Labels: comix, FairTax

- posted by Kerry M. Kerstetter, MBA~CPA~ATP~ATA @ 4/22/2008 12:44:00 PM Send this post:

That’s what Jay Bookman of the Atlanta Urinal-Constipation thinks it is.

Obviously, Neal Boortz has a very different opinion on this.

Labels: FairTax

- posted by Kerry M. Kerstetter, MBA~CPA~ATP~ATA @ 12/20/2007 10:47:00 PM Send this post:

Labels: comix, FairTax, FlatTax

- posted by Kerry M. Kerstetter, MBA~CPA~ATP~ATA @ 12/20/2007 10:18:00 PM Send this post:

The Lies:

FairTax is anything but – From a nut job in Kansas City

FairTax Is Pure Fantasy – More spurious attacks from Bruce Bartlett, who has yet to apologize for his idiotic claims that the FairTax is a Scientology plot.

The Truth:

A 59 minute video of a presentation by John Linder and Neal Boortz.  I just finished listening to the entire thing.  John Linder mentions that we CPAs are strongly in favor of this idea so that we can use our skills for more useful purposes than protecting clients from the IRS, something I have long been saying.   

Labels: FairTax

- posted by Kerry M. Kerstetter, MBA~CPA~ATP~ATA @ 10/04/2007 08:59:00 PM Send this post:

Q:

Subject: Fair Tax & Roth accounts?

How is the Fair Tax supposed to integrate with Roth accounts? These are *supposed* to be tax-free upon withdrawal. The Fair Tax represents a very large stealth tax increase on these accounts.

A:

There's no way to make such a radical change in the tax system without also affecting the results of tax motivated transactions. 

This is why I have always been critical of plans by people to convert conventional IRAs to Roths.  Paying real tax money now for promised tax savings down the road has never felt like a good idea because there is no guarantee that the tax free aspect will survive the whims of our rulers in DC.  While I do support the concept of the FairTax, I'm not as worried about it messing up Roth IRAs as I am about our rulers instituting a means test for taxation of Roth IRA income in the same way they did for Social Security recipients.

Thanks for writing.

Kerry Kerstetter

Follow-Up:

I did it because (a) I had relatively low tax cost since I converted during a year when I was unemployed, and (b) I won't be making any more contributions to the account. You're right about their tendency to take away what they have given when their lack of restraint catches up to them. I shudder at the thought of  Hilary as President and a Democrat-majority Congress.

 

A means test? That would be horrible! Of course, that wouldn't raise the kind of revenue the IRS expects. The means test only screws middle-income taxpayers. Low income (though with non-indexed income thresholds this becomes progressively less meaningful) people won't be affected, assuming they even have a Roth account, and people with plenty of non-Roth income won't have to take distributions. To give means testing real sharp teeth you'd need to make Roth IRAs subject to RMD.

Labels: FairTax, Retire

- posted by Kerry M. Kerstetter, MBA~CPA~ATP~ATA @ 9/18/2007 10:14:00 PM Send this post:

Fear of the FairTax – Neal Boortz takes on Bruce Bartlett’s attacks against the FairTax.

Labels: FairTax

- posted by Kerry M. Kerstetter, MBA~CPA~ATP~ATA @ 9/13/2007 09:59:00 PM Send this post:

Dianetics, the Tax Plan – Bruce Bartlett isn’t slowing down in his attempts to discredit the FairTax by trying to associate it with Scientology. It’s a bit of a stretch to claim that just because the Church of Scientology didn’t like the IRS and proposed ways to abolish that agency, that anyone who also proposes doing away with IRS is a fellow space traveler with the likes of John Travolta and Tom Cruise. I would hazard a bet that if Americans were polled on what agencies they would like to see eliminated, IRS would be at the very top. Does that make everyone who wants to say goodbye to IRS a Scientologist?

Labels: FairTax

- posted by Kerry M. Kerstetter, MBA~CPA~ATP~ATA @ 9/07/2007 10:16:00 PM Send this post:

The FairTax - distortions and lies – Another response to Bruce Bartlett’s hatchet job on the FairTax proposals.

