I’d like to explain how the FairTax will be one of the greatest boons to homeownership and the home construction industry in the history of America.

I have been a Realtor since 1975 and a home builder/ developer since 1980 in the metro area of Minneapolis/St Paul, Minnesota.

First, the FairTax eliminates the imbedded expenses of income tax, payroll tax and tax compliance from all the products of our great nation. This has been estimated by economic scholars, including Harvard’s Dale Jorgensen, to average from 22% to 25% of the price of our products. Surely new home construction is at the high end of imbedded tax costs due to the thousands of components and man-hours in every new home.

When the actual cost of constructing a new house is at least 22% less, the FairTax just brings its price back to the level it is today. Since existing homes are not subject to the tax, all home values will remain about the same. But the consumption of all the materials, energy and labor that it takes to build a new home should be taxed. And when that consumption is taxed, new home sales will produce one of the largest portions of the fuel for the engine that powers our great country’s economy. That’s fair. That’s good for The United States Of America today and it’s in the best interest of our children’s children’s children -even those who will become Realtors and Builders tomorrow.

Now recognize that the FairTax will eliminate the same imbedded costs to provide loans. Mortgage rates will become competitive to the rates of tax-exempt loans. The bond market shows us that the difference between taxed and tax-exempt rates just happens to align with Dale Jorgensen’s prediction. Tax-exempt loans tend to be about 25% lower. So mortgage rates that are today say 6.5% will instead be more like 4.9%. That of course will be in the best interest of all our children who need or want a new home today as well as tomorrow.

But that’s not even the main reason for the great boon. The following is. Since tax withholdings are eliminated by the FairTax, take-home pay goes up instantly. Every American will have 100% of their income at their own disposal –including to save for a down-payment on their new home with pre-tax dollars. And since mortgage rates will be about 25% lower, many, many more Americans will qualify for mortgages. And all will qualify for larger mortgages. That can’t help but be a boon to the housing industry both immediately and into the future.

But what about the FairTax eliminating mortgage deductions? Over time, myths have a way of becoming assumed to be truths. Such is the case with the perceived benefits of mortgage interest deductions. First of all, over 70% of Americans don’t even file the long tax form -they don’t even take deductions. But even the 27% who do will come out ahead due to the facts above. (Calculation tables supporting this statement can be readily found on the FairTax web site.) Also, my 30+ years in the business have shown me that buyers just don’t purchase or select a home because of their potential mortgage deduction. Compared to the overall, nation-wide benefit to homeownership provided by the FairTax, even the rare few who can actually show a benefit within today’s archaic income tax system still come out ahead with the FairTax -by far, irrefutably. That the mortgage interest deduction is a “benefit” is false promise in the first place and its now being used by those who have a vested interest in the present income and payroll tax system as a tactic to scare the unaware away from the FairTax.

With the FairTax replacing our income and payroll taxes, not only do buyers of new homes win, but all who work in and around the housing industry win and that helps America win. The FairTax is good for home-buyers, home-sellers and home-builders as well as our kids and their kids and their kids and theirs….

Please visit www.FairTax.org to learn more.

“If we divide the 2001 net tax gap estimate of $255 billion by 130 million individual taxpayers, we can see that each of those taxpayers in 2001 paid, on average, an extra $2,000 to subsidize the unwillingness or inability of some taxpayers to pay their fair share.”

In 2001 the average taxpayer paid $8,265 in taxes. With an estimated tax gap – which is the difference between what taxpayers should pay and what they actually pay on a timely basis – of $345 billion, this means that the 130 million taxpayers paid on average $2,649 more in taxes to subsidize the unwillingness or inability of some taxpayers to pay their fair share.

In other words, if everyone paid the taxes they owed, average individual income taxes paid per taxpayer could have been 32.1 percent less.

Click to view the entire What the federal tax system is costing you – besides your taxes! Tax compliance facts white paper.

This is your chance to join a peaceful demonstration to express your displeasure at both the National and State burdens which we now shoulder and will be increased, upon us. Your chance to let your representatives know in both D.C. and Minnesota, we have had enough and are very unhappy at how they are not listing to the very people who elected them to their positions, and can un-elect them also.

Come join your neighbors at the MN Capitol grounds on April 15 commencing at 5:PM to 9:PM. There is a lineup of speakers who are Conservatives with a message. Meet your neighbors of like morals and views and visit the many booths where you may learn how you can get active and help in the struggle to send our Representatives the message of smaller government, lower taxes and a business culture that grows entrepreneurship and jobs jobs jobs. And it will take all of us to do this job and, If you don’t get active or help in the struggle, you will have no right to criticize the results. Sooooo, Put the date on your calendar, gather a neighbor ot two and get to the event on April 15 at the Capitol. It is your future too that is being affected by what is going on in Government today.

Any while there, be sure and stop by the FAIR TAX 4 MN booth and say Hello. We have a member of our group on the Speaker’s schedule. Learn more about how the Fair Tax can be a part of Minnesota tax policies. Our goal is to make April 15, just another spring day by not being required to file either State or National taxes.

HAVING in the three last numbers taken a summary review of the principal circumstances and events which have depicted the genius and fate of other confederate governments, I shall now proceed in the enumeration of the most important of those defects which have hitherto disappointed our hopes from the system established among ourselves. To form a safe and satisfactory judgment of the proper remedy, it is absolutely necessary that we should be well acquainted with the extent and malignity of the disease.

. . . There is no method of steering clear of this inconvenience, but by authorizing the national government to raise its own revenues in its own way. Imposts, excises, and, in general, all duties upon articles of consumption, may be compared to a fluid, which will, in time, find its level with the means of paying them. The amount to be contributed by each citizen will in a degree be at his own option, and can be regulated by an attention to his resources. The rich may be extravagant, the poor can be frugal; and private oppression may always be avoided by a judicious selection of objects proper for such impositions. If inequalities should arise in some States from duties on particular objects, these will, in all probability, be counterbalanced by proportional inequalities in other States, from the duties on other objects. In the course of time and things, an equilibrium, as far as it is attainable in so complicated a subject, will be established everywhere. Or, if inequalities should still exist, they would neither be so great in their degree, so uniform in their operation, nor so odious in their appearance, as those which would necessarily spring from quotas, upon any scale that can possibly be devised.

It is a signal advantage of taxes on articles of consumption, that they contain in their own nature a security against excess. They prescribe their own limit; which cannot be exceeded without defeating the end proposed, that is, an extension of the revenue.

By Alexander Hamilton
for the Independent Journal

The Entire Federalist No. 21 Paper (PDF)

The original income tax legislation affected only individuals earning $4,000 or more per year, at a time when the overwhelming majority of Americans earned far less. The 16th Amendment was eventually ratified and added to the Constitution, and a national income tax was born.

That 16th Amendment was simply worded, the tax return consisted of only one page, and the entire tax code itself consisted of only 14 pages. No one could have imagined the vast impact it would have on the lives of their children, grandchildren, and future generations of Americans.

Since then, the federal income tax system has become so complex that it requires tens of millions of Americans to seek professional help to comply with it, not to mention the enormous, expensive federal bureaucracy required to enforce and administer the tax. The Internal Revenue Service employs more investigative agents than the FBI and the CIA combined, and with 144,000 employees, employs more people than all but the 36 largest corporations in the United States.

In addition to the $10 billion needed to operate the IRS, at least $265 billion (that is $900 for every man, woman, and child in this country) must be added to account for the cost of complying with the tax code. Massive amounts of our national wealth are consumed merely by measuring, tracking, sheltering, documenting, and filing our annual income.

More about the History of Taxation