Posted on 10/10/2006 8:59:26 AM PDT by cryptical
Advocates of replacing the income tax with the FairTax — a consumption tax in the form of a national retail sales tax (NRST) on new goods and services — regularly point to the complexity of the tax code, the millions of hours and dollars wasted on compliance costs, the evils of the withholding tax, and the abuses of the IRS to bolster their case for the FairTax.
The twin truths that taxation is theft (no matter how the money is collected) and that the US government should never be given a budget that is in the trillions (no matter how the money is collected) are concepts that FairTax proponents have never grasped.
The FairTax is intended to be revenue neutral; that is, the federal leviathan and all of its programs will receive exactly the same amount of funding as under the current tax system. Federal spending will remain at the same obscene level that it is now. This means that, although conceivably some people might pay the same amount in taxes under the FairTax plan that they do now, some will pay more and others will pay less.
Or, if we accept without reservation the claim of FairTax supporters that tax evaders, tax avoiders, workers in the underground economy, and others who don't pay their "fair" share will now be "caught," therefore increasing the tax base, we can, for the sake of argument, say that some people might pay the same amount in taxes, many will pay less, and the few that will pay more are the ones who were paying little or no taxes to begin with.
But even though the things that FairTax proponents say about the tax code, compliance costs, the withholding tax, and the IRS are certainly true, what most people care about is the bottom line. If an individual's taxes were lowered but the prices of all goods and services were at the same time raised, lower taxes might actually be a curse instead of a blessing.
The question is therefore not one of paying higher or lower taxes, but instead: Will I have more money remaining from my paycheck to save, invest, or spend on vacations and luxury items under the FairTax plan after I pay my bills and make my necessary purchases?
This is a question that FairTax activists have answered in the affirmative.
The FairTax Plan
Under the FairTax proposal, there will no longer be Social Security and Medicare taxes, withholding taxes, corporate taxes, gift taxes, estate taxes, capital gains taxes, and personal income taxes. However, these will all be replaced with a national sales tax on all new goods and services. But never fear, says the FairTax advocate, even with this sales tax, the prices of most goods and services will still be about the same.
As talk show host Neal Boortz [1]claims in The FairTax Book: "The prices of consumer goods and services remain essentially the same, with the removal of the embedded taxes compensating for the added consumption tax." The embedded costs of taxes in all consumer goods and services drive up prices because they increase the costs of doing business of manufacturers and service providers. As Boortz explains about suppliers of goods and services:
When you buy that loaf of bread, you're paying a portion of all of the bills, including tax bills, of every person or business entity that had anything to do with that bread, from before the wheat was planted up until the loaf of bread ends up in that plastic bag in the back seat of your minivan.
Have you thought about how much your doctor pays into the payroll tax system to augment his or her employees' Social Security and Medicare taxes? And what about all the embedded taxes your doctor paid when purchasing all of that sophisticated equipment, not to mention the endless monthly outlay for cotton swabs and tongue depressors?
Compliance costs are also "costs that are ultimately embedded in retail prices paid by consumers." Boortz's coauthor, Congressman John Linder (R-GA), in his November 5, 2003, testimonyin behalf of the FairTax before the Joint Economic Committee on " Rethinking the Tax Code," stated that "because of the tax component incorporated into prices under the current income tax code, we are already paying the equivalent of the FairTax!" This must include the prices of all goods and services, for Boortz maintains that "like retail goods, new homes won't be any more expensive, even with the FairTax added."
The rate of the NRST under the FairTax is supposed to be 23 percent. But as I have already shown in my first article on the FairTax (" The Fair Tax Fraud"), that is just the initial rate — it will be adjusted upward every year. And as I have already shown in my review of Boortz's book (" There Is No Such Thing as a Fair Tax"), the stated rate of 23 percent is really 30 percent — the new math used by FairTax proponents figures the rate inclusively (the tax is included in the price of the product) rather than exclusively (the tax is added to the price of the product).
To offset the full amount of this sales tax, retail prices would have to fall by a like amount if the prices of most goods and services are to "remain essentially the same." This is exactly what Boortz asserts will happen after the FairTax plan is implemented:
One of the beauties of the FairTax is that the price of consumer goods and services in our economy will go down by roughly the same amount as the proposed FairTax rate of 23 percent. This very nearly makes everything a wash.
