Talk:FairTax

Needs 'Lacks Neutrality' header

This is getting ridiculous. This is dictatorship of editing by a few users who seem to have an agenda. As evidenced by the countless objections to its content voiced on this talk page, this article is clearly disputed and it is not for any editor to declare otherwise. This talk page is overflowing with valid and, as of yet, unresolved disputes.41.245.133.130 (talk) 15:14, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

This article is most often visited by those opposing the plan, so a flood of posts after the main page is not unexpected. Discussion will determine what is valid, what disputes are reasonable and agreeable, and what should and should not be "resolved". As for a "Neutrality Header", which is to imply that a significant point of view is not present in the article - No such argument has been made on this talk, except for the one I made regarding a proponent POV not being present, but my point was illustration not correction. Morphh ^(talk) 16:19, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

No. The neutrality of this page is definitely in dispute. You argued with me back and forth defending an obviously incorrect word and while you eventually made the change you continue to argue against it. This page and the subarticles are simply too long to fight you every step of the way over every instance of clear bias. This is either a minor political issue, as you sometimes argue, undeserving of hundreds of k of text on the issue in which case the article should be edited down to a much smaller size and be removed from FA status or this is a serious political topic in which case the article needs the heavy handed pro bias removed which it is clear you are uninterested in allowing. At this time I'm respecting the rules of wikipedia by not putting the NPOV disclaimer on every time I visit the page and simply editing the entire thing since that would simply result in a fruitless back and forth series of edits. It seems clear to me that this is where we're headed if you refuse to acknowledge that the multitude of editors who have expressed dismay at the bias of this article have a point.Kbs666 (talk) 19:52, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

This article carries an obvious bias on a hot and current political topic. It should be flagged as such. It also uses weasel words and phrases. 24.155.23.207 (talk) 16:57, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Some weasal words may be acceptable in the lead if given attribution in the article content. We're trying to keep the lead to a summary and as tight as possible to convey the article content. I don't believe the topic is "hot" any longer (its more likely dead) and as far as bias, please provide some examples of critical material that is not included. Many editors have worked hard to present both sides of the arguments from reliable sources. If something important is missing, than we'd like to include it. Morphh ^(talk) 17:12, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

The lead, and its third paragraph in particular, is "tight" only in the sense of "packed with non-essential information."

• The fact that an allegedly large movement supports the proposal is not important enough for the lead (sentence 1). The actual number in the footnote is 600,000, something like one-half of one percent of the registered voters in the U.S.
• The names of the non-economist promoters don't need to be in the lead (sentence 2).
• The fact that the bill has the highest number of supports of tax reform is not important enough for the lead, especially since nothing has happened in either House with the bill since it was referred to the respective committees more than a year ago (sentence 3). This bill is no more likely to pass the 110th Congress than the annexation of Newfoundland.
• Even the fact that it hasn't been voted on in nine years is not important enough for the lead -- though it's a hint that support for the bill is less than overwhelming. (sentence 4).
• Sentence 5 ("The plan is expected...") is especially weasel-y, since this belief is presumably that of its supporters, who don't appear till halfway through the ungainly sentence. At a minimum, it should read "Supporters believe the plan will..."

All of those could (and should) disappear from the lead. I would take them out myself, but you'd put them right back. OtherDave (talk) 11:05, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the examples. I agree with some, disagree with some, and will discuss the background on others.

• The third paragraph was requested and required per the FA. It summarizes particular sections in the article per WP:LEAD and WP:FACR 2(a). Since much surrounding the FairTax is about the movement, it was important to describe what significant events / organizations created the FairTax (such as AFFT, the Book, and the recent 2008 election). It seems important for the user to understand the base of the topic.
• This article is not about all citizens. It is particular around the FairTax and tax reform in general. AFFT is significant in regard to the topic, not U.S. politics or the base of the U.S. population.
• It seems important to list the bill sponsor and the primary promoter of the FairTax and the book which brought the topic into view. It is an important part of the topics notability.
• I can slightly agree with the comment regarding the sponsorship, which has been reduced a large bit already. This again was part of showing the status of the legislation in regard to other tax reform measures, and while not voted on (which has to do with the committee chair), the sponsorship seems significant for a major tax reform bill.
• I agree that the fact that it has not been voted on yet is not important enough, but can understand that this may also show the status of the legislation.
• In regard to sentence five, I have an issue with making everything "supporters believe" because in many cases it's not just supporters. This limits the base, contrasting that opponents don't believe, which is not always the case. If opponents don't dispute that the plan would increase transparency (even agree with it), I find it bias to limit the term to supporters. There are parts of tax reform that both sides can agree on - not every aspect of the plan is bad or disputed, most of the significant criticism focuses on just a few topics, which they believe makes it unworkable. You'll notice that the second half of that sentence says ", and supporters believe..." separating the points.

Let me read through the policies and FA reviews, perhaps even pull in those editors that made those suggestions to further the discussion. Morphh ^(talk) 12:58, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

So the goal is to get FA status? Good, that's done. Now why not make the article less of a press release for FairTax? We're dancing another round of the shuffle between movement and bill ("oh, it's in the lead because the group is significant" "oh, that's in the lead because it got introduced as a bill"). Move the minutia into the main article -- specifically the FairTax Movement and Legislative History sections.

The notion that the bill is significant because it has more sponsors than similar bills is much like claiming someone's remarkable because he's the tallest Irish-American in Idaho. I found 141 House cosponsors to reauthorize the Secure Rural Schools Act, and 130 to provide research on postpartum depression.

Your reply to the last point is, frankly, bogus. "The plan is expected..." by whom? I'm sure you can find somebody who's not already on the FairTax board who said something positive about it. I can find people who were pretty sure the Iraq invasion would be a cakewalk.

This is an slanted lead, from its misleading impression that the bill has languished in Congress lo these many years (the clock starts anew and all bills must be reintroduced with each Congress), to the pointless belief of supporters that a tax reform will improve the environment. Despite frequent evocation of WP:Lead, I don't see that "the relative emphasis given to information in the lead [is] reflected in the rest of the text."

I keep waiting for a comparison that starts with an item currently costing $100, which I think is an easier figure to grasp that the beloved-by-advocates $77. As in, say:

An MP3 player sells for $100 before tax. A traditional sales tax rate of 30%, applied to the purchase price, would bring the total cost to $130. Looking at that total cost, FairTax proponents say that the $30 of tax makes up 23% of the total. In both cases the final cost is the same; the difference is that the FairTax rate of 23% is "tax-inclusive" while the traditional sales tax rate of 30% is "tax-excluded."

I suggest that's both easier to read and more straightforward. -- OtherDave (talk) 16:47, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Call for removal of this article or a rewrite

 THIS ARTICLE DOES NOT EXPRESS A NEUTRAL POV 

IN AN ATTEMPT TO APPEAR CREDIBLE, MANY REFERENCES ARE INCLUDED, UNFORTUNATELY, HOWEVER WELL REFERENCED, THESE SOURCES THEMSELVES ARE ONLY OPINION PIECES, AND EVEN THEN, ALL OF ONLY ONE OPINION. Just considering the leed. The sources 5 and 6 are books by the same person who is proposing the FairTax bill in congress! Other sources are OPINION pieces from Neoliberal Conservative news prints (eg ref 2 3 4). As far as I am aware, opinion of this sort may only permitted if the editor makes it abundantly clear the view stated is the opinion of an individual and NOT generally accepted consensus. Here this is not the case.

For example, in the leed, it reads "Since income taxes have a hidden effect on prices,[4] it is expected that moving to the FairTax would decrease production costs (due to the removal of business taxes and compliance costs), which is predicted to offset a portion of the FairTax effect on prices (degree based on monetary policy).[5][6]"

When to be an honest reflection of the sources sited it should read something like this, "THE POLITICIANS WHO ADVOCATE THE BILL CLAIM THAT since income taxes have a hidden effect on prices,[4] it is expected that moving to the FairTax would decrease production costs (due to the removal of business taxes and compliance costs), which is predicted to offset a portion of the FairTax effect on prices (degree based on monetary policy).[5][6]

Anyone familiar global socioeconomic issues, even someone who has never heard of this topic, would apon reading this easily be able to dissern its authors clear right-wing neoliberal sympathies.

When Forbes published the 4th sited article: . "The American Dream Improving OUR Lot", by "our" does the author mean the rich capitalist class who FairTax would undoubtedly benefit tremendously from, or the vast majority of the worlds population who live in poverty at their expense? 41.245.133.130 (talk) 03:29, 16 July 2008 (UTC) Simon, RSA

As per WP:Words_to_Avoid placing a sentence as suggested like "Politician X Claims..." would most likely have the opposite effect and should be avoided. "By itself, the word "claim" does not carry POV. However, it has a high potential for abuse because it can often suggest or imply that a speaker is not being truthful. In general, it is best to avoid using "claim" to describe a statement from a person about their own mindset. Since it is impossible to get inside the person's head and know what he or she is thinking, and therefore it is impossible to prove or disprove such a statement, editors may resort to using "claim" as a way to encourage readers to doubt the speaker's sincerity. In general, do not juxtapose a statement of objective fact with a person's subjective "claim" regarding that fact." Wikihonduras (talk) 04:00, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

As per WP:Verifiability -- Self-published sources Policy, and this applies to references 5 and 6.

"Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, blogs, forum postings, and similar sources are largely not acceptable." In response to Wikihonduras above posting, you correctly assert that my suggestion stating "Politician X Claims..." such and such would be cumbersome and would be in an unacceptable in this case, I merely intended it to highlight the controversial claims this article makes, and their origin, that are presented as general consensus.

Furthermore: As per Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#News_organizations this applies to references 2, 3 and 4:

"Material from mainstream news organizations is welcomed, particularly the high-quality end of the market, such as the The Washington Post, The Times of London, and The Associated Press. ***However, great care must be taken to distinguish news reporting from opinion pieces***. Opinion pieces are only reliable for statements as to the opinion of their authors, not for statements of fact. When citing opinion pieces from newspapers or other mainstream news sources, in-text attribution should be given."

It is self evident from user comments on this talk page that many users have questioned that this article is NPOV and it should be duly noted as such. Please refrain from removing notice templates acknowledging this fact until such time as these concerns are addressed. I now replace that indicator on the article. 41.245.133.130 (talk) 17:18, 16 July 2008 (UTC)Simon

The sources are not considered Self-published per what you describe. They have a publisher and they're NYT bestsellers, not some online self-publish. In addition, the other references are given attribution in the article body. They are not attributed in the lead due to the space requirements of keeping a lead summarized on the article content. Also, attribution normally requires some dispute of the matter (that it is opinion and their is other opinion). It is not generally needed for statements that are considered fact, meaning there is no serious dispute. (For example, do you have any source that states that income taxes and complaince costs have no effect on price - this is a law of economics). In any case, a small dispute is not reason enough to add the tag to the entire article, particularly when it has reached this level of review. I'm not trying to dismiss your objection but you must provide some examples and participate in the discussion. NPOV is presenting one side and not presenting the other. We do not apply a tag for small attribution disputes or general claims without any evidence. In such a case, every controversal article would have someone adding a tag. We don't want this to escalate into an edit war so please discuss the particlar issues you have. Thanks Morphh ^(talk) 17:26, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Here is a fairly simple example of the pervasive problems with this article "Moreover, these studies did not account for the expected capital gains that would result from a reduction in the real nominal value of U.S. government debt and the increased economic growth that most economists believe would occur" with 4 references. However none of the references show that the majority of living economists were polled for their opinion on this matter. Therefore the use of the word "most " instead of "some" is completely unjustified and in this case indicative of bias. After going through the references I find that much of them are drawn from a website called fairtax.org a fairly obviously biased source and after examination of the documents linked I found a lot of opinion pieces and not much data supporting the claims made. Kbs666 (talk) 20:52, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

When we're talking about economists, we're referring to those that have studied the plan or similar sales tax plans. Economic growth with a consumption tax is something that is almost universally agreed on, even the economist critics such as Gale. Most economists that have studied a national sales tax believe it would result in economic growth. They may dispute other areas, but economic growth is not generally one of them. The Money Magazine article calls it conventional wisdom. Obviously not all living economists have given their opinion, nor does such a statement seem to imply that. If it does, we can clarify it. Using sources from the organization that commissioned much of the research on the plan is not out of place in an article that is about that topic - they essentially are the FairTax. Morphh ^(talk) 21:20, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

No when we write "most economists" without other restrictions we mean most. Since that is clearly not the case here the use of the word is wrong and seems clearly biased. As to fairtax.org show me the research you claim is there. This article links to, among other things, an open letter signed by some economists, a broken link #22, a lengthy FAQ with a total of 4 footnotes and no endnotes or in document references, and several opinion pieces that make unsupported assertions but no studies supporting any of the claims made. I know the program hasn't been tried anywhere but making assertions as statements of fact, which as pointed out are everywhere in this article, would serve to confuse the casual reader. The best that can be said would be something along the lines of "Many economists believe the FairTax proposal would be beneficial to the economy." Furthermore the source for the material is named several different ways while all coming from the same domain this further serves to confuse the reader into believing there is wide consensus in favor of the topic when factually the proposal was dismissed completely by those who would vote on making it law. Kbs666 (talk) 06:48, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

While I thought the context of the entire sentence (and paragraph) was sufficient to limit the group to those researching the plan, I've specifically put that statement in there to hopefully address your concern. It now states "most economists researching the plan believe would occur". I've added several more references (now 8), and could likely double that if needed, however, I already think were at a point where it now looks ridiculous and biased by having too many supporting references (like we're trying to make a point). I think 4 or 5 is the max we should do so it doesn't give this appearance. The statement can also rely on other sourced content in the article regarding economic growth. I didn't have any issues of dead links regarding those already present (but I might remove or move a couple of them as stated above). Morphh ^(talk) 14:15, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I did find the dead link and changed it to the archive site. Using information published by the central research authority on the FairTax is not an issue when on the article topic. I think we address the bill's position in Congress in the lead and Legislative section, so their should be no misunderstanding that it has not been placed for a vote by the committee on ways and means. I don't know that we address or could address "favor" but we should provide all the significant topic points with both proponent and opponent research, which I believe we do. What makes this article difficult for many is that the opponent research is greatly dwarfed by proponent research, which gives the appearance in some cases of imbalance. However, I can give examples of where we try to adjust (perhaps unfairly) for the sake of giving the opponent research more weight. Under the economics section we state "Opponents offer a study commissioned by the National Retail Federation in 2000 that found a national sales tax bill filed by Billy Tauzin, the Individual Tax Freedom Act (HR 2717), would bring a three-year decline in the economy, a four-year decline in employment and an eight-year decline in consumer spending." There is no rebuttal to this, which might clearly violate NPOV by not representing the proponent side. Here is the rebuttal "The FairTax has different features than the Tauzin bill and that the study done by the NRF makes many adverse assumptions and does not take into account the removal of embedded tax costs or the inventory credit that refunds 23% of the cost of held inventory. The study, which represents supporters' worst-case scenario for a consumption tax, predicts that the economy will grow only 3% more in ten years than it would have under the income tax and that the increase in consumption will be 1.15% less in the first year relative to what it would have been under the income tax. The study concludes that consumption will be higher in the fourth year and every year thereafter than it would have been under the income tax." Clearly here we're not talking about a slight understanding regarding context. We intentionally left out proponent rebuttal to make the opponent case stronger. There are several places we do this. In other cases, we've excluded particular proponent research or opinion that was not part of the main debate (meaning there was no significant points of criticism). Much of the research we present on the opponent side is not even of the FairTax plan and dramatically different in some cases. I personally think we've biased the article in the other direction based on the amount of information that could have been included. NPOV on Wikipedia does not mean 50/50 as some seem to think (this is not directed at you in particular - just speaking generically). My comments are not to suggest that I don't think we can improve the prose for better balance. We're working on that through discussion - much appreciated. I'm also trying to gather more critical points from the opponent research we do have as they become available. Oddly, this article has probably had more review, editing, and commentary that any tax article on English wikipedia. Personally, I don't know why a stagnant bill gets so much attention. You would think the actual existing legislation might be a higher priority. Morphh ^(talk) 16:14, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

