Last night I had the great pleasure of meeting a handful of people at the Macaroni Grill in Cerritos (Southern California) who are interested in the FairTax and what it can do for our country.

Nick and Joanna are already well-informed (and passionate) about the FairTax and are actively promoting it.  Both are super-dynamic. I look forward to teaming up with them in order to raise visibility. 

Ernie, a great close of mine, had some concerns about the FairTax – specifically… how can we ensure that individuals and businesses comply. The concern was eased by pointing out that it would take two entities in collusion (the buyer and the seller) to not comply with the Fairtax whereas under the current tax system, the individual (or biz) can fudge a number here or there when reporting income. I also personally believe that there would be stiff penalties on businesses for non-compliance (prison, fines, loss of business licenses, etc.). Besides, why try to evade/avoid when the system is not abusive?

Richard, my nephew, agreed that online communities such as facebook would be a great way to gain visibility. Clearly, www.meetup.com as a sole promotional tool is insufficient.

So… promote, promote, promote!

Joanna tossed out some great ideas about facebook, Teleseminars, etc. Nick wants to team up and do booths at heavily trafficked areas like the Promenade in Santa Monica, 2nd Street in Long Beach, malls, etc. Nick also has a rapper friend that it might be fun to shoot a video of to post on YouTube.

So, I have dusted off the facebook account and will be adding some content to that community about Southern California efforts. I have ordered a domain (www.socalfairtax.org) which will enable us to create a group e-mail address (info@socalfairtax.org) . I have also started this new blog on TH specifically for SoCalFairTax postings.

Finally, toward the end of our meeting three guys (Kurt, Pablo, and Albert) in their early twenties saw my “NO IRS” sign and came over to ask what we were all about. They had just finished dinner and, I kid you not, one of the discussions was taxation and how one of them wanted to go Wesley Snipes on the system (i.e. avoid taxation). We all chatted for at least 30 minutes and had a great exchange of FairTax concepts. Looks like we have a few more FairTax enthusiasts!

That’s it for now…