Labels: FairTax

- posted by Kerry M. Kerstetter, MBA~CPA~ATP~ATA @ 8/31/2007 02:25:00 PM Send this post:

Fair Tax, Flawed Tax - Bruce Bartlett on the attack against the FairTax plan. If northing else, it’s good to see this as an openly discussed issue in the lead-up to the presidential election.  I’m sure we’ll hear and see the rebuttal to Mr. Bartlett’s comments from Neal Boortz before long, especially this item, which I had never heard before, and suspect is bogus:

It was originally devised by the Church of Scientology in the early 1990s as a way to get rid of the Internal Revenue Service, with which the church was then at war (at the time the IRS refused to recognize it as a legitimate religion). The Scientologists' idea was that since almost all states have sales taxes, replacing federal taxes with the same sort of tax would allow them to collect the federal government's revenue and thereby get rid of their hated enemy, the IRS.

[Update]  Neal Boortz actually posted his response to the Scientology accusation in a rare Sunday posting to his blog. 

SCIENTOLOGY?  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

Frankly, it looks to me like some K Street opponent of the FairTax got to Bartlett, and Bartlett, or one of his researchers, simply failed in their due diligence. It takes no time at all on the Internet to debunk this absurd notion.  My guess is that Bartlett will be issuing an apology to Leo Linbek, Bob McNair, John Linder, Americans for Fair Taxation and hundreds of thousands of FairTax volunteers before too many day pass.

You're asking me if I will address this on Monday's show?  Absolutely.  See you there.

 
This should be interesting.  I must have missed the vocal support of the FairTax plan by such A-List Hollywood celebrities as Tom Cruise and John Travolta. 

Labels: FairTax

- posted by Kerry M. Kerstetter, MBA~CPA~ATP~ATA @ 8/26/2007 03:27:00 PM Send this post:

Income-Tax Foes Regroup – More on the FairTax movement.

Labels: FairTax

- posted by Kerry M. Kerstetter, MBA~CPA~ATP~ATA @ 8/21/2007 10:30:00 AM Send this post:

Fair Tax, Foul Politics – Surprisingly strong opposition to the FairTax proposal by the editors of National Review, who believe it to be political suicide for any candidate supporting it. I think they are overstating the country’s love for the IRS; but this is a good example of how impossible it is to make a radical change in the tax system with no majority supporting any alternative. We are doomed to eternal tinkering with the current system, guaranteeing an unending amount of work for us tax pros.

Labels: FairTax

- posted by Kerry M. Kerstetter, MBA~CPA~ATP~ATA @ 8/17/2007 10:04:00 PM Send this post:

Labels: comix, FairTax, IRS

- posted by Kerry M. Kerstetter, MBA~CPA~ATP~ATA @ 5/03/2007 02:14:00 PM Send this post:

From a reader:

Subject: A Word of Thanks

Mr. Kerstetter,

I ran across your blog & website today while searching for a graphic to go along with the pro-FairTax post I am preparing for my own blog.

As I looked through your sites, I just had to say thank you for your support of free market economics & tax reform. It's great!

Chuck Layne

My Reply:

Chuck:

I appreciate those kind words and knowing that there are others out there fighting for tax reform.

Please send me a link to your post on this and I'll mention it in my blog.

Thanks for writing.

Kerry Kerstetter

Follow-Up:

Kerry,

Thank you for the offer to mention my post. The blog is at http://www.chuckschants.blogspot.com/

The comics you have are priceless!

Chuck Layne

Besides Chuck’s post on the Fair Tax, I want to echo a caller on last Friday’s Rush Limbaugh show, who chastised the substitute host, Tom Sullivan, for being so dismissive of the Fair Tax movement just because it is so seemingly impossible to conceive of success. That my be the case; but we do still have to have some hope that our long national nightmare of being slaves to the IRS can end some day.

Neal Boortz’s book on the Fair Tax.

Labels: FairTax

- posted by Kerry M. Kerstetter, MBA~CPA~ATP~ATA @ 4/16/2007 06:33:00 PM Send this post: