Chairman Reports

The first federal excise tax on gasoline was one cent when it was first instituted in 1932. Since 1993, it has been 18.4 cents per gallon of gasoline and 24.4 cents per gallon of diesel fuel. It has not been adjusted for the approximately 73% of inflation. This means that it takes $1.73 in today’s dollars to purchase $1.00 of goods in 1993. Read More.

Next week we celebrate the time 242 years ago that the Declaration of Independence was issued. Many Americans believe that the American Revolution was a revolt supported by a large majority of people living in the colonies. This was not true. Instead of overwhelming support, many residents of the colonies were openly against the revolution. These opponents were called Loyalists or Tories. Read More.

Privacy is important to every American. But do you have the privacy you think you do? The IRS may have other thoughts. Read on. Read More.

In 1837, Hans Christian Andersen wrote a fable entitled The Emperor’s New Clothes. The Emperor really didn’t care about his people but only about getting new clothes to show off to the people in his court and to his subjects. Read More.

Realtors would see a big benefit from the FAIRtax (and so would everyone else). So why aren’t they lobbying in favor of real tax reform? Read More.

There’s a new idea floating around the Senate: Taxing an individual’s wealth, not just their income. Our Chairman, a former tax attorney, discusses this new wealth tax in this week’s Chairman’s Report. Read on! Read More.

Some call him our greatest President, but how was Lincoln when it came to taxation? Would he have been a FAIRtax ally? Read on. Read More.

People in the real estate industry have long championed the Mortgage Interest Deduction (MID). The MID allows a taxpayer to reduce the amount of income subject to the federal income tax by the amount paid in interest on their home mortgage… Read More.

Over the years, I have met and often been on panels with many economists—some Nobel Prize-winning economists. Almost all these men and women were personable and treated me with reasonable deference as they dismissed my arguments about the advantages of the FAIRtax over the present income/payroll tax system. Read More.

In USA Today, Ways And Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady published an op-ed where he boasted that the recently enacted tax plan said “…good riddance to that outdated monstrosity of a tax code that took too much of your money, sent our American jobs overseas, and kept our economy so slow many workers didn’t see a pay raise for a decade or more.” Read More.

Understanding ‘swamp talk’ isn’t easy. Politicians often say one thing and do another, while families and small businesses pay the price… Read More.

Russell Long served as a U.S. Senator from 1948 until 1987 and was chairman of the Senate Finance Committee for fifteen years from 1966 to 1981. During a meeting at his Washington, D.C. office in the early 1990’s, the Senator related that during his time on the Senate Finance Committee, there was always a constant stream of lobbyists explaining why they were in favor of tax reform as long as it did not affect their client’s particular tax benefit… Read More.

In 1954, Congress enacted the clergy housing allowance which allows a church to provide a housing allowance to its minister that is not taxable as income to the minister. The Freedom From Religion Foundation website describes its purpose: “The history of Western civilization shows us that most social and moral progress has been brought about by persons free from religion. In modern times the first to speak out for prison reform, for humane treatment of the mentally ill, for abolition of capital punishment, for women’s right to vote, for death with dignity for the terminally ill, and for the right to choose contraception, sterilization and abortion have been freethinkers, just as they were the first to call for an end to slavery. The Foundation works as an umbrella for those who are free from religion and are committed to the cherished principle of separation of state and church.” Read More.

You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone. Our current income tax system is (unfortunately) all we’ve ever known. Imagine what it would be like to eliminate it completely… along with all the complexity, confusion, and cost that comes with it. Read More.

What do the Yellow Vests protesting in France have in common with taxation in the United States? It might not be what you think… Read More.