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The Tennessee Conservative [By Adelia Kirchner] –
State Representative Jake McCalmon (R-Franklin-District 63) is sponsoring House Joint Resolution 17 (HJR0017) which urges the U.S. Congress to enact House Resolution 25 (H.R. 25) or the “Fair Tax Act of 2013.”
HJR0017 was filed for introduction on Thursday, Jan. 2nd, 2025.
According to the bill caption it is a resolution urging “the United States Congress to repeal all taxes on income and enact a national retail sales tax as specified in H.R. 25, the Fair Tax Act of 2023.”
HJR0017 acknowledges that the current income tax system:
- Penalizes marriage instead of rewarding it.
- Harms economic growth.
- Has reduced the standard of living for the general public.
- Impedes the international competitiveness of the U.S. industry.
- Reduces savings and investments in this country by taxing income multiple times.
- Slows the capital formation necessary for real wages to steadily increase.
- Lowers productivity.
- Imposes unacceptable and unnecessary administrative and compliance costs on individual and business taxpayers.
- Is unfair and inequitable.
- Unnecessarily intrudes upon the privacy and civil rights of United States citizens.
- Hides the true costs of government by embedding taxes in the costs of everything that Americans buy.
- Is not being complied with at satisfactory levels and “therefore, raises the tax burden on law-abiding citizens” and “impedes upward social mobility.”
The 4-page resolution also contains clear statements denouncing federal payroll taxes, including social security, Medicare payroll taxes and self-employment taxes, as well as statements on how a broad-based national sales tax could positively impact Tennessee and the U.S. as a whole.
Within the resolution text, several points are outlined for consideration by the U.S. Congress and The Tennessee Conservative highly recommends that our audience read HJR0017 in its entirety.
“The members of this General Assembly do hereby urge the United States Congress to enact H.R. 25, the Fair Tax Act of 2023, which eliminates the personal income tax, the alternative minimum tax, the inheritance tax, the gift tax, the capital gains tax, the corporate income tax, the self-employment tax, and the employee and employer payroll tax and replaces them with a national retail sales tax,” the resolution reads.
If passed by the Tennessee House of Representatives, an “appropriate copy” of HJR0017 would be sent to the President of the United States and each member of the Tennessee Congressional Delegation.
Filed over a decade ago, on January 3rd, 2013, H.R. 25 set out to repeal the federal income tax, employment tax, and estate and gift tax.
The caption more precisely states that H.R. was filed to “promote freedom, fairness, and economic opportunity by repealing the income tax and other taxes, abolishing the Internal Revenue Service, and enacting a national sales tax to be administered primarily by the States.”
Records state that no further action was taken on H.R. 25 after it was filed and referred to the House Committee on Ways and Means.
As the congressional resolution currently reads, it would “redesignate” the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 as the “Internal Revenue Code of 2013.”
According to the resolution as filed back in 2013, H.R. 25 would do the following:
- Impose a national sales tax of 23% on the use or consumption in the United States of taxable property or services, with rate adjustments in subsequent years.
- Allow exemptions from that sales tax for property or services purchased for business, export, or investment purposes, and for state government functions.
- Set rules relating to the collection and remittance of the sales tax, and credits and refunds, allowing a monthly sales tax rebate for families based upon criteria related to family size and poverty guidelines.
- Grant states the primary authority for the collection of sales tax revenues and the remittance of such revenues to the Treasury.
- Set administrative provisions relating to the filing of monthly reports and payments of tax; accounting methods; registration of sellers of goods and services responsible for reporting sales; penalties for noncompliance; and collections, appeals, and taxpayer rights.
- Direct the Secretary of the Treasury to allocate sales tax revenues among the general revenue, the old-age and survivors insurance trust fund, the disability insurance trust fund, the hospital insurance trust fund, and the federal supplementary medical insurance trust fund.
- Defund and effectively shut down the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) within five years by prohibiting funding.
- Establish in the Department of the Treasury an Excise Tax Bureau to administer excise taxes not administered by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) as well as a Sales Tax Bureau to administer the national sales tax.
- Terminate the sales tax imposed by this Act if the Sixteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (authorizing an income tax) is not repealed within seven years of H.R. 25’s enactment.
About the Author: Adelia Kirchner is a Tennessee resident and reporter for the Tennessee Conservative. Currently the host of Subtle Rampage Podcast, she has also worked for the South Dakota State Legislature and interned for Senator Bill Hagerty’s Office in Nashville, Tennessee. You can reach Adelia at adelia@tennesseeconservativenews.com.