"most economists researching the plan believe would occur" is still a statement of fact that no one can prove. The appropriate word would be "many" or "some." I prefer "some" since it most accurately reflects the truth of the matter but would accept "many." As to the con study from the National Retail Federation it points to another bad link (that's ref 64). Furthermore the number of references seems to be an attempt to support the FairTax simply by volume of supportive references. This isn't a dissertation and all those authors aren't on your committee. On other matters the explanation of inclusive versus exclusive tax rates is off topic for the article. At some point a one sentence explanation should be given with links to the wiki pages, created for the purpose if needed. That would trim one section roughly in half and provide the important information, the decptive tax rate number, quickly and clearly. On the subject of article length and sections, there are a number of sections with subarticles which also contain lengthy explanations including statements that require references. These should all be trimmed to short summaries of the subarticle as detailed in Wikipedia:Summary style or the subarticles should be deleted and the entire article trimmed to a manageable length. I'm uninterested in continuing a lengthy debate over every single instance of bias in this article. It is clear from comments on this page that many who read the article for the first time find the article to not have NPOV. If this can't be fixed by the editors who put so much work into this article then I will nominate the article for removal from FA status and start rewriting it myself.Kbs666 (talk) 17:20, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

A statement of fact as defined by Wikipedia is one where there is no serious dispute. The list of economists that have researched the FairTax that don't believe it would provide economic growth is extremely small (a tiny minority). Even on a larger scale of consumption taxes, the list is extremely small. You have not provided anything to the contrary, where I can source pretty much every economist that has worked on the plan (opponents included). It removed the corporate income tax and untaxes investment. It may fail in many areas, but economic growth is not often one listed. For the sake of compromise, I will change it to "many", although I find it to be factually inaccurate. I'll check on ref 64, sometimes links go bad. I'm not sure what you mean by the number of references or the relation to a committee. We address the major points and source as needed. The exclusive/inclusive is the largest debated point on the plan in general circles. I do however think it is duplicated too often. Those other sections are already summary style which try to condense an entire article into a few paragraphs. As far as first time visitors, that is the nature of controversial articles - I've been involved with my share. Let me note that this section was a prior consensus between several editors (more against the plan than for - one editor being a published critic). I'm willing to work with you on issues but this type or reteric will quickly wear out good faith. Morphh ^(talk) 17:55, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

A statement of fact not defined as being a verifiable truth is simply wrong. In this case as I've pointed out "most" clearly means that 50%+1 of a group is in some subgroup. Show me the proof of precisely how many economists have studied the FairTax proposal and show me the proof, even if it is counting coauthors on papers, that fall into the subgroup. If you can't, and we both know you can't then "most" is clearly wrong. As to your invocation of good faith who deleted a clearly deserved NPOV and weasel word disclaimer from the article? I just spent my lunch hour reading through the talk page archives for this page and in its 3 year history it has had consistent complaints about its clear bias. I've used wiki for many years and seen plenty of articles without the level of bias displayed in this article with NPOV dispute tags. Since I'm uninterested in engaging in tit for tat editing I'm trying to reach consensus with the single editor who removed that richly deserved tag and you accused me of wearing out good faith? Would someone who knows more about how wiki works point me to some way of getting this clear deadlock resolved.Kbs666 (talk) 19:49, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

If you want to get a deadlock resolved then research the topic and come up with valid sources that negate the statement in controversy. Then most likely both sourced statements would be includible and would result in one statement distinguishing the other. You will have to find some valid and legitimate source that says "most economists do not find" to counter a sourced statement that says "most economists do find." The ball is in your court to prove your belief rather than requiring other people to prove the the truth of sourced statements.EECavazos (talk) 20:20, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

There's no source that says "most economists" support the FairTax. That's a ludicrous claim, and thankfully it has been removed. FCYTravis (talk) 21:46, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Nobody made such a statement. We're talking about the FairTax promoting economic growth regarding those economists that researched the plan. The microeconomic and macroeconomic studies of the FairTax are overwhelmingly positive. One source says "virtually all economists". The money magazine article referred to this as "the superiority of consumption taxes is almost conventional wisdom these days" - they were talking about economic growth. The sources supporting it are numerous. We had a source listing 80 economists supporting this statement. I have yet to see one source brought forward to rebuttal this. This is not even a close call. The FairTax has many challenges and issues, but economic growth is rarely if ever listed as one of them. "most" / "many".. whatever. If it will get us pass this issue, I can live with the concession. Morphh ^(talk) 23:33, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I would have to agree that "most" most likely fall under the WP:Weasel guideline. Unless we could account for 50% + 1 of the members. Alternatives could be "some" which has not size attached to it OR we if can cite a source which expresses that "most" economist say agree, something like "XYZ stated that most economist agree that...." Wikihonduras (talk) 20:39, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I believe one of the alternative you posit currently exists. The statement is cited with a source that is footnoted. Perhaps you would prefer the source to be taken from the footnote and put into the actual text, which would be reasonable unless this standard as applied to the rest of the article would result in most citations being transferred to the body of the article thereby resulting in clutter.EECavazos (talk) 21:44, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

It should also be noted that the source is also brought into the statement in addition to the footnote. The statement begins with "according to money magazine . . ." EECavazos (talk) 22:02, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Simple English Version?

I'm not sure why this article is considered a featured article in the sense that the flood of jargon present reading through the sentences would render this article fairly unintelligible to a great many readers (not to mention mind numbing, but of course, just my lay person's impression). I'm no CPA, but I ace'd my macro and micro economics classes in college and I still have considerable difficulty understanding what this article is attempting to communicate at times. With a peer review completed, perhaps an editor with experience in the Simple English wikipedia can help provide some relief for those persons not so literate in the economic sciences. Thanks to everyone for your hard work on this article - I just hope this important proposal can be more easily accesible to more people, especially since it has been featured on the front page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.255.54.8 (talk) 22:03, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Please read below - I do feel the article is fair - I just put a small simplest explanation with the Fair Tax below with facts from Harvard, Boston U., etc... Economists - as sited on article. Thanks, Elizabeth —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.154.93.164 (talk) 03:47, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

comments on intro section

Morphh,

I haven't looked at this article in a while, but reading over the intro section now, the language I think has gotten very good and balanced and referenced and NPOV. My compliments to you for your role in making it be as such. The one small objection I have though is singling out the AMT as something that would be replaced. I can see mentioning corporation taxes and capital gains taxes because many people might not be familiar with the fact that they are also considered income taxes. I do not think there is much lack of familiarity about the AMT being part of income taxes though. If you are going to mention it, why not also mention that income taxes include dividend taxes, interest taxes, taxes on tips, etc.

Otherwise, though, it looks quite, quite good.

Cheers, HalfDome (talk) 08:15, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Either way is fine with me, but I prefer to include it. There has been a lot of talk regarding the AMT, particularly for tax reform. Most tax reforms considered in congress focus on replacing the AMT. So for that reason, I thought it important to mention that it does replace the AMT, which some people think of as separate from the personal income tax they know. I also often think of the personal income tax and the AMT as two separate things. However, I certainly concede the point that it is part of the same income tax code. I only see that it clarifies what it replaces but it doesn't really bother me if it is removed - I can live without it. Morphh ^(talk) 16:36, 06 May 2008 (UTC)

I changed the opening sentence to remove the IRS. It read that the IRS (a government agency) was going to be replaced with a national retail sales tax (a method of taxation), which doesn't make sense. If someone could rephrase it to state that the IRS will be gone, that's fine. I tried, but couldn't come up with anything. I also changed "corporate taxes" to "corporate income taxes" because excise taxes could be considered corporate taxes and they would remain under the FairTax. Tom Joad 2k (talk) 21:56, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Works for me... Morphh ^(talk) 14:48, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

FairTax name

I don't believe this sentence needs a source: "Since the term "fair" is subjective, the name of the plan has been criticized as deceptive marketing by some while being touted as true to its name by others.". It seems to be common sense that some critics would disagree with the "fair" label and proponents would consider it true. Is this anything disputed...? we don't need a source for every statement, if it is nothing that is questionable. I rather just remove the sentence than include a questionable source to substantiate it. Morphh ^(talk) 23:42, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Many congressional proposals have these kind of marketing ploy names whether truthful or not. I think understandably the people know the tongue and cheek. So even if you removed it, it would not need explanation. .:davumaya:. 19:51, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

"Fair Tax" is more of a marketing brand name than an accurate, or "fair", description of the tax itself. It is salesmanship, not analysis. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hanksummers (talk • contribs)

If a rose were called by any other name, would it not smell as sweet? JIMp _talk·cont 03:52, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Possibly, though that's not relevant, since "rose" isn't a name invented by an advocacy group. If Chilean sea bass were sold in restaurants as Patagonian toothfish, would as many people order it? OtherDave (talk) 15:56, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I think that is the point of having the sentence, to state that the term is subjective. Some consider it true and some don't. Most bill names are sales terms, this isn't anything new. We describe how it got the name and then the subjectivity of it. Morphh ^(talk) 16:07, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

It's almost traditional for political ideals/movements to have euphemistic names. Hence "Pro-life" and "Pro-choice" instead of "Pro-abortion" and "Anti-abortion". This isn't any different. -- Atama^chat 19:06, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

More Studies on the FairTax

Morph -- I assume you will update the Wikipedia article with the recent study by Diamond and Zodrow, et.al concluding that even without any tax evasion the FairTax rate would need to be higher than proposed.

I also came across the following from a few years ago stating that the National Retail Federation had commissioned a study which concluded that the FairTax would have a substantial negative effect on retail sales, at least in the short run.

http://retailindustry.about.com/b/2005/03/03/retailers-question-greenspan-on-consumption-tax.htm

Accordingly, I think you might want to rewrite the article a bit to give some more weight to the fact there really is a lot of valid criticism of the FairTax. I would be happy to do so, but you'd probably delete my revision and ban me from Wikipedia.  :) 68.158.142.167 (talk) 11:50, 4 July 2008 (UTC)GeorgiaTex

I've already added the Diamond / Zodrow study on rate in the revenue neutrality section, but plan to add a bit more when I have time, along with the material that was the focus of their study. We also already have the NRF study included, which was done on the Individual Tax Freedom Act, it's in the economic section and the sub-article. I think we've done a decent job of covering both sides and the readers can decide what they think is valid. If there is a valid criticism that is missing, I'd certainly like to work it into the article. I do intend to expand the bit on tax evasion and include some of Gravelle’s research. Morphh ^(talk) 13:46, 04 July 2008 (UTC)

Revenue Neutrality Section

This section states "Moreover, these studies did not account for the expected capital gains that would result from a reduction in the real nominal value of U.S. government debt..." It seems to me "real nominal value" is a contradiction in terms. It's either real value or nominal value (I believe in this case it's real value). 128.249.96.253 (talk) 14:32, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Excellent catch - it should have been "real value of nominal U.S. government debt". Thanks Morphh ^(talk) 14:54, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Pros and Cons

Morph -- I happended to click on the Universal Health Care article in Wikipedia. At the end of the article, they have two columns, which Arguments in Favor or and Arguments Against universal health care. If you ever decide to revise the FairTax article (which, I realize, is not exactly high on the list of things a volunteer editor would want to do), that might be a good way to show the pros and cons, and appease some of the naysayers like me.

Just a thought.

64.207.7.114 (talk) 20:21, 11 July 2008 (UTC)GeorgiaTex

Thanks for the thoughts but that type of format is actually discouraged on Wikipedia, and would likely never be implemented on a high quality article. The argument is that this is an encyclopedia and that type of back and forth is a tortured form of writing. We try to maintain the format and quality you would expect from a paper encyclopedia. The opposite to your suggestion will likely happen, where the universal health care article is improved to a point where pro/con type structures are removed. If you noticed, there's a banner on that section to have it integrated into the article under appropriate sections. Morphh ^(talk) 13:57, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I think so far you've done a fabulous job of appropriately incorporating pro and con like statements within each point so the reader can determine for themselves. Again, this is an encyclopedia about the topic of FairTax, it is not a forum or a place to debate it's usefulness, it is simply explaining what it is, its effects and the history of the proposal. .:davumaya:. 19:48, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

However, the article does seem to be heavy on the Pro and light on the Con, and that is intellectually worrisome, considering how controversial the topic is. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 00:37, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Is it worth mentioning in the article that it will never, ever become law because it is a ridiculous concept and completely unfair to low-wage earners? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.192.179.231 (talk) 00:47, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Just stating that something is ridiculous does not make it so. If you are troubled by the concept that a higher proportion of income goes to the necessities of shelter, food, clothing, and transportation for low-income earners vs. that for high income earners, then just say so. That is a valid point to make. However, if 90% of a low-income families total income goes to these areas, which would be taxable, but only 5% of a high-income families earnings do so, then so what? Yes, that high-income family is not paying any tax on the 95% left over, but again, so what? You are missing the concept that money does not provide any benefit to you until you purchase something with it. As soon as the high-income family spends that money, then bang, they are paying the consumption tax. Where the real problem with this type of system emerges is that the cost of living for those basic needs is not equal across the country. Even now, someone in California has to pay much more in total dollars for food, mortgage/rent than does someone in (for example), Mississippi. So, do you adjust the rate by state? Then what happens when people drive into the next state to make their purchases? This is the problem that such a system would create. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.7.112.56 (talk) 02:17, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

This article does not deserve featured status for its overly biased nature.

Why should the low income brackets then face say 5% on 90% of their income while the wealthy face 5% on 0.5% of their income? That is the inequality of such a misnamed ideas as FairTax; it results in less money for government programs. The 99.5% of the wealth of the wealthy not taxed here would need to be taxed at much higher rates to make up for that gap. Why anyone either rich or poor supports this idea is incomprehensible to me. Neither side is better off afterward. Why does this all come across as an ideological, almost religious point for the libertarian party? 72.146.181.16 (talk) 05:43, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

For those who think our progressive income tax is somehow "fair" while a consumption tax is "unfair", I ask why are you fixated on taxing income. Wouldn't it be better to tax wealth? Income is a poor proxy for wealth. Consider three taxpayers. First is a young couple with a couple of children. Their combined income is $75,000 and they pay $15,000 in taxes. They have little savings as they are just starting out in life. A second is a middle aged couple saving for college and retirement. Combined income is $100,000. They pay $20,000 in taxes. They have $500,000 in savings. Final is a retired couple with $5 mm in savings. Most is invested in index funds. They get about $150,000 per year in dividends and pay $22,000 in taxes. Think about the taxes they pay, not as a percentage of their income, but as a percentage of their wealth. It is more than 100% in the first case, 4% in the second case and 0.4% in the third. What is so fair about that? No wonder it is hard for young people to get ahead. They government takes away more than their total wealth every year. But, for the wealth retired person, the tax is insignificant as a percent of their wealth. We tax income because it is easy for the IRS to collect. A consumption tax would allow us to better tax wealth, and to collect from people at a more appropriate time in their life.

If we either exempted basic necessities from consumption tax, or provided a rebate for what a poor person might spend on basic necessities, the tax is progressive. All income is eventually either spent, given to charity or given to heirs. If we assume that we don't want to tax gifts to charity, then we can tax wealthy people when they spend their money, or through an estate tax. Either way the government gets their cut, and wealth people are not "getting away" with anything. That is why is is appropriate to call this a "fair" tax. Is is much more fair in its application that our current income tax.