Consumers of all incomes will be paying at least 20 percent less for virtually everything they buy, including the basics of food, clothing, shelter, and transportation.
And how does Boortz know that this will happen? Why, Dr. Dale Jorgenson said so — or at least that's what Boortz claims. Back in 1997, Jorgenson, the former chairman of the Harvard Economics Department, authored a report for Americans for Fair Taxation (AFT) entitled "The Economic Impact of the National Retail Sales Tax." [2]Before writing his 1997 report for the AFT, Jorgenson had testified before the House Committee on Ways and Means in 1995 on "The Economic Impact of Fundamental Tax Reform" and in 1996 on "The Economic Impact of Taxing Consumption." [3]
Referring to this study, Boortz says: "On average, Jorgenson concluded, 22 percent of the price paid for a consumer product represents embedded taxes. That means that for every dollar you spend on a loaf of bread, twenty-two cents ends up being passed on to the government somewhere along the line in the form of taxes." Congressman Linder also referred to this report in his 2003 testimony before the Joint Economic Committee: "The FairTax plan creates transparency within the tax code. It eliminates the hidden tax component from the prices of goods. According to a Harvard study, the current tax component in our price system averages 22 percent."
Boortz believes that prices will fall because "if these embedded taxes were to disappear — that is, if the tax burdens of all the corporations, businesses, and individuals involved in the manufacture, marketing, and sale of these items were to be removed — these businesses would experience an immediate increase in their profit margins that would roughly equal that 22 percent." Then, once profit margins increase, Boortz presumes that "competitive market pressures" would "force prices down to a level where corporate profit margins are pretty much where they were before the passage of the FairTax." Linder likewise testified that competition would "bring prices down an average of 20-30 percent."
But this isn't all that Boortz has promised, for under the FairTax system everyone will get a raise because everyone will be able to keep his whole paycheck:
Once the FairTax takes effect, you'll be receiving 100 percent of every paycheck, with no withholding of federal income taxes, Social Security taxes, or Medicare taxes.
The poor — along with everybody else — will no longer have Social Security taxes or Medicare taxes withheld from their paychecks. Whatever they earn, they get on payday. For most of those we categorize as poor, this would mean an immediate 25 to 30 percent increase in their take-home pay.
We start collecting 100 percent of our earnings on our paycheck.
We all get virtual raises, since payroll taxes are no longer siphoned from our checks.
But as we shall presently see, these four statements turned out to be lies and were subsequently altered or omitted in the new paperback edition of The FairTax Book.
Boortz has seriously misread and/or misrepresented Jorgenson in four key areas.
Boortz's First Misrepresentation
Boortz's first misrepresentation concerns the rate of the FairTax. He maintains that in order to be revenue neutral the tax rate would have to be 23 percent figured inclusively or 30 percent figured exclusively. But here is what Jorgenson actually said:
The imposition of the NRST would produce a sharply higher tax rate on consumer goods and services, but the tenth chart shows that the initial consumption tax rate would be twenty-three percent at both federal and state and local levels or only 18.4 percent at the federal level. This would gradually rise over time, but remain below thirty percent or 23.8 percent at the federal level.
Unlike Boortz, Jorgenson does not give us any baloney about inclusive and exclusive tax rates. But note that Jorgenson's rate of 23 percent includes federal, state, and local taxes. This is because of one of Jorgenson's assumptions:
Since state and local income taxes usually employ the same bases as the corresponding federal taxes, it is reasonable to assume that substitution of NRST for taxes at the federal level would be followed by similar substitutions at the state and local level. For simplicity I consider the economic impact of substitution at all levels simultaneously.
Boortz's rate of 23 percent (which is actually 30 percent) includes only the NRST. To this would have to be added any state or local sales tax rate. This means that in some areas of the country where the combined state and local sales taxes average 10 percent, consumers will pay a whopping 40 percent tax on all of their purchases. No wonder Jorgenson says that "as a consequence of the elimination of taxes on capital income, individuals would sharply curtail consumption of both goods and leisure."
But in Jorgenson's 1996 testimony at the "Hearings on Replacing the Federal Income Tax" held by the House Committee on Ways and Means he said that "the consumption tax rate required for replacing existing revenues from individual and corporate income taxes at both federal and state and local levels would be around fifteen percent. This would gradually rise over time reaching twenty-one."
