Soon after my Huckabee post, a friend emailed me about the Fair Tax plan that Huckabee supports. As I read it, 

I realized how good this plan is and how much confusion is out there concerning the Fair Tax plan. To clear up any confusion regarding taxes, it's important that you speak to a lawyer similar to these Canadian Tax Amnesty Lawyers or tax law firms more local to your area. They may be able to answer any questions you might have. 
 

Since this friend did such an amazing job in his email, I decided to post here for all you to see.   

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Fair Tax: Frequent Criticisms and the Facts to Rebute Them by Rocky

 
1. A flat-rate sales tax is going to kill poor people who have
to spend ALL of thir money buying necessities.

Facts: This is the most false criticism of all, which shows they
haven't read the first thing about it.  The people writing the
Fair Tax proposal aren't stupid; they know that would be a
problem, so there is a rebate plan (actually a pre-bate, where
people automatically get the credit beforehand) of refunding the
sales tax rate up to the poverty level income.  It is assumed
that people up to the poverty level are probably spending all
they have on necessities, so they will be given the sales tax
money back(in a monthly check) for all of that--they pay NO
taxes.
 
2. We're going to have a sales tax AND and income tax!

Facts: The Fair Tax bill itself has the specific provision that
it can only take effect contingent on the successful repeal of
the 16th amendment, which enabled the national income tax. (The
16th amendment wasn't actually correctly ratified, but that's a
story for another day.)
 [@more@]
3. That's going to put a disproportionate burden on lower and
middle class than the graduated percentage of income tax where
the wealthy have to pay more.

Facts: The Fair Tax book goes into a couple of chapters about
this "Robin Hood Syndrome", where the lower classes want
graduated tax systems to "take from" the rich.  The problem is
that it never works.  The lawmakers ARE the rich, and since
they're not in the business of punishing themselves, they write
up the laws so that they LOOK like there are heavier taxes on
the rich, but they write enough loopholes in for themselves so
that they will never have to actually PAY that much.  One of the
main points in the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad is that the wealthy
understand how having your own company and using that to avoid
taxes is the most important aspect of becoming rich.  That is a
known effect of the income tax system, and Donald Trump himself
said just a month or two ago, that an example of the tax system
being so screwed up is that he pays a smaller percentage income
tax than the receptionist at his office.
 
4. Can you imagine the rise in price of stuff with that extra
sales tax?

Facts: They address this in the book too.  It's kind of an
indirect cascading effect that compensates for this.  They give
the statistics on the multiple billions and billions of dollars
that companies pay just for dealing with the complexity of the
income tax system.  They have tons of accountants just to deal
with it, and lots of wasted business time researching and making
business decisions based on the tax implications.  If those
expenses go away, they can either make more profit with the same
prices + sales tax, or they can lower their prices + sales tax
to attract more market share and compete with their competitors
who are in the same situation.  The book gives an example of a
situation the airlines had, where some huge regulatory fee per
ticket was discontinued.  The airlines thought they could just
all keep their prices up and they could make more money, which
happened for a few weeks, but one of them broke ranks and
reduced their prices accordingly.  All the rest dropped them
immediately too.  So the prices of goods will drop some, and
work about about the same as they were before the higher sales
tax.
 

Additonal benefits:

1. There is a huge underground economy in this country with 
drug running and many other forms of illegal activity for
profit.  That doesn't go through the income tax system, so there
is no government revenue from it.  Those people are still buying
cars and gas and food and cigarettes, though, so it will bring a
large chunk of money back into the economy.
 
2. Incentives for people to handle their money wisely.  With an
income tax system, people are "punished" for working/earning
more.  They are also encouraged to spend all or more than they
have because they're going to get penalized again for any money
they make on saving or investing.  The Fair Tax, encourages
people to invest and save for their retirement, and they only
get taxed if they decide to spend it.  That deals with the
current quandry: How do you get people to be mature and save
money instead of being spoiled brats and spending it all?  Well,
avoiding paying taxes is a powerful motivation for people.
 
3. A sales tax based system gives people back the power over
their own taxation.  You can see right up front how much tax you
are going to pay for your stuff, so you can decide if you want
to buy all of that.  If you want to avoid more taxes, save more
money.
 
4. It brings accountability back to the tax system.  There are
no exemtions to it and no tax shelter loopholes.  There is so
much slop and confusion in the income tax system, that it's a
lobbyist's playground.  Also, congress can't hide tax changes in
a 200 page book of tax law reorganization.  The Fair Tax is one
single number.  If congress wants to change it, they pretty much
have to do it right in front of everyone's eyes, and people will
see it next time they go to the store, so if your congres person
votes to up the number, you can immediately go yell at them.