To return to our young family with children (what politician doesn't blab on about how they try to help these people), lets say that they spend much of their money on necessities, that are exempt, and are saving money for college tuition. We don't impose a consumption tax on the necessities, we don't tax any investment income on their savings, and we don't tax tuition payments. They pay almost no tax. If the second spouse works, today that pushes them into a higher bracket and much of the additional income is taxed away. Not so with the consumption tax, assuming the additional income is saved. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.47.208.34 (talk) 20:11, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks but this is not the place to debate the merits of the tax. The talk page is for discussing the article content. Morphh ^(talk) 20:13, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Rothbard's view

Rothbard, of course, was opposed to this kind of tax, although he referred to it as a "general sales tax."[1] Should that be mentioned here? Aldrich Hanssen (talk) 00:13, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Nothing Rothbard ever said should ever be included anywhere. 66.69.194.16 (talk) 06:01, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

get it straight

We need to get our facts straight. FairTax, Fair Tax, or what? We are not kids, we need to get the spelling and terms correct. HRCC (talk) 00:26, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

The bill is called Fair Tax Act but the movement itself and the common plan name is FairTax. It should be referred to as FairTax unless stating the bill or referencing the terms themselves. Morphh ^(talk) 13:17, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Layout

Shouldn't the infobox be at the top of the article? Also, the anti-IRS image seems to be awfully big for it's usage. --SeaFox (talk) 02:17, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I have moved the infobox to the top as other artciles in the Taxation series have it there. The anti-IRS image at the top was already reduced in size, but I have removed it completely as its link to the subject matter was weak and suspicious in that it did not appear until today, when the article was featured on the main page. --SeaFox (talk) 03:51, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I thought the book image was fine, then someone changed the rational to the book image, and then claimed their rational did not support the inclusion of this article. I'm not sure if I should revert it all. Morphh ^(talk) 13:18, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I somewhat agree with that person, actually. I don't see the book image as the best illustration for the article, since the subject is FairTax itself, not the book written about it. It's not like the holy book of a religion, I'm sure there are other books about Fairtax. Anyway, my gripe wasn't with the book cover (it was already gone when I saw this article). But the Anti-IRS logo looked like nothing more than political graffiti on the article, especially when it was posted at such a large size. I wish I could remove it from the Main Page now, but it will be gone soon anyway. Is there an individual who can be credited with thinking up the FairTax system? A photo of that person might be a worthwhile addition. --SeaFox (talk) 23:45, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

NPOV seriously lacking

This article has a serious bias towards the pro side of the arguments and in my view fails to present a neutral point of view. Even when the arguments against are fleetingly mentioned, they are followed by immediate and biased rebuttal. It's disappointing that you couldn't give equal time to both sides of the issue here, and really disappointing that this is a FA with such obvious bias. It seems to be stuffed full of irrelevant padding about tax theory too. I think this is the most boring FA I've ever read due to the overly technical explanations. pschemp | talk 03:28, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

That has been sometimes a comment on this article however in evaluating the encyclopedic nature of it, it is pretty much a technical explanation of what FairTax would do. An article is suppose to describe the nature of its topic, not necessarily defeat it. What it would do is of course seen as "the pro" of FairTax. .:davumaya:. 03:53, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

NPOV has been discussed over and over for several years. NPOV states that all points of view need to be represented in the regard to their weight on the issue. If you have 5 pro studies and 1 con study, than you don't give the con study 5 times more weight, you give it the same as the others. The reality is their is a lot more research supporting the plan than against it, so we try to give more weight to con to balance that out, but since their is more pro research we have to include this pov and their results. If there is a pov missing or something we have not included, than please let us know. Examples would also be helpful. Morphh ^(talk) 13:23, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

YOu don't determine this simply by the number of studies, but by their results and the validity of the results. If you have 10 pro studies that make weak arguments, and one con study that is excellently done and water tight logical, that doesn't mean you biased towards pro on sheer number of studies. It's exactly the weight of the con arguments that is lacking. They are just as important as the pros, yet they are barely mentioned. And when they are, it's done in a format (with the tone of the piece suggesting they aren't important) that minimizes their importance. Hiding behind a strict definition of NPOV doesn't excuse the insanely pro bias this article has, nor it's biased tone. pschemp | talk 17:55, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

By what measure do you state that they make weak arguments or that the con study makes excellent arguments? Doesn't this imply bias of weighting the studies to fit what you believe? Could you give an example of where the cons are "barely mentioned" in regard to weight or where they are give tone suggesting they "aren't important". Keep in mind that if the pro side has a rebuttal, than we should include it and not minimized it. Adding the other pov is not minimizing. I don't feel I hid behind a strict definition of NPOV. The article has been heavily reviewed by both sides. Please give examples to the bias tone and your objections. Please provide the con material that is not present. Morphh ^(talk) 18:59, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with the NPOV claim. It seems like every pro is followed by a con, more or less. What I took from the article, as someone who previously didn't know a lot about the FairTax thing and didn't care one way or the other about it, is that it seems like a potentially positive change to the tax laws in the US that probably wouldn't work in practice and is never going to happen (definitely no time soon). -- Atama^chat 19:15, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

As a long time user of wikipedia I felt compelled to register after encountering this article on the front page. This article is very biased, shockingly biased actually. How did it get on the front page with not even a modest attempt at a NPOV? I have often used this site as a good source to point people taken in by tax evasion hucksters. This article's clear bias brings into serious doubt, for me at least, the reliability of the tax evasion info I have come to rely upon. As a new user I'm unaware how to file a complaint about this articles featured status and lack of a warning as to its lack of NPOV but I'm about to get educated.Kbs666 (talk) 22:10, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree that this article is seriously lacking a neutral point of view. This article being featured has damaged my faith in Wikipedia. Tom Joad 2k (talk) 13:30, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I am not from the US and found the article to be well balanced, dispassionate view of the subject. I think it's great to see so many new people here commenting on the article. I am amazed the originator of this thread can say its the most boring FA they have ever read, with the amount of comment generated it has far from bored many people. My personal view is that the FairTax is one of the greatest misnomer's I have ever heard of and that no civilised government would put it into practice. Despite that this a good overview on the subject and possibly one of the most readable documents on tax I have ever encountered. I do have one or two queries which I will try to google the answers to, but may need to come back here to ask about. GameKeeper (talk) 00:24, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

No criticism section = a real shame

I have never read an FA article before and been completely disappointed. I haven't logged in for months, but I just had to in order to register my total disappointment. There should have been a sizable criticism section with a pointer to a main article dealing with the criticism for the this movement. As it is, it's an incredibly well written and well researched puff-piece. Themindset (talk) 04:00, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, that type of format is discouraged on Wikipedia (See WP:NPOV#Article structure, WP:CRITICISM). Criticism is woven into the article on the particular points of the plan. Morphh ^(talk) 13:25, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Don't use this argument as an excuse not to make the article more 'fair'. It is currently seriously tilted towards the 'pro fair-tax' argument. It needs a going over by a professional economist. --61.18.170.235 (talk) 17:26, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree. The pro is given more weight, and way overshadows the con. pschemp | talk 17:50, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Customs Service?

The end of the "Sales tax rate" section mentions the US Customs Service, which has been dissolved 5 years ago. Shouldn't the article refer to Customs and Border Protection?--Dem393 (talk) 04:16, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks - will correct. Morphh ^(talk) 13:27, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

"Pending"?

"[P]ending in the United States Congress" seems quite an overstatement. This has virtually no chance of passage. Normally, we talk in such circumstances of someone having "introduced a bill" with some number of co-sponsors. We use that language later, but first we use the misleading "pending". - Jmabel | Talk 04:44, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree. A quick look at the paragraph given on the main page gives the misleading impression that this is future law. You have to read half the article to be told that neither the presidential candidates nor the current congress agree. I'm not too good at U.S. legislation, so could someone who knows what they're doing modify it slightly? yandman 11:24, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Technically the term is correct, since a bill is pending legislation. The FA man himself Raul654 choose this term. However, it's not a big deal to reword it, so it is currently "has been introduced". Morphh ^(talk) 13:34, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

The problem with the word pending is that it implies that the bill will eventually be considered and acted upon by either a House Ways and Means subcommittee, the full committee, or the House or Senate. The term pending would be more correct if the bill were actually moving and had been placed on the House or Senate calendar. However, as has been noted, the bill has been introduced in numerous successive Congresses and has never even made it out of subcommittee. It may not be dead, but it failed to garner even committee support when the party of it's sponsor was in control of the House, the Senate, and the Presidency at the same time, and now that the sponsor's party no longer controls either chamber of Congress, it would strongly imply that this bill is going nowhere. Very surprised to see this become a featured article... Narutodemon56 (talk) 22:34, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Encyclopedic?

"Individual scheduled or expected future events should only be included if the event is notable and almost certain to take place." (from Wikipedia is not a crystal ball) The article gives clear evidence that the event is almost certain not to take place.

Neither of the major parties' presumtive nominees supports the issue. Co-sponsors have left. The few difficulties that are mentioned in the article, conflict with the Sixteenth Amendment and the taxation rights of the individual states seem to be most prominent, are serious impediments to the issue.

I believe that any conscientious editor who had seen this article in its earliest form should have marked it for deletion as contrary to many policies. It still reads like a puff-piece and the event will almost certainly not occur.

I just realized that the image "anti-US Treasury" image could be considered defamatory and cause concern in certain quarters of the US Government, such as Homeland Security, that are not noted for their broad-mindedness or sense of humor. (Somebody's knocking on your door. Don't answer.)

Peace.

JimCubb (talk) 06:06, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that it's a terrible proposal and has no chance of passage. That... doesn't mean the concept is unencyclopedic. Indeed, it's had dead-tree books written about it, been blathered about on talk radio, drawn into a bill (multiple times) and has a small but vocal group of supporters. There's plenty of reliable sources to support the existence of an article, and we don't discriminate based on viewpoint. This is not an "expected future event," rather, an article on a proposed replacement system of taxation.

As for the image... seriously now, you think a Treasury logo with a "no" symbol around it is going to "cause concern?" All the Homeland Security people are busy making sure nobody gets aboard a plane with that dangerous chemical dihydrogen monoxide. FCYTravis (talk) 07:45, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Weasel wording

Link to guideline Wikipedia:Avoid_weasel_words

I'm somewhat concerned with the number of weasel wordings in the the intro. As examples "Many argue that..." "Many others argue..." are pretty much prime example of what we should avoid. It's a reasonably simple task to reword this with proper attribution (i.e. who exactly are these "many"), but given that this is now the front page article I thought it would be best to discuss it first. Jefffire (talk) 09:43, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

These statements are source and the source uses the term "Many", so I don't think this falls under weasel. The source does not say who the many are and when talking about economists it would be impossible to list. Morphh ^(talk) 13:14, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Using the same wording as the source does not mean that the wording isn't weasel. However, this can be corrected by proper attribution (eg. "source x states that many argue that") Jefffire (talk) 14:11, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Also on that note, I've cut out lots of the "however"'s in the article, as recommended by the guideline WP:WTA. Jefffire (talk) 14:27, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I think in most cases we have made that proper attribution in the body of the article. For example, the many argue stated above is properly attributed to Money Magazine in the article body, but to do so in the lead would be to much detail in an already large lead. Summary was necessary to include all the main points of the article. Morphh ^(talk) 14:34, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Lead

The current lead is gigantic. Could someone please shorten it?

Peter ^Isotalo 10:27, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

It falls within the guidelines for WP:LEAD per the size of the article. It would be very difficult to properly summarize the article with a shorter lead. However, if there is consensus to do so, we could probably cut something. Morphh ^(talk) 13:06, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Not to add to your F.A. burden, I'll say here that the lead, at 650 words, is the equivalent of nearly 3 pages of text, some of it mighty dense and more than half of it counterproductive to a lead. Here's an example of a possible rewrite:

The Fair Tax is a proposed change to the tax laws of the United States that would replace the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and all federal income taxes, capital gains taxes, payroll taxes, gift taxes, and estate taxes with a national retail sales tax. The tax would be levied once at the point of purchase on all new goods and services. The sales tax rate, as defined in the proposed legislation, would be 23 percent of the final price including the tax – e.g., $23 out of every $100 spent. This is comparable to a traditional sales tax rate of 30 percent, since sales tax in the U.S. is typically added to the sales price (e.g., a $77 purchase with a 30% traditional sales tax rate comes to $100).

The plan's supporters claim that it would increase purchasing power and decrease tax burdens by broadening the tax base and effectively taxing wealth. Opponents argue that while it may be progressive on consumption, the tax would be regressive on income, and would decrease the tax burden on high income earners and increase the tax burden on the middle class.

Other potential obstacles to the Fair Tax include the need to repeal of the Sixteenth Amendment, transition effects on after-tax savings, impact to the income tax industry, incentives on credit use, and the loss of tax advantages to state and local bonds.

This version, or something like it, makes it clearer this is proposed legislation that has not been voted on; that the 30% "sales tax" rate is computed differently from any current sales tax; and drops the cheerleading for supporters that permeates the current third paragraph. I'd also suggest that since the lead refers mainly to the proposed legislation (without which there won't be any national retail sales tax), Fair Tax (two words) is more appropriate. OtherDave (talk) 16:29, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

The lead was expanded for FA and has undergone some good disucussion in this area. I don't think this version would properly summarize the article or meet the requirements. The sentences in the third paragraph were required for the FA to discuss the current status, the movement, and relationship in tax reform. I'll take a closer look though. The term FairTax is commonly one word and two words if using the bill name Fair Tax Act (or unfamiliar reporters). This also helps with the distinction between a "fair tax" and the FairTax. Morphh ^(talk) 16:44, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad I saved you the trouble of reverting, then. Cheerlead away. OtherDave (talk) 17:10, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I've reduced it to 621 words (all from the "cheerleading" area), which now puts the lead at a page and a half on Word with 1" borders, size 14 font, and 6pt sentence after spacing. Lead guidelines suggest 3-4 paragraphs for an article of this size, so I don't think we're too out of place. If we remove any more, I think we're cutting into important summary points. Morphh ^(talk) 17:43, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

A reduction of less than 10% does not really fix the problem. You're right that a long article usually need a longer lead, but there's an absolute limit where a lead simply starts becoming uninteresting no matter the size of the article. The dense material, the unmotivated use of footnotes (a summary doesn't even require citations) and the very quite specific topic can put off any reader, and that's without even looking at the article. I think you should try to write something that's closer to Other Dave's suggestion in terms of size.

Peter ^Isotalo 19:41, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Currently in the lead: Since income taxes have a hidden effect on prices,[4] it is expected that moving to the FairTax would decrease production costs (due to the removal of business taxes and compliance costs), which would offset a portion of the FairTax effect on prices.[5][6]

The footnote for "hidden effect" refers to writing by Steve Forbes; the other two footnotes refer to a book by proponents Boortz and Linder. Forbes's statement is presented as fact, not opinion, as are the beliefs of the proposal's most visible advocates. It's not like they're saying something objective like "Mars has two moons" or "a round of golf usually includes 18 holes." Leaving this sentence in the lead, rather than placing it in context in the body of the article, is not "an important summary point." Passive voice does not equal neutrality. OtherDave (talk) 13:14, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

This seems to be common wisdom in economics. Do you have any sources that suggest that income taxes have no effect on price? In all my study of tax incidence, I've never heard such a claim from economists. I believe there should be a disputing opinion if we try to limit this. Just because we choose a easily accessible source does not make it a biased evaluation. Income taxes have a business cost, which is partly reflected in their products / services. Morphh ^(talk) 14:12, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Asking someone to provide evidence that income taxes have no effect on price is asking someone to prove a negative. If you claim they do, provide evidence - and I don't think an opinion column by Steve Forbes is anywhere near sufficient. And the idea that income taxes are incident on consumers is not a law of economics. The "Effect of taxes and subsidies on price" article linked to in the main article show examples of excise taxes. In fact, the income tax incidence studies I have read have concluded that the burden of the corporate income tax is shared between the owners of capital (domestic and international) and domestic labor - not consumers. The CBO recently published a study on this. For their Effective Tax Rates studies they assume only excise taxes are incident on consumers. Tom Joad 2k (talk) 18:56, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm working on this (sourcing and rewording). Will comment on above in a bit. Morphh ^(talk) 19:12, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

How come we have the statement that it "has not been voted out of committee" in the lead twice? Once should be sufficient, particularly when we're trying to reduce the size. Morphh ^(talk) 14:46, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I dunno -- five or ten minutes ago, the lead looked to be a paragraph shorter, but I see it's it "recovered." I'm from the less-is-more school, myself, though so far I've resisted doing a cheerlead-ectomy. OtherDave (talk) 14:55, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Although it seems pointless to continue (my input clearly conflicts with your view of neutrality), I'll try once more. I wasn't talking about whether income taxes affect price. I was talking about whether the opinions of Forbes, Boortz, and Linder should be presented in the lead as if they were facts. To leave them there, positioned as though there's no dispute ("SINCE" is hardly objective), strikes me as at best disingenuous.

