Westmoreland: April 15 the ‘Un-Holiday’

U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland marked Tax Day by reiterating his support for abolishing the Internal Revenue Service as he accepted a petition in support of the Fair Tax. The petition had 103,000 signatures that were presented by Americans for Fair Taxation and the National Taxpayers Union.

“April 15 is the perfect day to call attention to the Fair Tax, as millions of Americans scramble to get in their last-minute returns, hoping and praying that they got it right,” Westmoreland said. “Under the Fair Tax, April 15 is just another day. It would no longer be the Un-Holiday. Every American – and everyone visiting this country and even criminals and illegal immigrants – would be paid up with the federal government at the end of every day. You’d never go to bed with a tax bill over your head.”

The Fair Tax, which now has more than 70 co-sponsors in the House, including Westmoreland, is a progressive national retail sales tax. It would abolish the Internal Revenue Service and end all income taxes, corporate taxes and even payroll taxes. The Fair Tax provides revenue neutrality, meaning it would bring in as much money to the Treasury as the current complicated tax code. Further, it would provide a “prebate” to all Americans so that no one pays taxes up to the poverty level.

“We talk and talk here in Washington about simplifying the tax code and making it fairer,” Westmoreland said. “With the Fair Tax, nothing could be simpler. Basically, everybody has to play by the same rules, and fat cats in Washington can’t use the tax code to get sweetheart deals for certain groups or businesses.

“The Fair Tax gets rid of all the hidden taxes in our system that we all pay every day and we’d finally get paychecks that have our actual earnings.”

In other Tax Day-related events aimed at protecting the American family budget:

Westmoreland joined an unsuccessful effort today to bring the Tax Increase Prevention Act to the floor for a vote. If passed, it would have stopped a $3 trillion tax by extending the tax cuts passed by Congress in 2001 and 2003.
Westmoreland announced his support for a constitutional amendment that would prohibit the federal government from growing faster than the economy.

“Americans are facing higher prices at the pump and higher prices in the grocery aisles while seeing values of their homes and other financial investments drop,” Westmoreland said. “Congress needs to take proactive measure to assure that we don’t compound the problem by twisting even more tax dollars out of Americans on April 15.”