[robertpaulsen]

pigdog is hiding behind semantics. His definition of "hidden taxes" are those taxes assessed on and paid by the corporation -- essentially the corporate income tax. Sometime he's throws in compliance costs (as hidden "taxes" -- go figure). Sometimes he leaves those out.

The employer portion of FICA is nowhere to be found in his version of hidden taxes. But he uses all of the above when discussing post-Fair Tax price reduction.

Trying to get him to admit that corporate income taxes plus the 15.3% of FICA taxes plus the employee federal income tax withholding (for an average total of 22% of the price of the product) are hidden taxes paid by the buyer and sent by the corporation to the federal government is impossible.

He can't admit that. If he does, then the additional- money-we'll-get-from-the-criminal myth will go away. So will the it's-only-23%-because-the-taxpayer-base-is-larger myth.

[pigdog]

There's no semantics involved. I've related to you and others several times that the definition of "hidden taxes" used by Boortz is not a good one since it covers all wage related income taxes and employee fica. I've said - repeatedly - that those costs are not included in what I (and many others on this thread) refer to as hidden taxes.

Instead what's said - and I've repeatedly stated this (which you've either not noticed or perhaps overlooked) - is that the term "hidden taxes" as many of us use it includes some part of business income taxes, employer portion of fica, compliance costs, opportunity costs, etc. and are more correctly called "hidden tax COSTS", but we often shorten that to say merely "hidden taxes".

The hidden taxes as described in The FairTax Book will most likely largely remain in prices as the employee wages and employee fica portion remain in product costs (as I've also related to you before). You seem to not grasp - or perhaps not wish to admit this for some reason.

"The employer portion of FICA is nowhere to be found in his version of hidden taxes. But he uses all of the above when discussing post-Fair Tax price reduction. "

If you intend both of these sentences to refer to me, then you are completely incorrect as I've repeatedly described what I call "hidden taxes" (really "hidden tax costs" as I've said) to include the ER fica portion and I do not use the employee income tax/fica withholding in any part of the price reduction due to income tax removal.

The money in your bogus lawyer example was money paid by the illegal guy to the lawyer for his services and it was the lawyer paying the tax due to his services, not the illegal guy. In fact as I pointed out, not only did you erroneously double the effective tax rate of your example, you doubled the amount the lawyer paid as well since he paid only $14,000 in income tax (as opposed to fica which HE benefits from, not the illegal guy). So your example is intentionally grossly distorted and your observations in this post are way off he mark.