This article is not (supposed) to be about "common wisdom" among economists (leaving aside the question "which ones?"). Even if it were, Boortz is not a trained economist (talk show host, law degree). Neither is Linder (dentist, congressman). Forbes, in the famous phrase, was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple. None of this disqualifies them from promoting their ideas, but it doesn't make their thoughts on economics ipso facto authoritative.

The article does manage to flit from talking about an advocacy group (FairTax without a space) and talking about a bill that's never gotten out of committee (the Fair Tax Act in its various incarnations). One effect of this both-sides-of-the-street approach is that an objection tending toward one side gets deflected by someone saying, "Oh, we're not talking about that. And anyway we've got footnotes." OtherDave (talk) 14:50, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm ok with trying to make the lead shorter - I just think we need to do it in a way that maintains the criteria set forth in WP:LEAD and WP:FACR 2(a). I did not want to just rip out a third of a very long standing (FA and FAR approved) lead without much discussion and thoughtful consideration.

The term "since" was added yesterday (not by me). Prior to that, it was more U.S. specific but conveyed pretty much the same meaning. The statement seems to be "fact" as defined by NPOV, as there is no serious dispute regarding the statement. As long as the statements are from reliable sources, I didn't think it needed to be anything spectacular or authoritative. My thought was, we have better things to do than go hunting through academic journals looking for statements on tax incidence but I'm open to getting something else. I don't dispute your comments regarding Boortz, Linder, or Forbes though. Morphh ^(talk) 15:17, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

That's because my comments are facts. Opinion would be "Since Boortz is on the radio and has sold books, and since Linden managed to get elected, they know what they're talking about."  ;-) OtherDave (talk) 15:30, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

We actually have an entire article on the topic: Effect of taxes and subsidies on price but it lacks sources. Morphh ^(talk) 17:19, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm looking at Price Theory and Applications along with Jorgensons, Kotlikoff and Gales work (who all discuss accommodation). I don't think there is any dispute between the economists regarding a reduction of production cost (reflected by some price changes) based on the degree of accommodation. Both sides agree with this concept and I think it is important to note that we're not automatically taking about a 30% price increase. Such is dependent on the Fed, and the most likely accommodation is a partial accommodation, which would result in something like a 17% increase (or 10% decrease in production cost). No accommodation would result in little price change, where full accommodation would be the full exclusive rate increase. Perhaps we should just leave it out.. since we're trying to reduce the lead. I'll try to get to this later. Morphh ^(talk) 19:28, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

What about if we just stated something like "Price changes after implementation of the FairTax would be based on monetary policy." Can we all agree on that? I don't think this sentence is worth all the work that it would likely require to gain everyones support, so perhaps we can agree on something simpler that tries to address the point. Morphh ^(talk) 19:49, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry. Notions of what prices changes would be based on in the future are, well, notional. You don't know, I don't know, even Steve Forbes in his wisdom doesn't know. Eight years ago everybody and his brother-in-law the economist was full of plans for what to do with the budget surplus. Anyone who's ever sat in a committee markup session realizes that "based on monetary policy" is about as meaningful as "the will of the American people." OtherDave (talk) 21:15, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

We're specifically talking the change of the FairTax with regard to implementation, which every economist studying the plan states is based on the accommodation of the Fed (both opponents and supporters). There is nothing disputed here. Do you get your wages increased to gross or do you keep net? We're not talking about the future of price theory. It would be better to state it as "Income and price changes due to implementation would be based on monetary policy accommodation of the tax." This is well supported with no alternate viewpoint that I am aware of. Morphh ^(talk) 14:23, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

More examples

Good article over all. I'd stilll like to see some more comparisons between the current tax system and the one described in this article, mainly mathmatical examples. The $100 example is great for explaining the fairtax, but could there also be a section around there explaining how the same 100 dollars would be divided up under the current system? Pr1mus 285 (talk) 12:03, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I think the $100 example does cover how such is factored under an income tax system, which is how it is presented under the FairTax. How it is divided up might be a bit more difficult - depends what tax bracket. Should you include deductions and would it be POV? Briefly, you have about 7.6% fica (employee), 7.6 (employer), 10-35% income tax, and then corporate income tax (which does not come out of there but may be reflected in price increases). Morphh ^(talk) 13:11, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Book image

The main article image of the Image:FairTaxBook.jpg was removed from the article with the summary "(replace non-free book cover (reasons: image not significant for this article; no purpose of use description in fair use rationale other that "used to illustrate")" The only purpose described by our fair-use policy is for the purpose of "used to illustrate" and rational was specifically stated for this article "The FairTax Book and the FairTax article use the image to illustrate the article that discusses the topic and book in question." [2] Additional rational was generically supplied. All this rational was removed by the same editor that removed the image. As far as the significance, the book cover is the most widely distributed and known image associated with the FairTax plan (being a NYT #1 bestseller). It is regarded as the major event that pushed the FairTax into view. Thoughts? Morphh ^(talk) 15:49, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

FOr fair use to be OK, the picture needs to add significantly to the understanding of the topic according to our guidelines. Just a picture of a cover in this case does not add significantly to the understanding of the topic, and is just decoration. The removal was correct in my opinion. pschemp | talk 17:58, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough.. Thanks Morphh ^(talk) 18:46, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Main Page Pushing a Particular Political Position

Whilst I fully understand the point that it is appropriate for Wikipedia to contain information about political ideas, I feel that it is highly inappropriate for a proposed future legislative change (in any country and of any political viewpoint) to receive "featured" or "main page" status. My understanding is that there are 76 tax-reform proposals proposed for debate in the coming months. By featuring just one of these (even one with many, or at least vocal, supporters) so prominently in Wikipedia, I fear we could be construed by the casual reader (who is unaware of the exact nature of featured articles as being simple "well written", and simply uses Wikipedia as a day-to-day information source) as supporting this proposal at the expense of others (unless there are 76 featured articles of this kind, which seems nigh on crazy). If we are to be taken seriously as a reference source, we should be as neutral as possible, or little by little Wikipedia's reliability will be eroded away. It was bad enough when there was a featured article on a (music?) shop the other month, but giving this article "featured" status seems to me to set a very bad precedent. (For the record, I am broadly in favour of the approach to taxation advocated by the "Fair Tax", but I don't think the front page of Wikipedia is an appropriate venue to advocate, or be construed as advocating, this view.) WMMartin (talk) 16:54, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure that I disagree with you. I can say that it was not requested, it just got selected (perhaps randomly). I don't think Wikipedia is advocating anything by it but I can see how it could be seen that way. On the other side though, this type of logic would apply to so many FA articles and exclude them just based on topic. I'm not sure I care for the image that was chosen for the main page, which seems to imply some anti-government protest. Morphh ^(talk) 16:59, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree the main page image is bad. I disagree with your premise, that featuring an article implies support of it. By that argument we could never feature any articles about political subjects. Tempshill (talk) 20:08, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't censored. Nuff said. -- Atama^chat 21:50, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not in favour of censoring Wikipedia. Nor am I claiming that featuring an article implies support for it. What I said was that (in my view) a "casual reader" would quite possibly place such an interpretation on the "featured" status. Most users of Wikipedia are, I suppose, like me: until I delved into the matter on becoming a regular contributor to the project, I had made a like assumption. I seem to remember that we already have a policy of not doing featured articles on currently active political figures; perhaps this policy should be extended to current political proposals. WMMartin (talk) 12:54, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Wisdom follows, pay attention!

Hello, here is some info from Hungary, where we have 20% VAT and previously had 25% VAT until two years ago. The system cannot work, period. There will be massive fraud in the rebate system, especially since the US has no reliable ID card system, therefore checking the number of people per household is nigh impossible. The coloureds will milk the system like crazy. If you do not know the origin of nickname "el choro", you have no idea. He "the fouintain" was a talented spanish gipsy fraudster, who got rebates from the state after some 540 (!) kids and built three villas with the money.

There will be a huge market of under-counter commerce, to avoid paying the tax. That is the repairman offers to work without invoice for less and the govt gets no cents at all. You will buy shoes or TV without paperwork for 10% less, pocket to pocket and voila no taxes paid. The importeur will declare receiving 50 microwave ovens from China but stuff the container with 500, of course the difference goes underground market. It is impossible to check, the major ports handle many thousands of double-lenght containers every shift.

It is estimated that some 40% to 60% of hungarian economic activity is in the grey or dark segment due to the high VAT level and the country is stagnating, even deteriorating because of high taxation. You have to understand that people due not condemn white-collar crime when it's done for one's self-interest.

I hope USA, protector of the free world is not that stupid to introduce a 23% tax, as the union would soon collapse to the greatest joy of chinese communists and islamic fanatics. 82.131.210.162 (talk) 17:00, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your opinions, but you should know that Wikipedia is not a soapbox. Brutannica (talk) 22:10, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

The article is indeed lame on fraud control and chasing one-man-businesses - simply stating that the states have infrastructure is not enough. NVO (talk) 22:25, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

neutral vocabulary

It's obviously a controversial subject and it can be difficult to stick to neutral vocabulary. I think that "non-partisan" and "grassroots" are both non-neutral vocabulary. What do people think? Johncmullen1960 (talk) 17:56, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I think it is a tax status. The organization is a 501 (c)(4) nonprofit, nonpartisan, organization. Not much opinion there and I don't see anything POV about it. I guess grassroots could be subjective but I don't know that it is disputed by anyone, certainly not anything of sufficient weight for exclusion or mention. Morphh ^(talk) 18:00, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

In my dictionary "partisan" means "a strong supporter of a party, cause or person". Which the campaigns for this tax measure obviously are. This is the most common meaning - a technical meaning in US tax is not to be applied because wikipedia is an international publication ( I am in France).

I think "grassroots" is non-neutral. You never hear anyone saying "what is really bad about my opponents' ideas is that they come from the grassroots!" It is political speak for "my ideas come from solid ordinary people so should agree with them" :=) Johncmullen1960 (talk) 18:05, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I've never heard the term applied to a cause, that would make about every org partisan - there would be little meaning suggesting they support nothing. As defined in 501(c) they are not allowed to support any party or person or make contributions to any party or person. Reliable sources support both the statements that they are non-partisan and a grassroots organization. Are we giving undue weight to this particular interpretation? Morphh ^(talk) 18:16, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

"Grassroots" like "partisan" has several meanings. The connotation of grassroots is that the issue in question has support from a wide range of ordinary citizens, as opposed to full-time proponents or hired publicists. Many lobbying groups adopt "citizen-y" names when in fact their issue has little or no support from the general public -- hence the term astroturfing, which refers to faux grass-roots organizations. That said, if one million people actively supported FairTax (the organization), that'd be 1% of the voting turnout for the 2006 general election, grass-rootsy enough for me. (By comparison, Eugene V. Debs would be downright mainstream, having gotten 6% of the popular vote in the presidential election of 1912.) OtherDave (talk) 19:18, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I think it would be fair enough to look in several dictionaries, not just my own "New Oxford". But if there is disagreement about the meaning, we have to go for dictionaries. It's also important to try to find a compromise between purely local meanings and more widespread ones. Finally "grassroots" is not just something which has a lot of support, I don't think.It has support from "ordinary people" says my dictionary. I think it is an absolutely positive term, therefor enot neutral Johncmullen1960 (talk) 19:50, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I guess what I'm confused about is what makes us think that they're not "ordinary people". AFFT is made up of volunteers and has a very small staff from what is stated to be ordinary people. Morphh ^(talk) 20:06, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Repetition

Is it really necessary to explain the concept of tax-inclusive/-exclusive three times? Thehotelambush (talk) 18:53, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I've thought about that myself but wasn't sure how best to address it. The tax rate section is a summary, but it is again discussed in Sales tax rate, and then again in its own section. Morphh ^(talk) 19:03, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it's explained clearly enough. When the average American looks at his spending, he thinks, "This thing costs $100, and on top of that I pay X% sales tax." That's tax-exclusive. FairTax calls the proposal a sales tax, but adopts the "tax-inclusive" approach used by no current sales tax in the U.S. This might well be wonkish cluelessness, rather than an effort to avoid explaining a 30% sales tax, but it isn't straightforward except when you're preaching to the choir. And even then -- FactCheck.Org, which opposes the Fair Tax, says that 15% of the Fair Tax supports who have contacted them do not understand the 23% figure to be tax inclusive. OtherDave (talk) 19:27, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

On the other coin, 85% do understand it and for any policy issue - that's not too bad. haha OtherDave, are you saying that it's not explained clearly enough in the article or clearly enough to the public by proponents? Thanks Morphh ^(talk) 19:31, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Not only is it explained in three different sections, but the section devoted to explaining the difference between inclusive/exclusive is extremely repetitive. walkie (talk) 20:07, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I was offering my opinion as a general reader. Un-wikipedic of me; I should have just edited, giving people more to revert do. I understand the difference between disagreeing with this tax idea (I do) and trying to describe it without excessive bias. I believe you're acting in good faith, Morphh; however, from where I sit, the way you bat down most differing opinions makes it pointless for someone not already in the article's club to try and change the text in a meaningful way. Explaining an allegedly simple sales tax with algebraic formulas is not helpful. I understand why the proponents don't want a direct comparison with a real-word retail sales tax: 30% is 30% higher than 23%, everywhere except the offices of FairTax. Insisting on calling it a sales tax, in this context, is POV because it's the proponent's party line. If I start a group calling a tail a leg, can I get an article on how dogs and cows have five legs? 21:24, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

That was me in the previous comment; I forgot the tildes. OtherDave (talk) 21:46, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry that you feel that I'm trying to bat down differing opinions. I'm drawing from a long history of discussion, debate, and consensus on the article and perhaps my discussion of those opinions appears to new editors as aggressive. If you've worked on controversial articles, I'm sure you can understand the type of effort and discussion that goes into them. I've read more FairTax research than I've ever cared too and frankly I'm about sick of the topic but I don't want to see the article degrade in quality. There are many other tax and economics articles that need a lot more work than this one and I much rather spend my time there. With the amount of attention and changes this article received over the main page time-frame (most very constructive and agreeable), it shouldn't be a surprise that some of the changes or suggestions are disputed. I hope this doesn't reflect poorly but as proper discussion for significant content changes. As for the 23%/30% thing, most supporters that I've chatted with want the comparison - they want understanding of the difference. Morphh ^(talk) 15:06, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

controversy disclaimer

This article needs a disclaimer that it deals with a one side of controversial issue. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tax-hoaxes (talk • contribs) 19:52, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Based on your edit to the article, your post was in regard to this point: Main Page Pushing a Particular Political Position. Morphh ^(talk) 20:01, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

While I agree that this article pushes one political point of view, I think it would need a controversy disclaimer even if it were neutral. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tax-hoaxes (talk • contribs) 20:15, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

There is a disclaimer on the top of the talk page regarding this being a controversial topic. Morphh ^(talk) 20:18, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

But the article itself needs such a disclaimer so those people who read it will know that. I among others assumed that all featured articles were non-controversial. Tax-hoaxes (talk) 20:36, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I think that it needs the controversial disclaimer as well. I am a supporter of FairTax and I think that the article is a bit one-sided. And it is a controversial topic. I don't see how someone can argue putting the tag up.Chexmix53 (talk) 21:25, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Introduced in Congress

Its enacting legislation, the Fair Tax Act (HR 25/S 1025) has been introduced in the United States Congress.