The initial "revenue neutral" tax rate has already gone up twice and the FairTax hasn't even been implemented yet.
Other economists believe that the rate of a NRST would have to be much higher than 30 percent to be truly revenue neutral. This has been pointed out several times by Bruce Bartlett, and most recently by William Gale, an economist with the Brookings Institute, in his May 16, 2005, article " The National Retail Sales Tax: What Would the Rate Have To Be?"
Gale estimates that "a federal sales tax that maintains real federal revenues under current law and real federal noninterest spending over the 10-year period of 2006 to 2015 would require a tax-inclusive rate of 31 percent, or a tax-exclusive rate of 44 percent." This latter rate would actually climb to 49 percent by 2015. And these rates are assuming that there is no tax evasion or legislative erosion of the tax base.
Boortz's Second Misrepresentation
Boortz's second misrepresentation concerns the amount that prices could fall once the cost of embedded taxes is removed from goods. He maintains that the price of consumer goods will fall by roughly the same amount of sales tax that will be added under the FairTax plan. But again, here is Jorgenson:
Since producers would no longer pay taxes on profits or other forms of capital income under the NRST and workers would no longer pay taxes on wages, prices received by producers, shown in the sixth chart, would fall by an average of twenty percent.
In the long run producers' prices, shown in the eighth chart, would fall by almost thirty percent under the NRST.
He is saying that producers' prices will fall by about 20 percent in the short term and about 30 percent in the long term. Producer prices are not consumer prices. That is why the government has a Producer Price Index (PPI) and a Consumer Price Index (CPI). So, in order for a price increase from a national sales tax and a price decrease from the removal of the cost of embedded taxes to balance each other out, a much higher tax rate will be required since it is not consumer prices that will be 20 percent lower.
There are, of course, three other problems with any talk of a decrease in producer or consumer prices.
First, how does Jorgenson know for sure that producer prices "would fall by an average of twenty percent"? Why, an economic model that he created says they will, that's how.
And even if producer prices did fall by about 20 percent, we still have the same problem: How does anyone know for sure how much consumer prices will fall? There is one thing we know and one thing we don't know. We know that consumer prices will increase by 30 percent under the FairTax plan; we don't know how much they will decrease because of the elimination of "embedded costs" in the price of goods.
Second, saying that because costs will fall by x amount that prices will likewise fall by x amount is a grave economic fallacy. Not only does this ignore the basic laws of supply and demand, it is based on the fallacy that the costs of inputs in the production of a good determine the price of the output they produce. As Ludwig von Mises has said about prices:
The ultimate source of the determination of prices is the value judgments of the consumers. Each individual, in buying or not buying and in selling or not selling, contributes his share to the formation of market prices. But the larger the market is, the smaller is the weight of each individual's contribution. Thus the structure of market prices appears to the individual as a datum to which he must adjust his own conduct. What is called a price is always a relationship within an integrated system which is the composite effect of human relations.
Prices are determined between extremely narrow margins; the valuations on the one hand of the marginal buyer and those of the marginal offerer who abstains from selling, and the valuations on the other hand of the marginal seller and those of the marginal potential buyer who abstains from buying.
And third, the question of tax incidence — who actually bears the burden of a tax — is an elusive one that economists still debate. For example, many economists would argue that although a portion of the corporate income tax may be passed forward to consumers through higher prices, the majority of the tax comes out of after-tax profits and employee wages. Boortz is assuming that the full amount of all taxes paid by businesses are embedded in the costs of the goods they sell.
And what about the prices of imported goods? They would have no reason to drop at all.
Boortz's Third Misrepresentation
Boortz's third misrepresentation concerns the reason that prices could fall once the cost of embedded taxes is removed from goods. He maintains that it is the removal of the embedded taxes in the cost of goods that will account for the price reduction of those goods. Let's revisit an earlier statement of Jorgenson:
Since producers would no longer pay taxes on profits or other forms of capital income under the NRST and workers would no longer pay taxes on wages, prices received by producers, shown in the sixth chart, would fall by an average of twenty percent.
How would workers no longer paying taxes on wages lead to a fall in prices? Workers currently have deductions from their paychecks for federal income tax, Social Security tax, and Medicare tax. Although employers remit these taxes to the federal government, the money does not come out of their profits — it comes out of each employee's gross pay. Jorgenson is saying that prices will fall because of two factors, not one.
