
- Incentivizes businesses to invest, hire, and produce in America, driving job creation and wage growth.
- Rewards saving and investment — the building blocks of upward mobility — since unspent income is never taxed.
- Eliminates the subsidies now given to imported goods that give them a huge advantage in competing with U.S. produced goods.
- Taxes the underground economy--criminals and those evading taxes by working for cash under the table.
- Taxes undocumented workers, broadening the tax base and reducing the burden on everyone else.
- Grows the economy at a faster rate than income/payroll taxes.
- Immediately ensures Social Security will be solvent for the coming years and reduces the national debt by $3 trillion.
Luntz noted voters are fed up with Washington waste and fraud. The FAIRtax doesn't just trim the IRS — it eliminates it, replacing the thousands of pages of the US tax code with a transparent, simple system administered at the state level.
No more politically connected loopholes. No more K Street lobbyists writing exemptions for their clients. Just a single, visible tax that every American can easily understand.
The anger Luntz documented is justified. But the solution isn't punishing success — it's building a tax system that's transparent, simple, and truly equal. The FAIRtax delivers exactly that.
CONCLUSION
People are upset with our present income/payroll tax system because it benefits only a small percentage of the population—the very wealthy and Members of Congress who fund their re-election campaigns by selling favorable tax treatment to the highest bidder.
For the rest of us, it’s an expensive, intrusive, incomprehensible mess that none of us fully understands.
THE FAIRTAX IS THE ANSWER.
The FAIRtax Act (H.R. 25) is more than just a proposal for a retail sales tax; it is a fundamental restructuring of the federal fiscal structure. Unlike other excise taxes which normally are applied to specific products and in different percentage amounts, the FAIRtax applies a 23% rate to all new retail products and retail services.
The FAIRtax is a national retail sales tax on new retail goods and retail services which provides a family credit so that all purchases up to the poverty level for each family are not taxed. There is no withholding from your paycheck, and YOU NEVER HAVE TO FILE A TAX RETURN TELLING THE GOVERNMENT HOW MUCH YOU EARNED AND HOW MUCH YOU SPENT, AND YOU’LL NEVER BE HARASSED BY THE IRS EVER AGAIN.
Many of you have labored tirelessly for freedom from the federal income tax and the IRS. You deserve a great deal of credit for your efforts to educate the American people on the need to fund the American government in a way that is good for America and returns freedom to the American people.
It is imperative, though, that we don’t replace the current income tax and the IRS with an alternative system that can still be manipulated by the Ruling Elite. We must let Congress and the President know that the best way to replace the income tax and the IRS is with the FAIRtax.
Make no mistake about it. The FAIRtax is a grave threat to the Ruling Elites. It will strip them of their power and their ability to control us though the tax system. Their opposition to the FAIRtax will be fierce and unrelenting. And don’t think for an instant that they won’t use half-truths, deception and downright lies in their desperate attempt to hang on to their power.
However, with the support of this President, we can finally eliminate the income tax and the IRS!!!
Of course, the best course of action is to not only repeal the income tax and abolish the IRS but to repeal the 16th Amendment as well so no future administration can ever shackle the American people with an income tax again.
We must come together and ensure that real tax reform, the FAIRtax, is not subverted by the Elites in D.C.
This will take the diligent efforts of all of us. We need your financial assistance, and we need your grass roots assistance.
If you have contacts that will allow us to get more information to President Trump about the FAIRtax please let us know.
Please email us at info@FAIRtax.org and we will give you some options on how you can best help us.
At a minimum, please call your Congressional representative and ask if he or she supports the FAIRtax. If so, thank him/her for their support and suggest they become a cosponsor of HR-25 if they’re not one already. If not, ask why not. If your representative claims to be unfamiliar with the FAIRtax, offer to have someone come to their office and explain it to them.
Please go to this link to invest in AFFT and help us pass the FAIRtax. It’s an investment in your and your family’s future.
THE SOLUTION—PASS THE FAIRTAX!
Why would D.C. pass the FAIRtax and give up this almost unlimited source of donations? The only way that they will is if the rest of us demand it!
Isn’t it time to end this ludicrous tax collection system and the IRS?
HELP BRING ABOUT REAL TAX REFORM AND STOP FUTURE IRS ABUSES
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Please go to this link to invest in AFFT and help us pass the FAIRtax. It’s an investment in your and your family’s future.