Right here it should say how many times it or a substantially similar version of it have been introduced; and the date. The latter is easy; can someone else provide the former? Tempshill (talk) 20:04, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

It does state this in the legislative section. You feel it is important enough to include in the lead? We're working to reduce the size of the lead above. Morphh ^(talk) 20:08, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I do - I just added that it was first introduced in 1999 though I think this shouldn't be as buried as it is. May I recommend getting rid of the pro and con discussions in paragraph 2? I think arguing the merits can be eliminated from the lead, and saved for the body of the article. Tempshill (talk) 20:25, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm, interesting idea but that would remove several topic areas of summarization (particularly sections 3,4 & 6). I'm open to it but it seems like it would go against WP:LEAD and that of WP:FACR 2(a). Morphh ^(talk) 20:40, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

The number of times it's been introduced is nearly as unimportant as the number of pages in the bill and does not need to be in the lead. The body says that it's been introduced in four Congresses. Since bills die if not enacted at the end of a Congress, all the previous ones are dead. Despite the sponsorship of the current bill, nothing's happening and nothing will in an election year. According to Thomas, the last major action in the House was January 2007 (referred to committee), and in the Senate, March 2007 (referred to committee). OtherDave (talk) 17:48, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Its chances

The article is not complete without a paragraph assessing its chances. I assume the chances are currently generally thought to be "those of a snowball in Hell" and the article ought to mention this. Naturally I don't have a citable source using those words. Tempshill (talk) 20:20, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

You have some that say it has no chance, and then you have people saying don't underestimate it's momentum. I don't want to get into a crystal ball situation. It's very difficult to assess current support when it has never been voted on. Morphh ^(talk) 20:35, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately that stance unfairly favors FairTax in the article treatment. If there's no way it is going to pass this year, then a "hands off" attitude on its chances makes FairTax seem more important than it is. Tempshill (talk) 21:22, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Effects on trade

"The FairTax would apply to Internet purchases and would tax retail international purchases (such as a boat or car) that are imported to the United States"

This is very important and needs to be expanded, especially as one effect would be that many international purchases will become prohibitively expensive and no longer cost effective. It might in many cases lead to a very high taxation where a consumer who orders something online will have to pay a high sales tax both to the country from where the product is ordered and to the US, in some cases the total sales tax could then reach 40-50%. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.93.6.186 (talk) 20:49, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

If you have research on this, we can include it but it seems like WP:OR. Such an international transaction is enforced by Customs, upon importing. You're not importing an internet purchase, so I don't see how this would get taxed but you would be subject to the other country's tax code. Morphh ^(talk) 20:54, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

In Norway there is a sales tax of 25%, packages bought internet purchases from other countries are opened and taxed (25%). When I buy stuff online this often results in that I pay for example 17% sales tax to the country where I buy something from, and then an additional 25% to the Norwegian government. So if I for example buy something that costs 100$ before tax from a country with 17% sales tax, the listed price becomes 117$. Next upon getting the package a 25% tax would be added to the 117$ price resulting in a total of 146.25$. 129.241.214.87 (talk) 21:23, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Ah, but you're not using FairTax math. $100 is 68% of $146, so your FairTax of $46 is only 32% of what you paid. Don't you feel better? Your tax rate got lowered by nearly a third. OtherDave (talk) 21:31, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

VAT taxes are inclusive taxes, not exclusive. Morphh ^(talk) 21:33, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, there IS a problem regardless of US tax novelties - internet sellers (one-man outfits, not the big ones) are unable or unwilling to claim export tax exemption on sales to foreign customers and, indeed, the buyer pays twice. NVO (talk) 22:31, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Rental tax?

The article says that the "Fairtax" would apply to apartment rentals and real estate. How does this reconcile with the statement that it is only charged once on a good? Also, it says that "investments" are exempt... what about investments in real estate? Though I suppose that this is only for typical consumer apartments - if you're buying a yacht you could say that it's an "intermediate business expense" for setting up your tourism line. And I suppose it doesn't apply to your live-in maid who doesn't pay any rent. Wnt (talk) 21:08, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

A rental is a service, not a good, and services are taxed. There is a section in the bill that addresses avoidance schemes and the rules about purchasing for business, but this discussion might be better suited for one of the groups or blogs. Morphh ^(talk) 21:19, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Currently renting and owning are seen as two competing methods to enjoy a piece of property. But if I understand what you're saying, this system would slap a 44% tax on top of your rent, making it economically necessary to package almost any apartment as some sort of condominium for sale. Is this a social goal of this tax? Wnt (talk) 21:29, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the FairTax would slap a 30-40 percent (I don't give one iota of credence to the idea that a 30% sales tax would be revenue-neutral) sales tax on every renter in the United States. Yay, FairTax! It's not enough that renters pay the property tax on the property they rent via pass-through from the landlord... they need to pay sales tax on their rental every month, too!

You'll be paying "FairTax" every time you go to the barber shop... the ATM (hey, that $2 fee is a SERVICE charge... bet they'll tax that 40% too), the auto mechanic, the electric bill, the kid who mows your lawn... all sorts of transactions which aren't taxed, will be. Non-invasive, this isn't.

Seriously, anyone who thinks the bureaucracy needed to administer this tax is going to be any less onerous and gargantuan than the IRS, is smoking something. FCYTravis (talk) 22:17, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but I guess the idea is that you're already paying 30-40%, it's just taken out of your check before you spend it. Anywho :-) Morphh ^(talk) 14:17, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

But that's definitely not true. The income/payroll tax burden on working-class Americans isn't anywhere close to 40% of their pay. The "FairTax" represents a massive shifting of the tax burden away from the wealthy, who spend much less of their income, proportionately, on tangible goods than low and middle-income Americans do. A huge chunk of the income of the wealthy will go entirely untaxed, as long as they spend it on stocks and bonds rather than a new flat-screen TV from Wal-Mart. That strikes me as decidedly unfair. Why do wealthy people (who own the vast majority of stock in this country) not have to pay 40% more on their stock purchases, but working stiffs have to pay 40% more for their TVs? Nonsensical. Anyway, I'll stop arguing now :p FCYTravis (talk) 18:34, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

This is really not the place to discuss this and I'm not going to get into what is fair or unfair but regarding the 40% exclusive. A a 15 percent income tax and 7.65 percent FICA tax, a total 23 percent inclusive tax, is equal to a 30 percent exclusive tax. A 25% income tax bracket would put you at 50% exclusive. When you consider the other 7.65 percent and the 35 percent corporate income taxes, are we all that far off. Point is the cost on one side has to equal that on the other and the FairTax has a broader tax base to draw from. It only brings to light the true cost of government. Morphh ^(talk) 20:00, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I never did see an answer to my question about renting vs. buying: is it the intent of the tax to obtain a continuous income stream from a property if and only if one person is paying another to live there on a monthly basis? On the other hand, the companion article's talk page posits a model in which "FairTax" is paid on (I think) every real estate transfer,[3] which would have precisely the opposite effect of making people afraid to sign the papers unless they were sure it was for ever and ever. Wnt (talk) 02:53, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

"Stability of the tax base"

There is an image showing the "stability of the tax base", which is not otherwise explained in the article. This "stability" basically means that the government would tax people just as much in recession years as otherwise. Since the current regime has made a point of offering "economic incentives" even beyond the net decrease in average income, the claim of 'stability' seems far out of line with any realistic economics. Is the figure even relevant? Wnt (talk) 21:21, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

It tends to go with the discussion that consumption is a more accurate measure of economic well-being than income. As peoples incomes go up and down over the years, they're consumption usually remains more steady. Morphh ^(talk) 21:26, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Codswallop. Of course, since real income for most people in the U.S. has gone virtually nowhere in this century, it doesn't matter. OtherDave (talk) 21:26, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Inconsistent numbers

I can't see any way that the following statements in the article are both correct:

• Furthermore, the number of individuals required to file taxes drops from approximately 100 million to 14 million,
• Since 145 million individuals would no longer be filing tax returns, there would only be about 25 million businesses that could be audited.

Would someone who has worked on this article mind correcting one (or both) of these, or explaining why they are in fact consistent with each other? -- John Broughton (♫♫) 23:02, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

You're right. 100 million does not equal 145 million. The Statistical Abstracts of the U.S. say there were 132.3 million individual returns filed for 2006, though, so the 100 million is off by nearly a third. OtherDave (talk) 01:24, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, probably working with old data. Morphh ^(talk) 14:00, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

De nada. I keep trying to find numbers of corporate tax returns, but am clearly looking in the wrong places. In 2004 there were 5.9 million "employer firms" (i.e., organizations with a payroll) and 19.5 million "non-employers" (e.g., individuals filing as businesses, mostly sole proprietorships). These are from the Small Business Administration and the Census Bureau. Although these figures are for numbers, not for tax returns, the 25 million figure seems in the ballpark. Note that the average receipts for those 19.5 million is $38,000 (receipts, not tax). The Census Bureau notes that nonemployers account for roughly 3% of business activity in terms of sales or receipts. I don't believe Schedule SE is counted as a corporate tax return, but I'm not a tax accountant. OtherDave (talk) 15:08, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Rebate payment methods

I keep removing mention of payment options for the rebates. They are consistently removed without reason. The only reason I can think to mention smartcards is to sound fancy. This article does not exist to educate people about smartcards and other methods of money transfer. 129.97.140.98 (talk) 23:35, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

You should undo your last edit, you have violated WP:3RR. You should also remove the warning from my talk page, issuing false warnings is violating WP:NPA. Landon1980 (talk) 23:46, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Done. But the warning stands. You should be more careful next time. Furthermore, the false warning on my page constitutes vandalism. Of course, none of this conversation should be taking place here. Let's talk about improving the article. 129.97.140.98 (talk) 23:55, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually you were vandalizing with that edit, and your mail man edit. I don't care either way regarding this, I am here to fight vandalism. You should look up vandalism, my edits to not pertain to it, yours do. You were disrupting to make a point. Landon1980 (talk) 23:57, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Let me be more clear, adding or removing the info is a content dispute, altering the info to make a mockery of it is vandalism. You get my point, right? Landon1980 (talk) 23:59, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't see why it was important to remove useful information regarding the payment methods. Often the prebate is called a "check", so it was useful to describe the different payment methods available for the rebate, particular when discussing the cost and fraud associated with the rebate. Checks have a much higher cost and fraud rate than other methods of payment, and the option for these other methods, which most people would choose, reduced those costs. Again, I don't see why it was important to removed sourced and relevant information regarding the payment methods. Morphh ^(talk) 13:59, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Your belief that the information is useful is what is being disputed. This form of money transfer does not enjoy any special status over other forms of transfer. To include a description of all possible and conjectured future methods of transfer in each and every article mentioning payment of some sort is absurd. Your believe that information being sourced is criteria for inclusion is again false. I can certainly find sources for material to expand the content regarding methods of transfer. (How about a brief history of ATM machines?) This information does not improve the article and therefore will not be added. 129.97.140.98 (talk) 15:33, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Others might find it useful, I do. These are the forms of payment currently described in the legislation. I also think it adds to the context of discussion regarding the rebate, it's administration cost, and how it is issued. It adds to the context on fraud and the basis for a reader to form an opinion on the topic point. Each method does offer a different status and risk. I don't see what the big deal is with the inclusion. It's not anything controversial or something that would hurt the quality of the article. Morphh ^(talk) 15:46, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

My biggest objection is the mention of smartcards. The purpose can only be to sound futuristic. They are simply the next generation of debit/credit cards. You seem to think the validity of the FairTax proposal is relies on the ability to combat fraud. This is no more true in the FairTax proposal than any other procedure involving the transfer of money. Unless you believe that any mention of transfering money should justify the inclusion a brief blirb on smartcards, then I don't see why FairTax should. 129.97.140.98 (talk) 14:02, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

The purpose is not to sound futuristic, it is specifically stated in the bill as a method of payment. I think they put it in the bill to provide options, not to be futuristic. Even if futuristic sounding, is that a valid reason for removal - seems bias. Smartcards have been around for a while and are a simple method of payment. I never even consider the term as anything but generic, but I understand you point. I never said that the validity of the FairTax proposal relies on combating fraud. I stated that different payment methods have an effect on fraud and such was meaningful to the context of the section. I don't follow your logic regarding "any mention of transferring money". We're talking about a specific bill where we're trying to explain the rebate plan. Morphh ^(talk) 14:48, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Comments

Hi. The reason the plan is called fair tax is because when this was being studied and in trials with every day citizens such as you and I one of the people in the study said "it is so fair" that is where the name came from - not to be sneaky or deceptive marketing - a person who had no intrest or gain in the plan said that and the name stuck.

I know if this is the first time you are hearing of this it may seem complicated - I first heard about this years ago and I have studied this for one year now and finally feel that I complete understand this plan. I still learn new things regarding this plan and others ever day. Without re-writing the article - let me give the quickest, shortest, honest version of the Fair Tax.

This plan is non-partisan - NO political party is affiliated with the Fair Tax, I know democrats, republicans, and independents who support this plan. In 1913 is when the IRS started - our country was NOT founded on an income tax, it came about because political parties D & R were playing games all the way back to that time (and before) ; ). At that time 1913-1940's once a year you took out your checkbook and wrote the IRS a check. In the 1940's after World War 2 the government decided well let's take taxes out the peoples checks - they even used Donald Duck in commercials to get this passed. They quickly learned that people did not realize how much they were being taxed because it came right out of their checks and they never saw it (as is the case today). That is the history of it.

The Fair Tax plan - ELIMINATES all current FEDERAL TAXES - death tax, income tax, social security tax, FICA tax, you name it, it's federal and the IRS collects it then it is HISTORY. So you are probably thinking well how will the government get paid? How do we pay for all that our federal government does. It's easy. Right now when you and I go to the store and buy a product let's call it xyz to keep it easy. If xyz costs $1.00 at the register did you know you are paying 23 cents tax embedded into that item - in other words if there were no federal tax it would cost 77 cents to buy xyz but because of all the people who have anything to do with getting xyz into your hands they all are charged federal tax right now - but the xyz company, the truckers, the store owner that is selling you xyz does not pay that federal tax out of their pockets they add it on to the cost of the item and pass it on to you and me. So before the Fair Tax xyz costs $1.00 guess how much xyz will cost after the Fair Tax? It will also costs $1.00. I bet you are wondering how this works. Ok here is the nuts and bolts of the Fair Tax. When ALL Federal taxes are eliminated that includes corporate tax which is what the xyz company, the trucker, and the store selling you the xyz was charging you before - remember 23 cents worth. After the Fair Tax you walk into the store and buy xyz and now xyz costs 77 cents then you go to the register and pay 77 cents + 23 cents = $1.00. If you buy a used item NO TAX added, so if it is used say a car and it costs $10,000 now it would cost $7,700. You also get what is called a prebate check which is based on the number of people in your home - you can see the chart on the Fair Tax website. This goes to all legal United States Citizens every month to cover basic necessities such as food and medicine. The Fair Tax untaxes the poor. The Fair Tax eliminates tax loop holes for some and makes it the same for all.

By eliminating the IRS/Federal taxes you get to keep your WHOLE PAYCHECK. You work more you are not taxed anything extra. You will no longer be taxed for working. It is estimated by some of the top economists as listed on prior main page 13 TRILLION dollars would flood back into this country immediately because the taxation on work and businesses were eliminated. THAT IS AN ECONOMIC Stimulus plan that makes sense and could turn our economy back around. Also, people not currently paying taxes - those doing illegal activities, those who are here illegally, and those evading taxes all together would join those who have been working and paying taxes all along and everyone would pay only when you buy something (unless it's used then you would not pay anything - including HOUSES - that would turn the housing market around).

These are honest facts not spins, not lies, this is the honest truth and the quickest and shortest way I could break down for you what I have learned over the past year studying the facts. My intention was to break it down in a way that everyone could get without using economic terms - it can be more complex this is just the main facts that everyone needs to know who is intrested in the Fair Tax.

thanks for your time, Elizabeth 7/15/08 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.154.93.164 (talk) 03:43, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Just a reminder, article talk pages are for discussing improvements to article. They are not discussion forums for debating the pros and cons of the article subject. Jefffire (talk) 13:52, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

There's a fallacy in that argument in any case: there's no way that charging exactly the same amount of tax can mean people have more money for purchases in total. If your upstream suppliers used to pay income/corporate tax and now they pay "FairTax" they still are paying tax. Wnt (talk) 03:04, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

The argument is sort of true, in a rather twisted manner. The FairTax isn't remotely revenue-neutral at its alleged 30% rate. So, yeah, if the FairTax gets applied at 30%, taxes will go down - on rich people. They'll pay significantly, massively less than they do today. The working-class will be left holding the bag - paying 30% more for everything and dealing with massive cuts in government spending, which of course the Republicans would love to see fall on social programs. It's the classic Grover Norquist "drown the government in the bathtub" ideology. FCYTravis (talk) 20:02, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Unless there was a section in the article about where the name came from and those provided explanation could be correctly backed with sources AND if it could be done in a way without introducing any biases, this shouldn't be discussed in talk pages. The article has pros and cons already in it. The talk should not be used as debate field, but as place to discuss the article itself and how to improve it. Wikihonduras (talk) 20:09, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I concur with Wikihonduras. I would also like to note that this article already discusses possibility of the FairTax legislation being a regressive tax on income, however the article also notes that the legislation provides for rebates to counter such regressivity where it would particularly harm working-class people.EECavazos (talk) 20:25, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Note that this "NON-partisan" bill is signed onto by 68 Republicans and 1 Democrat in the House, and 5 Republicans and 0 Democrats in the Senate. While WP:CRYSTAL prevents me from opining on its chances of making it out of a Democratic-led committee, no special psychic power is required. Wnt (talk) 13:59, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Monetary policy

The statement "(degree based on monetary policy)" was removed with the comment "'degree based on monetary policy' is meaningless - do you mean affected by monetary policy? If so, that is irrelevant." What the statement was meaning is the degree or amount of price change or reduction is dependent on monetary policy as described in the section "Theories of retail pricing" (accommodation models). Morphh ^(talk) 14:39, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Excess Profits Tax?

There's nothing in it about an excess profits tax? I'm afraid such a tax system would be pure insanity (much like what we have now) without a tax on excess profits to reign in some of the surplus of the abusers of the market like Wal-mart and ExxonMobile. Unfortunately, minus that, I see this as a sort of ploy put forth by those top-earning companies to eliminate some of the tax burden put on them by the current tax system. If there was a tax on excess profits, then this system would be almost perfect. Anybody know anything about the idea to include that? 66.69.194.16 (talk) 05:59, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't think there is a mention of excess profits tax because the FairTax tax law change does not propose one. GameKeeper (talk) 19:39, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Plan to remove pro bias

The most glaring issue with the article is the use of multiple pro references to support a single statement. Most of these are unnecessary and appear to be intended to make a point. I'm going to trim out as many of those as possible with the additional goal of reducing the total number of references. In many places the pro side is given and then the con response appears followed by a pro rebuttal. It makes for dense biased text. A rewrite to present both the pro and con sides without the rebuttal except where absolutely necessary should make several sections both more readable and less overtly biased. The number of congressional sponsors for every version of the bill is unnecessary and appears to be trying to make the point that the bill is gaining momentum. No other facts support this. The Tax Rate section repeats the same information several times and buries the serious issue of what the rate actually would be several subsections into the section. A reorganization and edit for length is called for. The prebate chart is unnecessary. If the bill ever passes then an actual chart might be appropriate. The formula for comparing an inclusive tax rate to an exclusive one is appopriate for the tax rate article but is unnecessary here. The Predicted Effects section presents very little beyond speculation. Bare assertions referencing bare assertions somewhere else will be edited or removed. Kbs666 (talk) 00:01, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

This has been discussed already between you and several other editors. You are asserting arguments that have already been countered my most of those other editors. Reasserting them again at the bottom of the talk page does not reinvigorate them. EECavazos (talk) 00:12, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I've already been down this road. There are multiple editors saying the article lacks NPOV and multiple editors saying it doesn't. Therefore the neutrality of this article is in dispute. Placing this new section at the bottom of the page is per wikipedia policy. Removing the disclaimer is a violation of wikipedia policy. Kbs666 (talk) 03:13, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Please read WP:NPOV. There are far more editors who think this article has a neutral point of view than there are those who think it is not neutral. The editors who think it is neutral are able to articlulate that it is neutral. I disagree with the underlying topic, FairTax, but the article itself is neutral. A few minor changes may be possible but they remain minor and do not affect the neutrality of the article. An editor above in this talk page on the ongoing issue of the article's neutrality said that s/he thought the topic was a bad tax but s/he that the article itself is neutral. Gamekeepr, I believe said that. Other editors agree. Your complaints on the article's neutrality revolve around disagreements over specific sentences (that are sourced) and their assertions. If you disagree with such statements, then you need to disprove them with sourced statements. Arguing that some statements have too many sources only weaken your arguments. Please, if you disagree then disprove with sourced content. If you disagree because you don't like it, then please wait until you have sourced information and then add it in. If editors do not allow you to add in the sourced information, then you have a case to add an NPOV tag. Until then, you have no case for a WP:NPOV tag. EECavazos (talk) 04:15, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

As is obvious to the many editors who have complained about this article it violates undue weight, impartial tone, article structure of WP:NPOV. Tag is replaced and article editing continues.Kbs666 (talk) 15:07, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

If a dispute was all that was needed for a tag, than every controversial article would have one (as well as half the articles on Wikipedia). On such an article and on Wikipedia in general, it doesn't really matter if you have several vocal editors making general statements. This is not a vote. Particularly on an article that has had significant review by many experienced editors (pro and con) who have found otherwise (some even from outside the U.S.). Just because some editor thinks the term "smartcard" is too futuristic, doesn't make it a valid argument for bias content or NPOV. Likewise, your unsubstantiated claim regarding "most" and "many" (which I choose to accept only to reduce conflict on an insignificant point, not because of any evidence you provided to make your argument). You may never agree to a point, but the dispute is over if you can not present evidence and arguments to convince editors that change would improve the article. Nothing has been provided that the article violates the policies of NPOV. No point of view has been presented that is missing from the article. No significant argument has been presented for undue weight, impartial tone, or article structure (or such has been dismissed based on discussion and arguments). Per the NPOV dispute "The editor who adds the tag must address the issues on the talk page, pointing to specific issues that are actionable within the content policies, namely Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons. Simply being of the opinion that a page is not neutral is not sufficient to justify the addition of the tag. Tags should be added as a last resort." There is a discussion taking place - the only purpose of adding the tag at this point is to present a negative bias on the article (which is not the purpose of the tag).

Regarding references, I have a difficult time removing references unless there is a clear amount that unnecessarily overwhelms the statement, which gives the appearance of making a point (the very reason I reduced references regarding your argument above from 8 to 5). At that point, we have to choose which references are the most relevant. Many users like multiple sources when possible and some sources may support different points in the sentence. With that said, I'm not overly opposed to removing sources if it both results in no loss of source material and assists in reducing unnecessary reference overload for a statement. I'd also be fine with reducing references in the lead (or other top level summaries) if it does not create a sourcing dispute.

Regarding the back and forth, I'm fine with grouping the pro and then grouping the con in the context of the section provided we have good prose flow for the topic, but would be against removing rebuttal points (meaning they need to be included in the pro argument). To remove the argument would be a violation of NPOV policy of presenting one point of view and not the other. Presenting both may not result in a 50/50 coverage (based on proponents or opponents having more research or arguments to present on the topic). Any attempt to provide criticism significantly more weight (simply because it's criticism) by removing proponent arguments or research, will likely be an issue.

The tax rate section is a summary of the sections under this topic header. You shouldn't have a title without something under it - a summary in this case, which was required as part of the FA for improving quality. I agree that this duplicates information but that's the purpose. Perhaps a tighter summary is appropriate - I don't have an issue with that. As far as the what the rate would actually be, there should be little dispute - it is 23%/30% per the legislation. Until this changes, the argument is if that rate is sufficient to raise the same amount of revenue, which would result in raising the rate, reduced spending, or an increased deficit. Cosponsor information is important to show the status of the bill over its lifetime (one would expect this type of information) - I think it is presented in a neutral way. The prebate table helps understand the structure and amounts proposed. Removing sourced content that others see as relevant data to the topic points will likely not be seen as improving the article. Morphh ^(talk) 15:53, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to examine one sentence here that demonstrates that this article is biased. The sentence: "The bill is cosponsored by former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert but has not received support from the Democratic leadership, which now controls Congress." Which is supported by 3 references. However the sentence is not factual, Dennis Hastert is not a cosponsor according to any of the references provided. All that can be said based on the provided references is that he expressed support for a national sales tax in a book. Now whoever wrote that sentence and applied those references knew the statement was untrue since he presumably read those references before attaching them to that sentence. A clear violation of WP:V.

Moving on to another sentence in this same section: "The legislation has been discussed with President George W. Bush and Secretary of the Treasury Henry M. Paulson." followed by a single reference. The problem here is the link doesn't point to what the description claims, it isn't even the right file type. Now I know for a fact that someone looked at this link in the last week since I reported it to be broken and it was supposedly fixed. Once again this gives an indication that someone is trying to bury the casual reader in references to make a point. Another clear violation of WP:V.

Now I had deleted both these sentences along with a lot of fluff trying to make it look like support for this bill is growing but the edits were reverted with a claim that these falsehoods were somehow relevant to the article. Kbs666 (talk) 21:50, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I checked the just one of the refs [4] which lists 'Rep Hastert, J. Dennis' as a supporter. I think you must have made a mistake here.

I just checked the ref by hand and he is listed as a cosponsor. Previously I had just searched the page for hastert. My mistake. Kbs666 (talk) 22:50, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

The next sentence you complain about, the reference is not currently available at the webarchive which is linked. This does not mean it has never existed. Maybe someone can relocate it again but webarchives can be a bit flaky, it may well work tomorrow when you check. A reference does not have to be online to be valid!

A reference to a website does need to be available online to be valid! If it was published somewhere give the print ref! I'll reiterate, I've checked this ref every time I've looked at this page in the last week. It has never pointed to what it claims.Kbs666 (talk) 22:50, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Dead link. Yes, this is a deadlink however "The legislation has been discussed with President George W. Bush and Secretary of the Treasury Henry M. Paulson" does not impugne the neutrality of an entire article and besides is not in itself POV. In this instance, an appropriate action would be to show that a citation is needed with . EECavazos (talk) 23:03, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I added a tag to the reference. EECavazos (talk) 23:14, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Update: Had to change the "/pdf/" to "/PDF/" in the link. I updated the link and was able to download the document. Morphh ^(talk) 15:40, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

I know the source was valid a while back, and I can confirm that it did support the statement. This is not any attempt to mislead anyone or bury anything - that is why access dates are provided with every ref. The web archive showed three dates with the sourced PDF, but I guess it's not working. Linder met with Bush for an hour on the FairTax. He also met with Paulson. He has stated both on many occasions. Here is a quick link, perhaps another to a similar statement, though I think we can do better. I believe Linder made the statement in his latest book as well as in the online video at American Solutions, but it will take some time to review the materials to verify. But to the above point, this is not anything that violates NPOV. Morphh ^(talk) 0:23, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

But why is the fact that Linder discussed it with Bush and Paulson even relevant enough to mention in this article? What was the outcome of the discussion? Did Bush or Paulson support or reject the legislation afterwards? I don't believe the discussion had any effect on the status of the legislation or the "movement." I don't see any reason this should even be in this article, especially since it's obvious that Bush will not be pushing any tax reform legislation before he leaves office. Tom Joad 2k (talk) 13:14, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I did get to quickly look at book The Truth and verified that as a source for the Bush statement, although I didn't have time to find Paulson. The Bush conversation was suppose to last 15min, but according to Linder, Bush was so interested that he pushed off his other meetings to discuss the plan. Linder often talks about this regarding his belief that the plan would "spreed freedom around the globe", which Bush supposedly liked. Note that this "freedom" argument of pro material (one of many) is not present in the article. The Paulson discussion took place after the Tax Reform panel and was interesting because Paulson stated, according to Linder, that he would use resources outside of the Treasury to score the plan. Paulson seemed open to the plan according to Linder. As to why the sentence is mentioned, we're discussing the bill in which we outline noteable events, the status with leadership of the political parties (including Bush, the leader of the Republican party) and Secertary of Treasury (extremely important for looking at tax plans). Certainly both were big news in the movement and Linder continues to discuss them. Bush being a lame duck doesn't negate that the FairTax has been discussed at these levels of government. It shouldn't simply be dismissed as having no political interest or action. They were meaningfull events in the bill's history. Morphh ^(talk) 14:07, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

How can you say they were meaningful to the bill when nothing resulted from the discussions? Did Bush push for any legislative action? Not that I'm aware of. Did the status of the bill change in any way? No. This discussion seems to be a very insignificant event in the the bill's history. Tom Joad 2k (talk) 14:31, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Nothing has resulted from any sponsorship or discussion with any politician on the bill. It sits in the same place as it did on day one. Does that make the entire section irrelavant for an article on the bill? How can a discussion with the Presendent for an hour on this particular tax reform plan be insignificant? This is not normal practice. It's not like we put it in the lead. It's one sentence in the legislative history section. Morphh ^(talk) 15:02, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

When you say 'these falsehoods' what do you mean. The information showed more cosponsors were appearing. YOU are making the assumption that that means support is growing, the falsehood there is your assumption and is not in the article. GameKeeper (talk) 22:39, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Cosponsors on a bill means nothing. It isn't a commitment to vote for the bill. It is propoganda. Propoganda has no place in an ecyclopedia. Kbs666 (talk) 22:50, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

You claim at the end that the purpose of the statements did make a claim for some POV by implying the support for the bill is growing. This is also incorrect. The whole paragraph says that the legislation is dead. The very statement you claim is POV says that the Democrat-controlled Congress has stopped the bill. EECavazos (talk) 23:03, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Do you realize that you just said that when a Congressperson supports a bill that it is propaganda? You are arguing about the topic. Let's stick with arguing over the article. A person of Congress co-sponsoring a bill is notable because it shows at Congressperson's support. Just as notable is the mention in the paragraph that the legislation itself is dead despite support from some Congresspersons.EECavazos (talk) 23:06, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

If you want an example of verifiability and NPOV, why is Christopher Trowell's "Clean out America’s Economic Arteries" used as a source for supposed economic benefits? The link goes to what appears to be nothing more than a submission from the public to a Ways and Means hearing. Unless it can be shown that Christopher Trowell (I've never heard of him) is reliable, I can't see how someone making a submission for the record to a Congressional hearing (anyone can submit something have have it be part of the "record") can, by itself, be considered a "reliable source." All claims sourced to him should have a reliable source attached to them or they should be removed. And Christopher Trowell's statement should be removed as a source completely.

