Topics in the News: Flat Tax
Ron DeSantis on Tax Reform
: Jan 10, 2024
Flat tax: better for growth & ends weaponization of IRS
Q: Last week, you said you support a flat tax, which is a single income tax rate for every American. Under your plan, would working families pay the same tax rate as billionaires?DESANTIS: I would only do it if people are better off than they are
now. I mean, I want people paying less taxes. We have a spending problem in this country. It's not a tax problem in this country. And if you had something that was simple and transparent, not only would that better for economic growth, it's also better
to end the weaponization of government. The IRS has been weaponized against conservatives going back to the Obama administration.
Q: So would working families would pay the same rate as billionaires?
DESANTIS: You'd exempt working-class people--
the first $40 or $50 grand, that's just to subsist. So you would have no tax up to a certain point, and then it would just be a single rate. So if somebody makes twice as much, and they pay twice as much.
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Source: CNN 2024 pre-Iowa caucus one-on-one debate
Ron DeSantis on Tax Reform
: Jan 4, 2024
Eliminate the IRS; have a single rate and just a flat tax
I think I would eliminate the IRS, have a single rate and just do like a flat tax. I think that would be the ideal tax system to be able to do take away the distortions. And what happens is Florida is a good example of this.
We have low tax and we cut taxes, and yet we attract more investment and our economic base expands. Obviously, I would only do it if it was lower taxes for everybody. But that is the ideal tax system.
I understand the importance of agriculture for our country. It's not just an economic issue, food security is a national security issue. And I think we're more secure and better when we have family farms that are viable and that can pass that down from
generation to generation. I don't want everything to be massive corporations. We need to eliminate the death tax on these family farms so that they can pass it down without getting taxed.
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Source: CNN Town Hall 2024 pre-Iowa caucus
Mike Huckabee on Tax Reform
: Jan 28, 2016
Higher tax brackets punish people for more work
I support the FairTax because it would empower people at the bottom of the economy by no longer punishing them for their work. If a guy works 16 hours, he doesn't get a double paycheck because he's going to be bumped up into
a new tax bracket, and the government will get more of his second shift than he will. So, we've actually punished him for being industrious.
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Source: 2016 Fox News Republican Undercard debate in Iowa
Mike Huckabee on Corporations
: Nov 10, 2015
Stop punishing manufacturing; stop punishing work
We'd get rid of taxes on people's work, so, we wouldn't punish people for working anymore. We've lost five million manufacturing jobs since 2000. The jobs are in Mexico, they're in China, they're in Indonesia. Bring the jobs back.
And with the FairTax, you do that, because you don't tax capital and labor. And here's the best part. We don't reduce the IRS, we get rid of the IRS.
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Source: Fox Business/WSJ Second Tier debate
Mike Huckabee on Tax Reform
: Nov 10, 2015
FairTax is better than punishing productivity
If we got rid of all the taxes on our work, got rid of the taxes on our savings, investments, capital gains, and inheritance, and made a zero tax, we'd pay at the point of consumption. Why should we punish people for their productivity?
The FairTax doesn't punish people for doing well and building the economy. Give a person his whole paycheck because every American would no longer have a payroll tax taken out.
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Source: Fox Business/WSJ Second Tier debate
Donald Trump on Tax Reform
: Sep 16, 2015
Raise graduated taxes on hedge fund managers
Q: Donald Trump says that the hedge fund guys are getting away with murder by paying a lower tax rate. He wants to raise the taxes of hedge fund managers, as does Governor Bush. Do you agree? CARSON: The people who [oppose flat taxes]--that's called
socialism.
Q: What about the FairTax?
TRUMP: What I don't like about the FairTax is that if you make $200 million a year, you pay 10%, you're paying very little relatively to somebody that's making $50,000 a year, and has to hire H&R Block because
the middle class. The hedge fund guys won't like me as much as they like me right now. I know them all, but they'll pay more. I know people that are making a tremendous amount of money and paying virtually no tax, and I think it's unfair.
