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While I agree with you that if we were making up a tax system from scratch that a national sales tax would be the fairest way of collecting taxes. The problem I see with changing to a "fair tax" (yes I've read Neal Bortz's book) is that people who have scrimped and saved their whole lives have already paid taxes on the money they have saved. Yes, I know that 401K plans and pensions come out pre tax, but other money you have saved up has been taxed.... HEAVILY. Changing to a consumption tax would in effect tax you again on the same money you have already paid taxes on when you earned it. Double (or even triple) taxation is far from "fair."

I favor a flat tax on individual tax payers only. No deductions of any kind. Corporations would be exempt. Let me explain why "big corporations" shouldn't have to pay taxes. They currently don't pay their own taxes. YOU DO! You may not realize it, but a portion of the price of every good or service you purchase is going to pay the corporation's taxes. If a company makes and sells widgets that cost $1 to manufacture and ship to the store, they might sell it for $1.30 to gain a 30% profit. But they have to pay taxes on that income of 36% so they need to sell the widget for $1.41 to cover their profit and the taxes (36% of 30¢=10.8¢) A flat tax on every individual would make it so that the CEO's would pay more of that out of their own pockets and not pass the costs on to customers who buy their products.

Our tax system is so convoluted and cumbersome that NO ONE knows how it works. I saw a TV News show a few years back where they took a guys tax information to several different accountants just to see if any of them would be similar and guess what? ALL of the entries were different. This should not be the case. How did Ray Stephens put it? "If 10% is good enough for Jesus, it ought to be good enough for Uncle Sam.