I see this type of stuff throughout this article. In the "Economic" section, there is this sentence "According to the National Bureau of Economic Research and Americans For Fair Taxation, GDP would increase almost 10.5 percent in the year after the FairTax goes into effect." which reference's Linder's website - but that site has nothing about NBER making this claim. If NBER studied the FairTax (I'm not aware that they have) and made this claim, why not link to the original source? Tom Joad 2k (talk) 14:19, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I think in both cases we're playing chase the reference as people try to find new sources when old links go bad or change. NBER is listed in several research documents (Kotlikoff was part of this group). I'm pretty certain both of these statements are made in the Al Ose book (which is where Trowell likely got the data) and in multiple AFFT documents. In some cases, an attempt was made to use an online references rather than a books, so that verifying the data would be easier for readers, but it seems this might have been a mistake. I'll verify the statements in the book and replace the reference. Morphh ^(talk) 15:02, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Is Al Ose a reliable source? It appears his book was self-published (Authorhouse, is a self-publishing service) and the Wikipedia page on Verifiability specifically states "Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, blogs, forum postings, and similar sources are largely not acceptable." It seems to me his book should be removed from the references and any item using his book as reference should be resourced or removed. This, again, is evidence of a lack of neutral point of view. Tom Joad 2k (talk) 15:33, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Good catch - I will start looking into this. This material is available in other books, research, or AFFT publications. I will note, however, that I'm getting tired of everything you question being charged as NPOV. This is not productive or accurate. You're at the point of accusing editors of bad faith by using one source vs. another. It was a simple unintentional error in data reference that can be corrected. Morphh ^(talk) 16:24, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Wait a minute. I don't think in any of my other specific points - let alone "everything I question" - I claimed POV. And it wasn't addressed at anyone in particular (I don't know who added those Ose references).

You yourself quoted the language from the NPOV dispute article that stated that people should be "...pointing to specific issues that are actionable within the content policies, namely Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons." So I'm pointing out specific issues relating to verifiability. I'm not adding the NPOV label or any other label to the article or changing the content - I'm addressing these issues on the discussion page and allowing someone to find other sources or remove the content. Tom Joad 2k (talk) 19:17, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I must have some discussions mixed (they all seem to blur) and it just seems like that term is getting loosely tossed around for any type of issue or dispute. The last couple statements must have pushed a stressed wikibutton. Morphh ^(talk) 20:06, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

No problem. Morphh, you've obviously put in a lot of work on this article and I respect that. I get a strong feeling that you sincerely want to have an unbiased article that accurately portrays the FairTax - but doing that in an "open editing" situation like Wikipedia is a bit like herding cats. I'm afraid if you put too much stock into this process you will always be frustrated. Tom Joad 2k (talk) 20:50, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I removed the reference. It did not source anything that would be considered questionable or under dispute. It sourced random statements that can be found in a dozen sources if need be. Some already had secondary references. Morphh ^(talk) 16:38, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure if the House testimony of Trowell would fall under a reliable source or not, but I removed it and replaced as needed. I also removed the attribution that was not verifiable in the new sources. Morphh ^(talk) 17:30, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Just to clarify, he didn't testify - he submitted a statement for the record. Anyone can do this for any Ways and Means hearing and have it put in the official record. Tom Joad 2k (talk) 19:41, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I want to reiterate that you should not remove sources. Multiple sources are not intended to mean that a certain fact is 'better' or more important than another, if someone thinks that when reading an article the fault is with them, not the article. The article should therefore not be changed because of this. GameKeeper (talk) 19:43, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Here's a sentence where a pro point is made deceptively by the quoted person. "According to proponents, many predict revenues to Social Security and Medicare would double as the size of the economy doubles within 15 years after passage of the Fair" The economy doubling in 15 years sounds mighty impressive but it actually only requires an average growth rate of 4 2/3%/year approximately. Which is only slightly below what we see during periods of good economic growth, the 1960's averaged 4.4% growth (measured by GDP). An explanation of the deceptiveness of the statement or its simple removal would seem in order. Kbs666 (talk) 21:04, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Certainly the pro side and the con side use spin to try and make their points stronger. It is not our job as editors to inject our opinion regarding the deceptiveness of a proponent or opponent position. Your examination, while likely correct, would probably be considered original research if included. We could use sourced data to clarify their position on yearly growth rates. Perhaps something like "According to Arduin, Laffer & Moore Econometrics, the economy as measured by GDP would be 2.4 percent higher in the first year and 11.3 percent higher by the 10th year than it would otherwise be, which many predict would lead to the doubling of revenues for Social Security and Medicare as the size of the economy doubles within 15 years after passage..." This perhaps clarifies the growth claimed for doubling revenue. Here are some sources.[5][6][7] Morphh ^(talk) 15:39, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

You're misunderstanding my point. This is spin, very obvious spin to any mathematician or economist. As a biased statement it should not be included or a counter point explaining the deception is needed. The 2.4 percent claim is a flat out lie since the economy grows at a better than 3% rate in all but the worst recessions and the economy would simply be unable to grow at a 6+% rate without massive price inflation. As to your sources the first is actually to a book by the Heritage foundation, libertarians writing about taxes is always suspect but I'll have to read it to see. The other two are actually a single reference since one simply quotes and references the other. That sort of reference should never be used. Point to the primary source. After reading the actual primary source I find the reference is to what is an unsourced bare assertion. It claims growth rates of 5+% for the first two years and then a leveling off to a steady state of 3%, IOW a deep recession with growth insufficient to maintain job growth to account for the expansion of the working population. To start with they appear to be implicitly blaming business cycles on on the income tax, the business cycle long predates the sixteenth ammendment. Then they reference clasical models as their justification without naming which classical model or what the underlying assumptions are beyond an unjustified low average growth rate which makes their calculation unreproducable if anyone (for example me) wanted to check their claim. They try some sleight of hand in footnote 45 where they use two periods to justify their 3% number. One is 1948 to 1973, a period of long term growth bookended by two deep recessions that serve to skew the average. The second is a short period, 89 to 95 which was a recession period with very low growth rates. A more reasonable average growth rate is 3.5% or 3.75% as can be seen by taking the period from 1946 to 2007 as a whole. While this deconstruction is unincludable in the article as original research it does show that the sources you are deriving your data from are severely biased. If the FairTax bill actually had any chance of becoming law these studies would come under serious scrutiny and these sorts of problems would get published widely. Until then as a claim that is in and of itself clearly mathematically wrong and biased the claim should be removed and all other references to the Arduin et al paper should be closely examined for other cases of this sort of bias. Kbs666 (talk) 21:17, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I understand they could be considered bias, which is why we attribute and source the data. A neutral point of view does not mean excluding biased arguments and sources. Almost all sources are biased one way or another and it is not our job to explain deception or otherwise inject our opinion. We present their point of view in a neutral way, attributing if needed, with a source(s). If there is another point of view on the issue, we do the same. We are not to suggest that one view is the correct view or that either view is wrong, deceptive, spin, etc. We can only add material that some one else states that it is wrong, deceptive, spin, etc. This is NPOV policy. If no alternate pov exists, than none is included and the information goes unchallenged. The other position is not removed due to lack of criticism. Such would be against policy by removing their viewpoint. This is why in some cases the article can be perceived to have a pro-FairTax lean, because the research and arguments on the proponent side can outweigh opponents. AFFT spent 20+ million on research, papers, etc., Boortz/Linder published two books. The couple of research papers and many opinion pieces on the opponent side do not have sufficient rebuttal to the topics in some cases. As you stated, "If the FairTax bill actually had any chance of becoming law these studies would come under serious scrutiny and these sorts of problems would get published widely." When and if this occurs, we will include this scrutiny, but until then, the research remains unchallenged. A closer examination of the research may show a common 3% baseline for economic growth (not a comparing prediction) - so we're seeing growth above the baseline. Increase baseline growth (3.5% or otherwise) may not change anything except increasing the FairTax growth line respectively. It's not our place to make this assessment. With regard to the references, they were only there to give you quick access to the material under discussion for the example. Pages 27-32 seem to discuss the data where 11.3% is discussed (2.4% possibly calculated from Appendix math by AFFT). Morphh ^(talk) 20:46, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Then I think the matter falls to the WP:FRINGE standard and all of the supposed research by AFFT and Linder should be removed as sources and all the material sourcing them deleted. As you point out by trying to argue for the inclusion of obvious falsehoods because no serious economist has bothered publishing a challenge to these claims. Quoting WP:FRINGE "A fringe theory can be considered notable if it has been referenced extensively, and in a serious manner, in at least one major publication, or by a notable group or individual that is independent of the theory." Since that does not exist this article should be trimmed down to a bare discussion of the facts of the bill and the movement. All the economic claims are fringe science and as such do not belong on wikipedia. Kbs666 (talk) 21:42, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

This theory has been referenced extensively by major publications in a serious manner. See further reading section, several of the books there are from sources independent of the theory. There are multiple references in the article to independent sources. This article does not fall under WP:FRINGE. GameKeeper (talk) 22:22, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

The further reading section is two books by a dentist and a speechwriter, 2 self published tomes and 3 pro books. None fall into the category of "a notable group or individual that is independent of the theory." Anyway if self published sources are suspect as references should they be in the further reading section either?

As I've shown the article uses a deceptive claim simply because no one has ever bothered to counter it in print. If the subject was mainstream that paper would have drawn a response as has been admitted. Looking over the references the pro side is overwhelmingly by Linder, Boortz, Kotlikoff or hosted on fairtax.org. The con sides presented include a radio host's blog and both sides mostly seem to draw from libertarians, a fringe group if ever there was one. Ultimately much of the article's economics claims are presented with hard numbers but when I go looking at the referenced sources I find unsupported assertions. Kotlikoff seems to be the only actual economist to ever publish a peer reviewed article on the subject, 1 paper. Which is cited 4 times, 3 times in other papers by Kotlikoff, none of which seem to have been peer reviewed or published anywhere but the web, and one in Chinese which I can't read. So I'm still looking for for some evidence that the economics claims in this article don't fall under WP:FRINGE.Kbs666 (talk) 04:23, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

A dentist and a speechwriter... why not go all the way back - perhaps a bag boy at Kmart. Boortz is a nationally-syndicated talk show host and Linder is a Congressman on the Ways and Means Committee. Their two FairTax books are NYT bestsellers. Boortz and Linder are both considered experts in the topic. WP:FRINGE is for an article as a whole, which this does not fall into. I have not admitted that the paper would have drawn a response, just that it could receive more scrutiny if the topic becomes more mainstream. I'm not even going to comment on your assertion of "obvious falsehoods" or the "no serious economist" remark. The topic certainly has been criticized and gained some mainstream attention due to the popular books and the 2008 election (Huckabee and Gravel being the most notable). As new research becomes available, we'll include it. Morphh ^(talk) 15:29, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

That's what the two men are most qualified for by training and experience. Neither has an economics background nor is either a CPA or tax attorney. I very carefully looked into Boortz's background since he is an attorney and I found nothing indicating he ever studied or practiced in the tax law discipline. Huckabee is a creationist but you're not going to see a change in wikipedias creationism articles based on Huckabee being a public champion of such. Every official Scientology book ever printed, for example, has been on the NYT bestseller list yet I doubt the editors over at the psychology pages will be rewriting those articles based on Dianetics. You're claiming a self proclaimed expert is a valid source. I'm saying it is at best on the edge of what isn't allowed and IMO it is over the line. The house.gov website does definitely fall into the realm of self published material so we need a definition of reliable that allows you to include Linder here but doesn't require Hubbard be included in the Psychology articles. I simply don't see how you can split that hair. WP:FRINGE is a reasonable point here, the movement, political social whatever, is noteworthy and should have an article. The "science" presented by AFFT et al as referenced by this article is again skating very close to the line of the fringe science rule. This rule clearly exists to keep biased articles with no contrary opinions to speak of from being presented as factual simply because the mainstream researchers have ignored the idea. FairTax pretty clearly has been ignored by all the researchers but Kotlikoff who is a strong supporter. Therefore the hard numbers presented by various FairTax proponents with zero evidence for how they were arrived at and no way to reproduce those numbers independently should be removed since there is simply no way to know if they were arrived at by any sort of acceptable methodology. As it stands the article is a propoganda piece for AFFT which is unacceptable. A shorter article with a direct link to fairtax.org will let the interested go there and read the claims directly. Kbs666 (talk) 22:03, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

If you think this article is WP:FRINGE then you should post this article on the noticeboard for fringe, Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard and see what other people have to say rather than argue whether this article WP:FRINGE on its talk page. That would be more productive for you in achieving your goals. EECavazos (talk) 00:21, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Just to inform everyone, Kbs666 has posted to the Fringe noticeboard - Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard#FairTax. Morphh ^(talk) 1:21, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

With no response on the self published books in the Further Reading section can I assume agreement on deleting them? Kbs666 (talk) 22:03, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

No one is suggesting that Boortz and Linder are doing the economics themselves. Just as the NYT, WSJ, etc, don't do the academic research themselves when they report on a particular topic, but they are considered a reliable source for data they publish. You may find a minor amount about Dianetics in the Scientology article, but you'll certainly find the book and Hubbard as a major source in the Dianetics article itself. Hubbard and his website / articles can similarly be source in that article as he is an expert on Dianetics. He could also be sourced on points in other articles that discuss Dianetics. Similarly, you likely won't find Boortz and Linder sourced in the Taxation in the United States, Income tax in the United States, FICA, Corporate tax in the United States, etc; however, on the topic of the FairTax, they are considered an authority and experts on the plan. Just as you would source Dick Army's statements in an article on his Flat tax. With regard to the self published books, I'd like to hear opinion from other editors. They're not used as references so I don't think they're subject to the same verifiability policy. One is pro and one is con. I think they provide additional reading in the specific topic area and don't really see an issue with it. I'll research this a little more. Morphh ^(talk) 0:31, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

You're misstating my point. Dianetics makes specific claims about Psychology. Dianetics and a host of other scientology books have been on the NYT bestseller list, as you argue for the Linder and Boortz books. By your argument those claims should be included on the Psychology and related articles based simply on having been on the NYT list. That is clearly inappropriate and I'm simply saying that using the fact that a book or books has been on the NYT bestseller list does not make it a reliable source on the subject it purports to discuss. Kbs666 (talk) 02:16, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

As you state, Dianetics makes specific claims about Psychology (a much larger topic). The FairTax Book is about the FairTax (it is the topic). It is a reliable source per the policy of Wikipedia as are the other studies from economic institutions. While it seems your trying to make this point for the sake of stripping proponent research, I expect you understand that your arguments, if acted on, would apply to both sides and would result in the removal of opponent positions as well (likely more so since they have little research on the actual plan). These actions would not follow policy and would greatly decrease the usefulness of the article. Morphh ^(talk) 2:28, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Let me also respond to the "Kotlikoff as the only economist" statement, since you seem to be making these false statements elsewhere. Some other economists: Tuerck, David G.; Haughton, Jonathan; Bachman, Paul; Sanchez-Penalver, Alfonso; Viet Ngo, Phuong; Jokisch, Sabine; Rapson, David; Auerbach, Alan J, Burton, David; Mastromarco, Dan; Walby, Karen; Altig, David; Smetters, Kent A. ; Walliser, Jan; Bhattarai, Keshab; Jacob, Sylvia; Dinwoodie, Sara; and a group at Arduin, Laffer & Moore Econometrics. Morphh ^(talk) 1:04, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

