Huckabee’s Tax Plan Appeals, but Is It Fair?

By TOM REDBURN
Published: January 6, 2008

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/us/politics/06economy.html?ref=us

Long before Mike Huckabee, the former Republican governor of Arkansas, began campaigning for president, advocates for replacing the entire federal tax system with a national sales tax were campaigning to convert him to their cause. They succeeded. “Am I running for president to shut down the federal government? Not exactly,” Mr. Huckabee says on his Web site. “But I am running to eliminate all federal income and payroll taxes. And I do mean all — personal federal, corporate federal, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security, Medicare, self-employment.”

“Instead,” adds Mr. Huckabee, who demonstrated his appeal to voters with his victory on Thursday in the Iowa caucuses, “we will have the FairTax, a simple tax based on wealth.”

Under the plan, Americans would pay only one federal tax, which would be applied to just about everything they buy: not just the goods people buy at stores on which most states assess a sales tax, but nearly all services, including health care and insurance, the purchase of a new home or

rental of an apartment,

even things like a teenager mowing a lawn or baby-sitting for a neighbor.

But the FairTax, as its many fervent backers call it, is not as simple as its supporters describe.

And, to most tax experts who have looked at the proposal, it is anything but fair. For one, its burden would fall disproportionately on middle-income people.