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Source: 2015 Republican two-tiered primary debate on CNN
Mike Huckabee on Tax Reform
: Aug 6, 2015
FairTax broadens tax base to include non-wage-earners
Q: You say that changing entitlements would be breaking a promise to the American people, and you say that you can keep those programs, save Social Security, save Medicare, without major reforms through a FairTax, which is a broad tax on consumption.
How that would work?HUCKABEE: One of the reasons that Social Security is in so much trouble is that the only funding stream comes from people who get a wage.
The people who get wages is declining dramatically. Most of the income in this country is made by people at the top who get dividends and capital gains. The FairTax transforms the process by which we fund Social Security and Medicare because the
money paid in consumption is paid by everybody, including illegals, prostitutes, pimps, drug dealers, all the people that are freeloading off the system now. That's why it ought to be a transformed system.
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Source: Fox News/Facebook Top Ten First Tier debate transcript
Mike Huckabee on Tax Reform
: Aug 6, 2015
FairTax gets rid of IRS and sifts power back to the states
Q: Will you abolish or cut the size of the EPA, the IRS, the Department of Education?HUCKABEE: There are a lot of things happening at the federal level that are absolutely beyond the jurisdiction of the Constitution. This is power that should be
shifted back to the states, whether it's the EPA or the Department of Education. We can get rid of the Internal Revenue Service if we would pass the FairTax, and move power back where the founders believed it should have been all along.
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Source: Fox News/Facebook Top Ten First Tier debate transcript
Mike Huckabee on Tax Reform
: May 24, 2015
Bottom 1/3 of economy benefits most from the FairTax
Q: Critics of your FairTax proposal say the problem with that is it's too regressive. The average rate for the lowest income group would exceed 33%, while the average for the top group would fall to less than 16%. The rich are going to end up making out
pretty well under this. A: They have it exactly wrong. In fact, it's the bottom third of the economy who benefit the most from the FairTax. The people of the top third of the economy benefit the least, although everybody benefits some.
That tax study is one that has been discredited by the people who spend over $20 million, very thorough, thoughtful economic study developing the fair tax. The difference is that the FairTaxhas what's called the pre-bate, which untaxes people for their
necessities. So, if you're at the bottom 1/3, chances are you really don't pay any effective tax whatsoever in the consumption tax because you are consuming less & you're getting a pre-bate, which is a rebate in advance for that what you would have spent
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Source: Fox News Sunday 2015 coverage of 2016 presidential hopefuls
Mike Huckabee on Social Security
: Jan 24, 2008
Will try to fix Social Security with FairTax
We're in trouble is because we have a smaller group of people paying into the Social Security system, fewer wage earners, more Americans getting their wealth from dividends and from investments. I'm a strong supporter of the Fair Tax is that you
suddenly have a different funding stream for Social Security. It comes out of the general fund. So you now have a more reliable, a more stable and a much broader funding system that will supply Social Security.
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Source: 2008 GOP debate in Boca Raton Florida
Mike Huckabee on Tax Reform
: Jan 24, 2008
FairTax and its prebate untax the poor and the elderly
People would love to see the IRS abolished. The harder you work, the more you earn, the more the IRS and the government wants from you. What the FairTax does is says, we want you to earn; we want you to save and we want you to buy things and sell things
and make a profit. It goes to the common sense of the idea that we should encourage people to work and get something for it. A lot of people have never read the entire FairTax because when I first heard about the FairTax, the consumption tax, quite
frankly it sounds like it would be oppressive and regressive to the poor. The poor come out best of all because of the provision in the FairTax called the prebate in which every American, each month, is given the amount of the FairTax back up to the
level of poverty. Everybody gets it, not just those under the level of poverty. It actually untaxes the poor, untaxes the elderly. It makes sure that we don't end up paying taxes on groceries and medicine and the basic necessities of life.
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Source: 2008 GOP debate in Boca Raton Florida
Mike Huckabee on Tax Reform
: Jan 24, 2008
FairTax will tax the average American much less
Q: How does that help the 93 percent of Americans who are paying 15% or less right now?A: They're not paying 15 percent; that's in their visible tax in the terms of the takeout from their checks. When you include the built-in tax, the embedded tax
in the products we buy that corporations build in, the average American is paying 33% in his or her taxes. It would be a dramatic difference if the taxpayers got to choose the taxes, which they would do under the FairTax.