The Beacon Hill Institute authors to start with. This group is used as a reference repeatedly so I looked quite expectently for the journals these "studies" were published on or at least the note indicating that they were submitted for review. I didn't find them. Then I looked at the lead author's, Dr. Tuerck, CV, which would definitely say what journal they were all published in, and I find not one of them on his CV. So maybe his CV isn't up to date. Jonathon Haughton is the next actual PhD on the list of authors and eureka his CV does list an article in a refereed journal, Tax Notes. So I go looking for Tax Notes and I find a weekly publication with no indication it is actually refereed. I would be quite shocked to find a weekly that was rigorously peer reviewed. I'll just conclude this by saying that if they don't publish in peer reviewed journals their studies are hard to take seriously. Sabine is co author of the one paper by Kotlikoff that's actually been published. So I guess that makes two although still just the one published article. Rapson is one of Kotlikoff's students. Auerbach is another coauthor with Kotlikoff and is otherwise referenced for a WSJ op ed. The op-ed never mentions FairTax by name and neither does the article summary. In summary as I've now said many times I've gone over the references provided and only the Kotlikoff paper referenced as endnote #7 in the article is to a verifiably peer reviewed article published in a journal on economics that is actually about the FairTax bill. Unfortunately it is only referenced twice. Although if memory serves several of the AFFT web pages do eventually reference that article in part. Kbs666 (talk) 02:16, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Paul; Haughton, Jonathan; Kotlikoff, Laurence J.; Sanchez-Penalver, Alfonso; Tuerck, David G. were all published in Tax notes. However, such is irrelavant, since the Beacon Hill Institute itself is considered a reliable source. The results of those studies are reprinted in many third party publications as well, like the FairTax books. Morphh ^(talk) 2:28, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Another sentence and another questionable reference: "As falling tax compliance costs lower production costs, exports would increase by 26% initially and remain more than 13 percent above present levels." with a ref pointing to Congressman Linder's website. The claim made on that page is unsourced, yet another bare assertion, and makes no statement that any increase in exports would be tied to any change in tax compliance. Congressman Linder is a dentist and has never been published in anything resembling a reliable third party publication on economics so this reference is very close, if not over the line, as a self published source. Looking over the other 4 uses there is one other use by itself which is at least stated that it is a claim made by Mr. Linder. However the page is still functionally self published and should get removed from the article's references.Kbs666 (talk) 19:34, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

After more carefully looking into some things it also appears that the sentence above is also taken nearly verbatim from Linder's website "exports would increase by 26% initially and remain more than 13 percent above present levels." here versus "Exports would increase by 26 percent initially and would remain more than 13 percent above the level under the current tax system." which is pretty blatant plagarism. Linder should be quoted directly or this statement should be paraphrased. Although at this point I'm wholly in favor of removing it due to the self published nature of the source. Kbs666 (talk) 19:57, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Not only is he the bill's primary sponsor, Linder has written two books on the FairTax and is considered an established expert on the topic whose work in the field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. In addition, as a Congressman, his data (at the U.S. House gov website) has a certain degree of review and fact checking consistent with a reliable source. As far as plagerism, I don't know what percentage or context would make it fall under that. I'll look at rewording it but there is only so many ways you can state the same thing - we don't want to alter the meaning or view. One thing with government sources, they usually fall into public domain which removes those concerns. Morphh ^(talk) 20:55, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Name the reliable third party publications. I've searched and found none. He has definitely published no peer reviewed articles on economics or taxation. His site is not subject to any fact checking, this is easily verifiable by his many unsourced assertions on the page in question. How would you go about fact checking such? Take a look at the house.gov sites of other fringe congressmen and you'll see quite quickly that no fact checking is going on. As to the plagarism, it is definitely plagarism and would certainly get you in trouble in any sort of academic setting. Kbs666 (talk) 21:42, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

The third party that published their books were Regan Books and HarperCollins. For Wikipedia's purpose, the information is verifiable to Congressman John Linder. If you want to know where Linder got his data, call his office. Per Wikipedia:Plagiarism "Material from public domain and free sources can be copied into Wikipedia and used in articles verbatim. Even though a source is labeled as "free", you cannot copy it and pass it off as your own work. You should indicate the source of the copied material. Wikipedia policy requires that you must provide sources for material which might be challenged." This information, published by the U.S. Federal Government, falls into the public domain and is sourced. As I stated, I will look at rewording it slightly but such is not required from this source. Morphh ^(talk) 14:39, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Regan is HarperCollins BTW. I think our definitions of reliable are different. Further response is included at the above comment.Kbs666 (talk) 22:03, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Reworded the sentence. Morphh ^(talk) 19:00, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Changes to Revenue Neutrality Section

I tried to explain my changes to the Revenue Neutrality section, but my comments did not get posted. So, here I go again:

1. I tried to clarify that the U.S. government will only realize a "capital gain" on its debt if the dollar is substantially devalued. The previous version did not make that point. 2. The reason that the Gale 10-year study requires a higher tax rate than the one-year study is that the 10-year study assumed that the Bush tax cuts expire as specified under current law (which would result in a lower projected deficit). Thus, since the average deficit over ten years is projected to be lower than the one-year deficit, the FairTax rate would need to be higher to be revenue neutral. In addition, the 10-year study assumed that Congress would not contuinally extend the Alternative Minimum Tax "patch." Finally, saying the Alternative Minimum Tax negatively affects the middle class is POV, at best, and certainly depends on your definition of what constitutes "middle class." 3. Not really fair to say that Gale believes there will be increased economic growth under the FairTax. He's made it clear that he believes any such increased growth would be minimal, and would require everything to "fall into place" just exactly right. 4. Not fair to include two sentences critizing the President's tax panel's conclusions, when all of the studies done on the FairTax are subject to criticism. It seems to me that it was clearly POV trying to discredit their report. At least cut the criticism down to one sentence, which is what I did. 68.218.125.81 (talk) 03:53, 22 July 2008 (UTC) GeorgiaTex

Lets add content to explain, distinguish, or contradict rather than remove content. Then add references to the added content. Doing so will improve the article. Taking out sourced content does not always help. EECavazos (talk) 03:58, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I do want to add that if you find sources for your issues above, 1 through 4, then by all means add that content and reference them to the sources you find. If you do so you will add value to this article. But please reference/footnote it. Taking out sourced content removes value from the article while providing sourced content that disagrees or distinguishes with established content adds value. EECavazos (talk) 04:30, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

EECavazos -- I understand your points. Two quick comments. The portions I deleted were either not sourced or seemed redundant. The revisions I made were to clarify what I thought was awkward wording or not quite accurate descriptions. Also, I think some of the portions of the article are already too long, so I'm not sure adding additional contect would necessarily provde value. I am friends with Morph, and certainly respect all the editors' hard work on a controversial topic, so I tried to be careful in my revisions. 64.207.7.114 (talk) 16:19, 22 July 2008 (UTC)GeorgiaTex

I had some minor prose tweaks and I'll review the Gale study to make sure we're all looking at the same thing. The tax panel study is a little different than the other studies, which is why it received its own comment, but I'm fine with one sentence conveying the view. Since this is a summary section, the more detailed points can be presented in the sub-article. Morphh ^(talk) 17:13, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

GeorgiaTex is correct. The government would only achieve this real capital gain on outstanding debt if consumer prices were to rise - which isn't a given. So I'm not sure if or how this should be addressed in the article. It also needs to be remembered that if the government is realizing a real $1 trillion capital gain, the owners of the debt are realizing a real $1 trillion capital loss. They might have something to say about that. Tom Joad 2k (talk) 21:29, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

The more complex and controversial an article the longer it should be in order to express and explain where reasonable minds would differ. Limiting content in more complex and controversial topics would limit the quality and success of the article in conveying the topic. Adding content (sourced) that disagrees with the basic assumptions of the topic or which disagrees with other sources makes the article more well rounded and ultimately more understandable because the purpose is to understand the topic, both pros and cons. Less content whether pro or con will not help this purpose but hinder it. If certain sections get "too long" then it maybe it be moved to a sub-article rather than actually removing the content outright. In such a case then, removal of content from the this article could have an edit summary saying it is not vital to the section and that it alreasy exists in a sub-article. Since I didn't see in the edit summary that the content was in the sub-article, I thought it was just being removed outright. I suppose then, I'll just have to memorize the references in the sub-article. EECavazos (talk) 23:42, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Business use: per item or aggregate?

How is the following interpreted?

`(a) In General- For purposes of section 201, a person's business use conversion credit for any month is the aggregate of the amounts determined under subsection (b) with respect to taxable property and services--

`(1) on which tax was imposed by section 101 (and actually paid), and

`(2) which commenced to be 95 percent or more used during such month for business purposes (within the meaning of section 102(b))."

For example, suppose I owned a car dealership and bought 30 nice cars, and designated one of them as my personal "company car". Since that is worth less than 5% of the total purchase, I can do that without paying tax and without disqualifying my conversion credit... right? Wnt (talk) 14:18, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

In the future, this should be answered by someplace like FairTax groups or the FairTaxBlog. But perhaps this will help. If a person paid FairTax on the purchase of an item for personal consumption, then later began to use that item at least 95 percent for business purposes, he/she can get back a portion of the sales tax paid. The credit amount is the lesser of (a) the FairTax paid or (b) the FairTax that would have to be paid to purchase the item at fair market value at the time when it was converted from personal use to business use. Example: Using a home computer as equipment in a new business. If the price of the computer was $2000 in 2005 when it was purchased for personal use, and then it was converted to business use in 2007, the business person could apply for a credit based on the amount of tax that would be due on a two-year-old computer valued at $1000. Morphh ^(talk) 15:11, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Economists Letter to the President

Not to open up a whole new can of worms here, but does anyone know when the Open Letter to the President was actually written? I am curious, because the Letter is not dated. I suspect it was written well before any of the serious research done on the FairTax over the last few years and I've got real doubts how many of them would sign such a letter today. When I emailed a number of the signators in 2005 (after the FairTax book came out), none of the economists who replied were aware of any research on the FairTax and, in particular, they pointed out that the Letter specfically did NOT refer to a 23% rate. (For that matter, it seemed to me that half of the economists who responded to me thought they were signing a letter in support of the Flat Tax, which has more academic support than the FairTax.)

Also, has anybody seen anything that Vernon S. Smith actually has written about the FairTax? He's listed in the article as a Nobel Prize winning economist who apparently supports the FairTax, but as far as I can tell he's never written anything on the FairTax and I don't know where to reach him. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.218.124.82 (talk) 02:55, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

GeorgiaTex, This is a better discussion for the blogs or groups but the letter mentions the 109th Congress, so this dates it between 2005 - 2007, unless the letter was updated to reflect the new congress. We have the letter identified as being retrieved on July 2006, so it would have to be before this point. I don't recall seeing it before 2005 and I remember it being published (just can't remember when). Supposedly a university economist worked with AFFT to circulate the letter among his peers. I remember Karen Walby (perhaps on Phil's show) stating that they were working an updated copy with more economists, but I've never seen it. Morphh ^(talk) 14:48, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Suggested examples for clarification

I'm thinking that the FairTax is very different from what we currently experience as a "sales tax." Could someone give the answer to these questions as examples in the main page. 1) I buy House A for investment and rental. I buy House B for investment and personal habitation. Do I pay a FairTax on each purchase? 2) I presume that I collect and remit to the feds the FairTax on the rent I collect on House A. I live in House B. Do a remit a FairTax for the service I received by living in House B? Pgduffyjr (talk) 17:44, 25 July 2008 (UTC)pgduffyjr

I think such detailed examples would fall outside the general coverage this article. I think AFFT has documents that discuss this in more detail or you could post to one of the groups. You would also need a little more detail - is the house new or used. Morphh ^(talk) 18:50, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Flat Tax article needs work

The associated article on Flat Tax is in a much worse condition than this article. It would be great if some of the effort expended on this article were directed there as well. lk (talk) 15:32, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I would love to focus on it. I had even nominated it as tax collaboration of the month. It needs a major rework. The structure is horrible for an encyclopedia (For / Against), Fairness, Proposals, etc. It violates NPOV article structure and probably half a dozen other policies. Unfortunately, the attempts here for a major rewrite have taken my attention away from improving other articles. One of the editors recently used the Flat tax article as an example of how this article should be written (suggesting it was "more acceptable").[8] Morphh ^(talk) 13:00, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Tax Panel Report

In order to make this article more clearly indicate mainstream views, I have added a short paragraph to the intro summarizing the findings of the 2005 Tax Reform Panel report. I intend to go on to add a longer section describing their findings in more detail. See [9] for more information.Looie496 (talk) 16:57, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

The lead is a brief summary of the entire article (WP:LEAD), which we're trying to shorten. It does not include detailed information and it certainly doesn't include a report of something that wasn't even the FairTax and is never claimed to be the FairTax. The main critical points of the study are included in the lead (rate, eveasion, tax distribution). The material for the study should be in the body of the article under the particular areas where the crticism is noted. Morphh ^(talk) 12:54, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the lead should be shortened. However, I insist that the material I added belongs there, as the clearest statement of mainstream views on this topic; and I insist that Chapter 9 of the Tax Panel Report was specifically aimed at the FairTax proposal, although it considered many variants at the same time.Looie496 (talk) 16:31, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

What evidence do you have that it is "the clearest statement of mainstream views". Have you read the mid-term report,[10] which is very contrary to their final report? Which is more mainstream, since the midterm was after they heard from the people. We're talking government players, in which some became tax lobbyists soon after. Was their report mainstream or lobbiest pandering? But aside from those issues, which don't really matter, this would be a major violation of undue weight and lead policies. Sure they wanted to address a sales tax, but they were not allowed to evaluate the FairTax. Speaking of laying on the floor, where is that tax reform panel report? Laying on the floor - not one action on it - shelved to the circular file.[11] Yet the FairTax has a good amount of sponsorship... what is mainstream? This is your opinion and original research to state it as anything other than what they write. It does not follow policy and a particular study should not be given vast undue weight over all the other research. Morphh ^(talk) 16:47, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Hold on there. You've been arguing that the lack of anti research was reason for all the pro bias in the article. Chapter 9 of this report is definitely about the FairTax, it discusses a prebated national sales tax with a rate of 34% and repeatedly references calculations made based on the 2006 version. The report specifically discusses FairTax on at least pages 209, 211 and 217. You further can't argue bias in this report if you continue to accept the obviously biased reports you have included. I see no problem with WP:Lead or undue weight. As a matter of fact WP:FRINGE requires that the mainstream view be presented and the fringe stuff not be presented as fact. Kbs666 (talk) 17:13, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

The Tax Panel study is included in the article Kbs666, and referenced 10 times. I said it was not a study of the actual FairTax plan, not that there are not similarities which we can and have included. As I stated before, it refers the FairTax with regard to the tax rate and the expanded base, but the plan they scored did not include the replacement of the payroll tax (1/3rd of the FairTax). This obviously has an effect on things such as tax distribution, but we include it in the article anyway. What the debate is about here is placing an entire paragraph in the lead specifically about this one study, which was not even a study of the plan but a hybrid plan. As I stated in the past, if there is anti-research, I'm happy to include it but we're not going to make a show of it as the be all and put it in the lead as the supposed "mainstream" view. It will be given the attention that any other study or research is given, in fact, I believe it has already been given more coverage than any other study in the article. Morphh ^(talk) 17:18, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

It is quite obvious that those references are short and as minor as you could make them. You made sure to post weasel worded rebuttals to several. This is the closest thing to a mainstream report and I will note the outrageous bias of including a whine from the pro FairTax crowd about this report not showing its calculations, which it does, when the AFFT and Beacon Hill studies are nothing but unsupported assertions. You'll of course argue that since you can source it you're allowed to include it. I would say that as authors of an encyclopedia we are required to show some judgement in what goes in the article and clearly a 'pot calling the kettle black' statement is best left out or an appearance of bias and POV pushing arises in the knowledgeable reader. Personally I'd argue for removing all the economic claims, pro and con. Tell what the bill, says talk about the mocvement and dump all this economic fortune telling based on numbers pulled out of orifices. The article links to AFFT let interested readers go there if they want the pro propaganda. Kbs666 (talk) 17:43, 29 July 2008 (UTC)