FAIRtax Board Member and CPA, Jade Walle, sent in a report about his contacts with Republican Congressional candidate, Bob Lewis. Lewis is running in the Fourth Congressional District of Colorado. The Fourth District covers the entire Eastern third of the state and surrounds the Denver Area on three sides.

Jade writes:

“I was able to follow up on the phone this morning (June 9, 2022) with our newly mapped Colorado District 4 Republican candidate, Bob Lewis.  Below is my emailed response to his initial questions/concerns with the FAIRtax, which he read and understands after our conversation this morning.  
 
“We spoke for about 10-12 minutes, and it went well.  I point blank asked him to co-sponsor H.R. 25 should he be elected to the House. He said he's a strong maybe.  His hang up is that he wants the 16th Amendment repealed first, even by convention of states if necessary.  He said that he'd worry that the sunset provision of H.R. 25 could be modified or eliminated by Congress, which would allow both a national sales tax and the income tax.  
 
“I of course explained how that once the FAIRtax is the law of the land, repealing the 16th Amendment will not be as cumbersome and difficult as it sounds today, since the income tax will be gone and wheels will be greased so to speak, etc.  He acknowledged that, and said he'd be happy to discuss further with me.  Ugh.  .  He of course asked for money.  He did say that he would be happy to propose the Constitutional Amendment to repeal the 16th Amendment in Congress, which would be great.  
 
“The reality is that the June 28, 2022 Republican primary will be challenging for Mr. Lewis, but one never knows.  He's a heavy underdog, although all around I believe he's a stronger candidate than his opponent, Ken Buck (incumbent), with Mr. Lewis being less of a RINO.
 
“At least we're having a conversation here and there.”
 
We thank Jade for his perseverance. This is great progress.  Every step helps. Even though we don't have Mr. Lewis’ firm commitment, we do have his attention thanks to Jade. Jade, in addition to being a member of our board, is a partner is a Big Four public accounting firm. We wish Mr. Lewis luck in the upcoming Republican primary.
 
Jade’s Q&A answers appear here:
 
“To your points:
 

To this end, the very last clause of H.R. 25, which I've read, is called the "sunset" clause.  It states that if the 16th Amendment is not repealed within seven (7) years of FAIRtax enactment, then the FAIRtax goes away, and the IRS and income/payroll tax systems comes back.  This guarantees that the FAIRtax will not inadvertently usher in or allow both an income and retail sales tax.  Obviously, the Constitutional Amendment process requires a different path than mere legislation such as H.R. 25 (i.e., two-thirds of Congress approving along with three-quarters of the states ratifying the Amendment), hence the H.R. 25 "Sunset" clause.
 

2. The states and retailers (only ~5% of all U.S. businesses are end-use consumer retail businesses- think Wal-Mart, BestBuy, Amazon, etc.) would in fact be the collectors and remitters of the FAIRtax to the U.S. Treasury.  Currently, we have nearly 200 million individuals/families acting as the IRS's tax collectors, on their honor, as they file tax returns, along with approximately 100 million U.S. businesses (large and small).  We as tax collectors have a heavy burden, and do not get paid for our collection efforts.  Under the FAIRtax, the 45 of the 50 states (~98% of the U.S. population) already collect sales taxes and have the mechanisms, systems, processes and controls necessary for collection.  The FAIRtax is a simple add-on to this already existing process.  Retail vendors also already collect a sales tax, even on-line with Amazon, and they also have the point-of-sale terminal simple computer programs that charge, collect and remit the sales taxes to the states already.  Plus, both the states and vendors will receive 0.25% of all their collections/remittances under the FAIRtax, for their collection troubles.  Finally, tax collectors will actually get paid for their collection efforts.  Further, when we crunch the numbers, ~100,000 retail businesses make up ~92% of all U.S. retail sales.  This will have a massive effect on reducing illegal tax evasion (studies indicate a 95% illegal evasion reduction), by the mere fact that the number of U.S. tax collectors is 100,000-200,000, as opposed to over 200 million current individual/family/businesses tax return filers.  I've linked a couple of evasion studies that support the figures above from fairtax.org, for reference if/as interested in diving in a little deeper (https://fairtax.org/research-library/evasion).

 

3. Regarding business, the easiest way to sum up the FAIRtax is that it would be "rocket fuel for the economy."  I believe this is a quote from former Trump economic advisor, Steve Moore.  He's a proponent of a national sales tax replacing the current income/payroll tax system.  I've linked a few short and sweet studies that support my contention.  These studies are from very reputable sources (e.g., former Harvard economic department head, Dale Jorgensen, etc.). (https://fairtax.org/research-library/the-economy).  The FAIRtax, with a 0% corporate income tax rate, makes the U.S. the tax haven of the world.  Also, a deeper concept is how the current embedded payroll and income taxes in the cost of everything we consume, will fall away under the FAIRtax (think of employers no longer having to "match" employee wage FICA/Medicare 7.65% taxes on all of their payroll, as one small example).  This will for the first time allow U.S. exports to compete on a level playing field with other countries (e.g., Europe), that allow vendors to not charge their domestic VAT taxes on exports abroad.  Currently, our U.S. companies have ~22% of their cost comprised of embedded income and payroll taxes that puts our U.S. companies at a horrible disadvantage relative to our European counterparts.”
 

 

Bob Lewis

I would love to hear from you if you know a candidate who will take the time to listen about the FAIRtax. 


Take Back Control!

Jim Bennett