Well said, Maya.

Although I wish we would step away from payroll taxation and implement a sales tax like the Fair Tax Plan.

I see you've become a fan as well.

LOL ...yes! Huckabee actually sold me on it when he was interviewed on a local radio station.

Give me the readers digest version of Hucks plan.............

It's not his own plan but one he endorses...the Fair Tax Plan. It's not simple enough to explain in a paragraph as far as all the, "yeah, but what abouts."

Basically, we no longer would be taxed on our income, but on consumption.

Here is why the FairTax will make a good U.S. tax system REPLACEMENT.

The FairTax is:
• SIMPLE, easy to understand
• EFFICIENT, inexpensive to comply with and doesn’t cause less-than-optimal business decisions for tax minimization purposes
• FAIR, loophole free and everyone pays their share
• LOW TAX RATE, achieved by broad base with no exclusions
• PREDICTABLE, doesn’t change, so financial planning is possible
• UNINTRUSIVE, doesn’t intrude into our personal affairs or limit our liberty
• VISIBLE, not hidden from the public in tax-inflated prices or otherwise
• PRODUCTIVE, rewards, rather than penalizes, work and productivity

Its benefits are as follows:

FOR INDIVIDUALS:
• No more tax on income - make as much as you wish
• You receive your full paycheck - no more deductions
• You pay the tax when you buy "at retail" - not "used"
• No more double taxation (e.g. like on current Capital Gains)
• Reduction of "pre-FairTaxed" retail prices by 20%-30%
• Adding back 29.9% FairTax maintains current price levels
• FairTax would constitute 23% portion of new prices
• Every household receives a monthly check, or "pre-bate"
• Pre-bate equals payback for taxes on spending to poverty level
• FairTax’s pre-bate ensures progressivity, poverty protection
• Finally, citizens are knowledgeable of what their tax IS
• Elimination of "parasitic" Income Tax industry
• NO MORE IRS. NO MORE FILING OF TAX RETURNS by individuals
• Those possessing illicit forms of income will ALSO pay the FairTax
• Households have more disposable income to purchase goods
• Savings is bolstered with reduction of interest rates

FOR BUSINESSES:
• Corporate income and payroll taxes revoked under FairTax
• Business compensated for collecting tax at "cash register"
• No more tax-related lawyers, lobbyists on company payrolls
• No more embedded (hidden) income/payroll taxes in prices
• Reduced costs. Competition - not tax policy - drives prices
• Off-shore "tax haven" headquarters can now return to U.S
• No more "favors" from politicians at expense of taxpayers
• Resources go to R&D and study of competition - not taxes
• Marketplace distortions eliminated for fair competition
• US exports increase their share of foreign markets

FOR THE COUNTRY:
• 7% - 13% economic growth projected in the first year of the FairTax
• Jobs return to the U.S.
• Foreign corporations "set up shop" in the U.S.
• Tax system trends are corrected to "enlarge the pie"
• Larger economic "pie," means thinner tax rate "slices"
• Initial 23% portion of price is pressured downward as "pie"increases
• No more "closed door" tax deals by politicians and business
• FairTax sets new global standard.

Other countries will follow

http://sloanereality.blogspot.com/2007/07/...n-nutshell.html

Hmm, I'd have to do some number crunching....I think this proposes to add a 23% tax to retail price on everything we consume, gasoline, electricity, food, clothes, etc......

This plan would probably be easier to visualize if they had some examples describing the "typical" family, their outlays under the current tax code juxtaposed against the proposed system.

It's so radically different it's hard to visualize the savings, if any. I'm not saying there aren't any savings, just that it's hard to discern without a few examples.