LETTER: The proposed fair tax isn't fair

Pat Dickerson's letter to the editor in Monday's Aiken Standard calls for state legislators to move quickly on passage of the proposed S.C. Fair Tax Act.

This bill would eliminate nearly $4 billion of state revenues, including all corporate income taxes, taxes on banks and savings and loans, and the state estate tax, and replaces them with a consumption tax (sales tax) on all goods and services. The businesses will pay no taxes at all, even the fair tax.

Since this would be a revenue neutral tax, the state will take all of the tax revenues from the deleted taxes (approximately $4 billion) and dump those lost revenues on you and me in the form of the fair tax. In addition to the items currently taxed, we will be taxed on new homes and automobiles, all medicine, medical procedures, doctor and dental office visits, rents on homes and apartments, all groceries, home heating bills, electrical bills, home repairs, health and auto insurance, etc.

I could go on, but you get the picture. The fair tax would be a huge increase over what we now pay in state income and sales taxes, while businesses would get off scot-free.

And the basic necessities relief mentioned in Mr. Dickerson's letter is a virtual drop in the bucket compared to the increased costs of the fair tax.

The fair tax just ain't fair Pat, and the legislators know it. That's why they haven't passed it. And if enough of our readers will write or call their state legislators to voice their disapproval, hopefully they will vote it down.

Jerrold Sundt

Aiken