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Source: 2008 GOP debate in Boca Raton Florida
Mike Huckabee on Tax Reform
: Jan 24, 2008
FactCheck: To be revenue-neutral, FairTax raises some taxes
In a lengthy exchange, Huckabee praised the FairTax, saying: "For each third of the economy, there is a benefit, about a 14% benefit for those at the bottom; those in the middle, about a 7%; even those at the very top end of the economy end up with about
a 5% benefit."Huckabee's claim that everyone will pay less is a fantasy. The FairTax claims to be revenue neutral. That means that it has to collect the same $2.4 trillion that the current system collects. And remember that the
FairTax replaces corporate income and payroll taxes. That means that individuals have to pony up to replace those in addition to replacing the sums collected via personal income and payroll taxes.
So Huckabee is suggesting that the
FairTax will generate exactly the same revenue while collecting nothing from corporations and still costing everyone less than they are currently paying. We certainly hope Huckabee has a barrel of magic pixie dust buried somewhere.
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Source: FactCheck.org on 2008 GOP debate in Boca Raton Florida
Mike Huckabee on Tax Reform
: Jan 24, 2008
FactCheck: FairTax does not bring underground into economy
Huckabee said about the FairTax, "Everybody gets in the economy--no more underground economy. Drug dealers, prostitutes, pimps, gamblers, non-Republicans--all of those people out there will be paying taxes. Nobody's working under the table."
Huckabee's suggestion that the FairTax will end the underground economy is highly unlikely. It's true that pimps and drug dealers will now be taxed when they spend their earnings. But will they really charge johns and junkies sales tax on their purchases
It's a better deal for the person buying the sex or drugs, and a worse deal for the person selling it.
In fact, far from ending the underground economy, there is a real possibility that the FairTax will feed it growth hormones.
There would probably be two prices--one you can pay with a check or credit card that includes the FairTax and one you can pay in cash & save 23%. Because there would no longer be any audits of income, tracing such tax evasion would be extremely difficult
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Source: FactCheck.org on 2008 GOP debate in Boca Raton Florida
Mike Huckabee on Tax Reform
: Dec 12, 2007
Support FairTax with a tax credit for the poor
Over 80 percent of the American people know that the tax code is irreparably broken. I would lead one to a FairTax, and that means that the rich people aren't going to be made poor, but maybe the poor people could be made rich.
That ought to be the goal of any tax system--not to punish somebody, but to enable somebody so that they can have a part of the American dream. The FairTax does just that.
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Source: 2007 Des Moines Register Republican Debate
Mike Huckabee on Tax Reform
: Nov 28, 2007
FactCheck: FairTax would not eliminate IRS; just change role
Huckabee claimed he would get rid of the IRS, a disappearing act that isn't so easy as he makes it sound. Huckabee said, "The first thing that I would get rid of would be the Internal Revenue Service--a $10-billion-a-year industry.
I'm not being facetious. If we enacted the FairTax, we will get rid of the IRS."It is true that the FairTax would get rid of the agency that we now call the IRS. But, according to the bill Huckabee supports, the Fairtax would "eliminate" the
IRS by replacing it with a new Sales Tax Bureau, which wouldn't necessarily be much smaller than the existing IRS.
According to the Bush administration study on the FairTax, "The federal administrative burden for a retail sales tax may be similar to
the burden under the current system." The FairTax would also require an entirely new type of bureaucracy to "keep track of the personal information that would be necessary to determine the size of the taxpayer's cash grant."
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Source: FactCheck on 2007 GOP YouTube debate
Mike Huckabee on Tax Reform
: Nov 18, 2007
FairTax is 23%; Bush's study missed prebate & other aspects
Q: You want to set up what you call a FairTax.A: Right.
