It's not even remotely a similar length stick. A two adult household with no Children would receive a prebate only if they made less than $22,980. That would entitle them to a prebate of $5285, matching their tax obligations. So cool, if you're at about 1.5x the poverty line, you pay no taxes. Greater income than that? Full tax obligations.

Not only does it have a sharper angle once you hit the business end, you hit it way sooner than you otherwise would due to the removal of things like the EITC that would be wiped out in favor of the FairTax proposal. Your married couple making a theoretical $39,200 a year would have a combined interest rate of a shade under 5%, and be able to claim deductions to get that burden down to zero, or I'll eat my hat. Under FairTax, any and all consumption spending (call it 70% of their income spent on consumption, and I'm willing to bet an exceptionally small number of couples making under 50k a year can save 30% of their income) would pay in $6,300 on the fair tax, an effective tax rate of 16%. The FairTax is one of the single most regressive tax policies imaginable, prebate or no.

Source: FairTax Prebate whitepaper as presented to the House Ways and Means Committee