Producers costs would be lower because not only would they no longer have to pay taxes on their profits, they would no longer have to remit their employees' deductions to the federal government — they would pocket them.
When Jorgenson testified on the subject of "The Economic Impact of Taxing Consumption" before the House Committee on Ways and Means in 1996, he made essentially the same statement that was quoted above from his report for Americans for Fair Taxation:
Since producers would no longer pay taxes on profits or other forms of income from capital and workers would no longer pay taxes on wages, prices received by producers, shown in the fifth chart, would fall by an average of twenty percent.
After an inquiry by a citizen [4] who was concerned that the FairTax proponents were misrepresenting his conclusions, Jorgenson made his position perfectly clear:
A more reasonable interpretation of my 1996 testimony is that workers would keep that after-tax pay; producers' prices would fall, but retail prices would be increased by the national retail sales tax. Any gains by workers and investors would be the result of increased economic efficiency.
Boortz is double counting. The portion of the worker's paycheck formerly sent to the government for taxes that will be now returned to him so he can collect "100 percent of every paycheck" is the same portion that producers will now pocket to help them lower their costs. This is because Boortz originally maintained that the embedded taxes that drive up the costs of goods and services are "in addition to the money taken out of your check in income taxes and payroll taxes." He has since changed his tune.
From his Nealz Nuze, here is Boortz on what will really happen to "100% of your paycheck":
On review, and after reading the critiques of opponents to the FairTax plan, we have concluded that there is one element of the FairTax that could have been present with more clarity in the book; the concept of embedded taxes and keeping 100% of your paycheck.
We write in The FairTax Book that the competitive pressures of the marketplace will force prices down when embedded taxes disappear from the cost of retail goods and services, and we cite 22% as the average amount of those embedded taxes. Does this 22% include the income and payroll taxes that are paid by employees? Yes, it does. So … what does this mean to your paycheck after the FairTax becomes law?
When the FairTax is implemented, and when business and personal income and payroll taxes disappear, your employer is going to have to make a decision. He will either take some or the entire amount he had been withholding for federal income and payroll taxes and add it to your weekly check, or he will readjust your pay figures so that your entire paycheck will be equal to what you used to call "take home pay" before the FairTax. The employer may also decide to do a little of both. Either way, you can see that the amount of money you actually receive as pay — the amount you can put into your bank account — will not decrease, and may actually increase.
On a larger scale real wages will rise to the extent to which the nation's employers decide to return the embedded costs of their employee's income and payroll taxes to the employee. Likewise, the cost of the products or services produced by the employer will be reduced to the extent to which that employer retains all or a portion of those income and payroll taxes together with the other taxes on capital and labor eliminated by the FairTax.
Because of Boortz's epiphany, he had to make some significant changes in his new paperback edition of The FairTax Book. Gone is the statement on page 55 that embedded taxes which drive up the cost of goods by 22 percent are "in addition to the money taken out of your check in income taxes and payroll taxes." Here are the other changes and omissions:
First edition, page 59:
Once the FairTax takes effect, you'll be receiving 100 percent of every paycheck, with no withholding of federal income taxes, Social Security taxes, or Medicare taxes — and you'll be paying just about the same price for T-shirts and other consumer goods and services that you were paying before the FairTax.
Paperback edition, page 60:
Once the FairTax takes effect, you will be in complete control of your paycheck as nothing will be withheld — and your purchasing power for t-shirts and all other goods and services will be almost exactly what it was before the FairTax.
First edition, page 120:
When we all start getting 100 percent of our earned income in our paychecks.
Paperback edition, page 120:
When we all start controlling 100 percent of our earned income in our paychecks.
Being in "complete control" of your paycheck no longer means keeping 100 percent of it.
First edition, page 83:
Remember that the poor, along with everyone else — will no longer have Social Security taxes or Medicare taxes removed from their paychecks. Whatever they earn, they get on payday. For most of those we categorize as poor, this would mean an immediate 25 to 30 percent increase in their take-home pay.
Paperback edition, page 83:
Remember that the poor, along with everyone else — will no longer have Social Security taxes or Medicare taxes removed from their paychecks. Whatever they earn, they get on payday. If employers leave this money in paychecks instead of taking it out of price, most of those we categorize as poor would see an immediate 25 to 30 percent increase in their take-home pay.
