Mike Conaway: “I am not sure Texas ever had an income tax, and I am pretty sure we are not ever going to have one. As part of my…”

“I am not sure Texas ever had an income tax, and I am pretty sure we are not ever going to have one. As part of my professional background, I am a CPA and my license is still current. Before I joined Congress, I spent 30-plus years helping clients cope, deal, understand, and pay their taxes. Speaking of the IRS and the intimidation factor, as a CPA, if I get a letter from the IRS addressed to me, my heart rate goes up before I open it. Now, it shouldn't be that way. It shouldn't have that kind of impact on any of us because I work really hard, as you might expect, to make sure that I get my taxes done. My colleagues have both hit many of the high points on the FairTax. The choices we have out there now: there is the current Code, and there are advocates for that; there is a flat tax, and there are advocates for that; then there is a national sales tax, and I have cosponsored it after six terms and am proud to do that. There are several reasons I have settled on the sales tax. One, it eliminates the IRS. Every government needs taxes in order to run. That tax collection scheme should have no other purpose, other than collecting the minimum amount of money needed to fund that government. The current Code from `86 forward--and back, actually, to 1916--has been used over and over and over to manipulate this behavior, to incentivize that, disincentivize this, reward this half, punish, all these kinds of things.…”