Q: This would be a sales tax of 23% on almost every good and service you buy or anyone buys. But a bipartisan panel named by President Bush say to raise enough money, the rate would have to be
34%.
A: They didn't really study the FairTax. They simply studied a type of consumption tax, not the actual proposal that was designed by some of the leading economists in this country. It is a rate of 23%. It's not 30% or 34%,
as some of the critics complain.
Q: They said that a FairTax would reduce the tax burden on only two groups, those making less than $30,000 a year, because there's a rebate for people under the poverty line, and those making more than $200,000 a year.
So the rich and the poor do better, but the vast middle class ends up paying more taxes.
A: They had a fatal flaw. They didn't understand that the "prebate" applies to everybody, including the middle class. Everybody comes off better off.
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Source: Fox News Sunday: 2007 "Choosing the President" interviews
Mike Huckabee on Tax Reform
: Oct 9, 2007
FairTax untaxes productivity & things which we export
Q: Tell us about your FairTax. You're going to get rid of the IRS. You're going to have basically a consumer tax. If you put a tax on spending, won't that encourage people to hoard their money rather than spend it, and hurt the economy?
HUCKABEE: Nothing's going to discourage Americans from spending money! No, the FairTax does something that is absolutely phenomenal for the economy. It untaxes productivity. It untaxes those things which we export.
HUNTER: I'm a sponsor of the FairTax.
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Source: 2007 Republican debate in Dearborn, Michigan
Mike Huckabee on Tax Reform
: Sep 5, 2007
FairTax eliminates all taxes on productivity & saving
Q: You may be the biggest supporter of the FairTax on this stage, that you say replace the income tax with a 23% national sales tax. Now, back in 2005, Pres. Bush's Tax Reform Commission did a study about the FairTax. They said the sales tax rate would
have to be 34%, not 23%, & that no state, no country, has ever put in a 34% sales tax. The commission says that with a FairTax that high, there are only two income groups that would benefit--those making less than $30,000 a year & those making more than
$200,000.A: The Bush tax panel did not look at the FairTax proposal. They looked at something that called itself that, but it was not. The true FairTax proposal is the 23%. And it empowers everyone in the economy, not just the people at the bottom
and the very top, but all of the middle class, which is a desperate need. What we would do with the FairTax is to eliminate all the taxes on productivity. You wouldn't be penalized for saving, earning, for having a capital gain, making an investment.
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Source: 2007 GOP debate at UNH, sponsored by Fox News
Mike Huckabee on Social Security
: Sep 1, 2007
Replace payroll tax & fund Social Security with FairTax
I'd like you to join me at the best "Going Out of Business" sale I can imagine--one held by the Internal Revenue Service. Am I running for president to shut down the federal government? Not exactly.
But I am running to completely eliminate all federal income and payroll taxes. And do I mean all--personal federal, corporate federal, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security, Medicare, self-employment.
All our hours filling out forms, all our payments for help with those forms, all our shopping bags filled with disorganized receipts, all our headaches and heartburn from tax stress will vanish. Instead we will have the
FairTax, a simple tax based on wealth. When the FairTax becomes law, it will be like waving a magic wand releasing us from pain and unfairness.
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Source: 2008 Presidential campaign website mikehuckabee.com "Issues"
Mike Huckabee on Tax Reform
: Aug 5, 2007
Tax system penalizes productivity; needs complete overhaul
Q: The FairTax would eliminate the income tax, estate tax, payroll tax and capital gains tax and replace it with a 23% sales tax. Do you support it?A: I absolutely support the FairTax.
And part of the reason is, the current system is one that penalizes productivity. If we could have the FairTax, you take $10 trillion parked offshore, bring it home, you rebuild the "Made in America" brand, you free up people to earn money, to work,
you don't penalize them for taking a second job, you don't penalize them for investing, you don't penalize them for savings.
Today, our tax system doesn't need a tap of the hammer, a twist of the screwdriver, it needs a complete overhaul. And what the
FairTax does, it ends the underground economy. No more illegals, no more gamblers, prostitutes, pimps and dope dealers will be able to escape the tax code. It's the single great thing that will help this country [achieve a] revitalized economy.
