<BillNo> <Sponsor>
HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION 17
By McCalmon
HJR0017
000952
- 1 -
A RESOLUTION to urge 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.
WHEREAS, our Founding Fathers were mindful that history has demonstrated that
income taxes give government too much power over citizens; and
WHEREAS, Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist No. 21 that "it is a signal
advantage of taxes on articles of consumption, that they contain in their own nature a security
against excess"; and
WHEREAS, the current income tax system requires individual taxpayers to prepare
annual tax returns using many complicated forms, causing innocent errors that are heavily
punished; and
WHEREAS, the current income tax system actually penalizes marriage; and
WHEREAS, the federal income tax:
(1) Retards economic growth and has reduced the standard of living of the American
public;
(2) Impedes the international competitiveness of United States industry;
(3) Reduces savings and investment in the United States by taxing income multiple
times;
(4) Slows the capital formation necessary for real wages to steadily increase;
(5) Lowers productivity;
(6) Imposes unacceptable and unnecessary administrative and compliance costs on
individual and business taxpayers;
(7) Is unfair and inequitable;
- 2 - 000952
(8) Unnecessarily intrudes upon the privacy and civil rights of United States citizens;
(9) Hides the true costs of government by embedding taxes in the costs of everything
that Americans buy;
(10) Is not being complied with at satisfactory levels and, therefore, raises the tax burden
on law-abiding citizens; and
(11) Impedes upward social mobility; and
WHEREAS, federal payroll taxes, including social security and Medicare payroll taxes
and self-employment taxes:
(1) Raise the cost of employment;
(2) Destroy jobs and cause unemployment; and
(3) Have a disproportionately adverse impact on lower-income Americans; and
WHEREAS, the federal estate and gift taxes:
(1) Force family businesses and farms to be sold by the family in order to pay taxes;
(2) Discourage capital formation and entrepreneurship;
(3) Foster the continued dominance of large enterprises over small family-owned
companies and farms; and
(4) Impose unacceptably high tax-planning costs on small businesses and farms; and
WHEREAS, a broad-based national sales tax on goods and services purchased for final
consumption:
(1) Is similar in many respects to the sales and use taxes that are authorized in forty-five
of the fifty states;
(2) Will promote savings and investment;
(3) Will promote fairness;
(4) Will promote economic growth;
(5) Will raise the standard of living;
- 3 - 000952
(6) Will enhance productivity and international competitiveness;
(7) Will reduce administrative burdens on the American taxpayer;
(8) Will improve upward social mobility; and
(9) Will respect the privacy interests and civil rights of taxpayers; and
WHEREAS, Congress should consider when implementing the administration of a
national sales tax that:
(1) Most of the practical experience in administering sales taxes is found at the state
level;
(2) It is desirable to harmonize federal and state collection and enforcement efforts to the
maximum extent possible;
(3) It is sound tax administration policy to foster administration and collection of the
federal sales tax at the state level in return for a reasonable administration fee to the states; and
(4) A business that must collect and remit taxes should receive reasonable
compensation for the cost of doing so; and
WHEREAS, Tennessee successfully maintains government functions without a personal
income tax; and
WHEREAS, Tennessee's reliance on the retail sales tax (consumption tax) since 1947
and elimination of the state personal income tax has proven successful in attracting an ever-
increasing number of businesses moving operations and facilities to Tennessee, creating
substantial additional jobs; and
WHEREAS, Amendment 3, the Tennessee Income Tax Prohibition Act, which was
approved by voters in 2014, amended the State Constitution to prohibit the Tennessee
legislature from levying, authorizing, or permitting any state or local tax upon payroll or earned
personal income; and
- 4 - 000952
WHEREAS, Tennessee is a model that demonstrates the success of the consumption
tax versus the repressive and suppressive effects on individual production and savings as a
result of income taxes; and
WHEREAS, the 16
th
Amendment to the United States Constitution should be repealed;
now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE HUNDRED
FOURTEENTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF TENNESSEE, THE SENATE
CONCURRING, that 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.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that an appropriate copy of this resolution be transmitted
to the President of the United States and each member of the Tennessee Congressional
Delegation.