Committee Chairman of Tax Reform
Leon Panetta......
"If we don't do something to simplify the tax system, we're going to end up with a national police force of internal revenue agents."
My name is Neal C. White and I am privileged to be chairman of the Madison Forum, Inc. Tax Reform Committee.
I first became involved in the tax reform issue February 1, 1991. A new organization – Citizens for an Alternative Tax System (CATS) had launched a program to educate the public about the possibility of replacing the Income Tax System. I became a member of the organization and the first to introduce the concept of replacing the Income Tax System with a NRST to Georgians.
In 1996 as a member of CATS national office in Manassas, VA we worked with Legislators, Legislative Aides, and Tax Attorneys to write the first National Retail Sales Tax legislation and introduced the first ever legislation, H. R. 3039 to the House of Representatives March 6, 1996. Immediately the concept grabbed the headlines and resulted in Ways and Means Committee Chairman, Bill Archer, saying “I want to tear the Income Tax out by its roots and leave it beside the road.”
The popularity of a replacement tax for the Income Tax has become a part of our public lexicon and continues to attract a significant section of voters supporting the issue.
I am more convinced today than ever that some form of NRST is in the best interests of our nation, because it is the only tax reform plan under consideration by our legislators that ensures American goods and services will be more competitive in the future than they are today.
In order to pass a NRST it is necessary to have bipartisan grassroots support from Democrats and Republicans. There is no basis to believe that in today’s toxic political environment Democrats and Republican political leaders will ever agree on the optimal tax reform plan.
To get that grass roots support there must be highly credible evidence that a NRST is indeed the best tax reform plan for our nation.
To make the proof credible, the NRST should be evaluated, along with all the other major tax reform plans, by a truly independent panel of economists, not politicians who are too often more concerned about serving the needs of special interest groups, than the needs of their constituents.
That is why I am working full-time to fund a truly independent study of all major tax reform plans and recruit a grass roots organization of at least one million partners dedicated and committed to tax reform now.
We invite any Madison Forum, Inc. members who may be interested to join the tax reform committee. Contact me!