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Source: 2007 GOP Iowa Straw Poll debate
Mike Huckabee on Tax Reform
: May 15, 2007
FairTax puts Going-Out-of-Business sign on IRS
Q: The alternative minimum tax caught 4 million people this year; it'll get 23 million next year unless Congress acts. How would you eliminate the tax without raising the budget deficit?A: The simplest way is an active FairTax. That's the first thing
I'd love to do as president, put a "Going Out of Business" sign on the Internal Revenue Service and stop the $10 billion a year that it costs just for them to operate. A FairTax would eliminate the alternative minimum tax [& many other taxes].
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Source: 2007 Republican Debate in South Carolina
Mike Huckabee on Tax Reform
: May 15, 2007
FactCheck: FairTax requires 34% sales tax +$600B entitlement
Huckabee praised a "FairTax" without noting that it would actually impose a stiff retail sales tax & ease the tax burden on the richest Americans:"A FairTax would eliminate the alternative minimum tax, personal income tax, corporate tax, & al
the various taxes that are hidden in our system & Americans don't realize what they're paying."
The FairTax proposes a "prebate" to soften its impact on low-income persons--a monthly check for the amount of tax paid up to the poverty level.
But any sales tax also would lower taxes for those upper-income persons who save large portions of income that would be taxed under current law.Pres. Bush's bipartisan Advisory Panel on Tax Reform rejected the idea, saying it would substantially
increase taxes for 80% of taxpayers. The panel calculated that a sales tax would have to be set at 34% of retail prices, and the monthly cash prebate would amount to the largest entitlement program in history, at least $600 billion per year.
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Source: FactCheck on 2007 Republican Debate in South Carolina
Mike Huckabee on Tax Reform
: Jan 4, 2007
Supports national flat tax to keep up with globalization
During the 2000 presidential race, Steve Forbes advocated simplification of the tax code and the implementation of a flat tax. While far from perfect, moving toward a tax that is both flatter and fairer is a goal we should adopt. One of the arguments
for a flat tax is to address a world economy that has radically changed in the last decade. Capital, and even labor, are fluid & mobile. A tax structure that is more predictable, consistent, flatter, and fairer not only represents greater accountability
in government but may well be a key element of economic survival as we continue to play on a global stage. Governments unwilling to respond with lower rates and broader tax bases are tempting fate and could continue to see erosion of investment & jobs.
Some argue that a flat tax is especially oppressive to those at the bottom of the economy because they currently pay little of their income to taxes. Making sure that a tax system is fair means we should not ignore the needs of the poor.
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Source: From Hope to Higher Ground, by Mike Huckabee, p.109-110
Corey Stapleton on Tax Reform
: Nov 1, 2000
No flat tax; no super-majority; yes to sales tax
Q: Do you support a flat tax structure for state income taxes?A: No.
Q: Would you support returning any operating surplus to Montana taxpayers?
A: Yes.
Q: Would you support placing any operating surplus into a "rainy day" fund?
A: No.
Q: Should the state reimburse local governments for revenues lost due to state-mandated property tax cuts?
A: No.
Q: Do you support giving cities and counties the ability to enact local sales taxes with voter approval?
A: No.
Q: Do you support requiring a two-thirds vote by lawmakers to approve any new or increased tax or fee?
A: No.
Q: Do you support implementing a state sales tax?
A: Yes.
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Source: 2000 Montana State National Political Awareness Test
Donald Trump on Tax Reform
: Jul 2, 2000
Opposes flat tax; benefits wealthy too much
I object to the flat tax:- It is unfair to the poor; eliminating the Earned Income Tax Credit [hurts] taxpayers at the lowest rungs of the ladder.
- It is unfair to workers by taxing them for health insurance and other benefits.
- Only the
wealthy would reap a windfall, because a flat tax would allow them to cash in interest payments and capital gains without paying personal income taxes.
- I don’t believe that a flat tax could raise enough revenue to keep the government operating.
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Source: The America We Deserve, by Donald Trump, p.186
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