Rather than paying a tax on income or property, Americans should be paying a consumption tax, or a "fair tax" on the things they buy, according to Rep. Buddy Carter, who this week introduced legislation that he told Newsmax will "do away" with the IRS.
"What this is called is a 'fair tax,' and it's been around for a while; but its time has finally come," the Georgia Republican said on Newsmax's "Wake Up America." "The very first thing we did in the Republican Congress and the Republican House was to stop the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. We can take that one step further. Now we can actually do away with the IRS."
A vote on the bill was part of a deal made between House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and members of the House Freedom Caucus during the voting process for the speaker's seat.
Carter said in a statement earlier this week that the fair tax has been in the works for several years, after having been first introduced into Congress in 1999 by former Rep. John Linder, R-Ga.
It would eliminate all personal and corporate income taxes, the death tax, gift taxes, and the payroll tax by repealing the current tax code and replacing those taxes with a national consumption tax, which would allow Americans to keep all of their earnings.
"Look, nobody likes paying taxes," Carter told Newsmax. "The person in Maine who won $1.35 billion ... they're not gonna like to have to pay taxes on it. But given the choice between a consumption tax, a property tax or income tax, or a payroll tax, people prefer a consumption tax. You can control it then, and that's what the fair tax is."
The consumption tax would be set at 23%, said Carter, adding that "this is not going to impact the bottom [income] people," as provisions would be made to allow people to purchase essential items.
The plan also satisfies the Democrats' call for taxing the rich, said Carter.
"Now, if you want to buy a boat, you're going to pay taxes," he said. "If you don't want to pay the taxes, don't buy the boat. It's as simple as that."
It would also mean that the IRS will no longer be saying what people will pay in taxes, Carter added. "You will decide what you want to pay in taxes by simply deciding what you want to buy."
Carter also on Saturday discussed the ongoing controversy concerning the classified documents that have been found at President Joe Biden's Wilmington, Delaware, home and at the Penn Biden Center, his Washington, D.C., think-tank, and said that even though there is a special counsel assigned to investigate the matter, that won't stop Congress from exercising oversight.
"They're certainly going to try to block us as much as they can, but they're not going to be successful," he said. "One of the primary goals of our conference for the upcoming session for the upcoming Congress is oversight, and one of the four pillars that we campaigned on was to make sure that we had a government that was accountable to the people. The people want to know what's going on here."
In addition, Carter said that it's important to remember that the documents that were found concerned matters that happened while Biden was vice president, meaning that he did not have the legal authority to declassify them.
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