Official-looking survey isn’t,despite ‘Reg 41’

By Tom Fontaine
Herald Staff Writer

A mailing urging taxpayers to sound off on the system and return a survey with money is not mandated by the federal government.

Some local residents weren’t sure when they opened a package from Americans for Fair Taxation, a Houston-based lobbying group. They feared they would violate the ominous “U.S. Reg. 41” if they failed to return the enclosed survey.

The lobbying group — a nonprofit and tax-exempt organization that is federally registered — wants to replace the income tax with FairTax, a flat national retail sales tax, and abolish the Internal Revenue Service. It also wants money.

Farrell resident Emily Wright initially thought the survey was from the federal government and that, like the Census form, it had to be returned. “It looked official,” she said. Ms. Wright added that her Yugoslavian neighbor thought the same thing and raced to her house for help with the form.

The mailing’s letter and survey are both headed “Questionnaire 152, U.S. Reg. 41.” The letter has the heading “Issuance: D.C. District.”

“When I read the letter,” Ms. Wright said, “I was angry. I knew it couldn’t have been from the government because they were asking for money.”

The letter requests “a contribution of $25, $50, $100 or more to help launch this campaign. If you are unable to send a contribution at this time, please consider sending at least $9 to defray the cost of distributing and processing your survey.”

The solicitation appears in the last four paragraphs of the four-page letter. The first paragraph of the letter reads, “You are hereby requested to fill out and return the enclosed questionnaire concerning proposals to overhaul the U.S. Tax Code and abolish the Internal Revenue Service.” “I agree, it may be kind of ambiguous,” Dennis Calabrese, a spokesman at the group’s Houston headquarters, said of the mailing’s makeup. “I suppose it’s a creative way to get people to read it.”

“There has been no confusion in the past. People’s antennas may be up now because of the Census,” Calabrese added.

Calabrese said the effort to wipe out income taxes and the IRS was actually launched by the group a couple years ago. Americans for Fair Taxation “is serious about this effort, which has been going on for more than two years. In that time a little over 150 local chapters have been established.”

Another spokesman for the lobby, Keith Appell, who works at an Alexandria, Va., public relations firm, said the group has drawn about 275,000 members in all 135 U.S. Congressional districts. The lobby is focusing its efforts on areas represented by the 37 members of the House Ways and Means Committee — which is chaired by U.S. Rep. Bill Archer of Texas. In Pennsylvania, U.S. Reps. Phil English, Erie, R-21st District, and William Coyne, Pittsburgh, D-14th District, are on the committee.

English, in Sharon Monday, said he is aware of the group’s efforts. English said he agrees with the group’s call for tax simplification, but feels many of its proposals lack convincing answers. About the “big-money” group’s solicitation in his district, English said, “I am not going to be swayed by their muscle.”

English offered his alternative Simplified USA Tax plan, a three-rate tax system he will introduce Wednesday during committee hearings. He called it “75 percent simpler” than the current code.

Calabrese said the Americans for Fair Taxation’s proposals have received bipartisan support and will be heard today on the House floor.

Neither spokesman for the lobby could clarify what “U.S. Reg. 41” means. They conceded there are no government penalties for shirking the survey.

“The group is grasping for straws. But think of the people who don’t know and have sent their money because they thought they had to,” Ms. Wright said.

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Official-looking survey isn’t, despite ‘Reg 41’

Official-looking survey isn’t,despite ‘Reg 41’