Now the increase in take-home pay is tied to the generosity of the employer. Prices cannot be reduced and take-home pay increased at the same time.
First edition, page 84:
When you factor in the lower prices caused by the disappearance of the embedded taxes, you'll see that the total price paid for consumer goods will remain very nearly the same.
Paperback edition, page 84:
When you factor in the combined lower prices/higher take-home pay caused by the disappearance of the embedded taxes, you'll see that the total price paid for consumer goods will remain very nearly the same.
This again shows that the fall in prices that may result under the FairTax is due to two factors, not just the removal of the embedded taxes.
In the "Time for a Quick Review" chart on page 111 of both editions, there are some substantial alterations:
First edition:
We start collecting 100 percent of our earnings in every paycheck.
Paperback edition:
We start controlling our earnings in every paycheck.
First edition:
We all get virtual raises, since payroll taxes are no longer siphoned from our checks.
Paperback edition: [this sentence is completely eliminated]
First edition:
The prices of consumer goods and services remain essentially the same, with the removal of the embedded taxes compensating for the added consumption tax.
Paperback edition:
Our purchasing power for buying consumer goods and services remains essentially the same, with the removal of the embedded taxes compensating for the added consumption tax.
Do these corrections mean that Boortz is no longer guilty of misrepresenting Jorgenson? Perhaps. But consider the following:
* The new edition of Boortz's book still states (on pp. 84 & 160) that people will take home 100 percent of their paycheck under the FairTax.
* The website of Boortz's coauthor, Congressman John Linder, still maintains that one of the results of the FairTax is that it "allows you to keep 100 percent of your paycheck, pension, and Social Security payments."
* The Americans for Fair Taxation website still claims that the FairTax "enables workers to keep their entire paycheck."
Boortz is very naïve to think that once the FairTax plan is implemented that employers will be able to lower employee wages just because the net amount an employee receives might be more than his current take-home pay. Not only will workers be extremely reluctant to take a pay cut, wage contracts will in many cases prevent an adjustment downward.
And consider the case of two workers who currently make the same gross pay but each with a different take-home amount because they claim a different number of exemptions. Under the FairTax plan, if wages are lowered to current take-home amounts, one employee would end up making less than the other and certainly cry foul. Can you imagine the number of workers who will, on the eve of the implementation of the FairTax, rush to change the number of their exemptions on their W-4 forms so as to increase their take-home pay before their employer has a chance to take it away?
Boortz's Fourth Misrepresentation
Boortz's fourth misrepresentation concerns Jorgenson himself. Although Boortz quotes Jorgenson to give weight to his FairTax proposal, Jorgenson is not a devotee of the FairTax — he supports an income tax plan called the Efficient Taxation of Income. That's right — an income tax. That means an IRS and a 1040 form, not a sales tax.
In his 1996 article, "The Economic Impact of Fundamental Tax Reform," [5] Jorgenson states: "Changing the federal tax base from income to consumption is an idea whose time has come. This change will create important new opportunities for growth in the standard of living of all Americans." But that was 1996, long before Boortz wrote his FairTax book. Since then Jorgenson has written quite extensively about his income tax plan. Here are just three examples.
In his 2002 article for the Financial Times, Jorgenson called his Efficient Taxation of Income plan "A Smarter Type of Tax," and explained that
Efficient Taxation of Income is a new approach to tax reform that would introduce different tax rates for property-type income and earned income from work. Earned income would be taxed at a flat rate of 10 per cent, while property-type income would be taxed at 30 per cent.
Also in 2002, Jorgenson testified yet again before the House Committee on Ways and Means on the subject of taxes. But instead of advocating a consumption tax like the FairTax, he presented his Efficient Taxation of Incomeproposal. Under Jorgenson's plan: "Income would be defined in exactly the same way as in the existing tax code."
In 2003, Jorgenson wrote an article for Harvard Magazine on the subject of — you guessed it — the Efficient Taxation of Income:
Efficient Taxation of Income is a new approach to tax reform based on taxation of income rather than consumption. This would avoid a drastic shift in tax burdens by introducing different tax rates for property-type income and earned income from work. Earned income would be taxed at a flat rate of 10 percent, while property-type income would be taxed at 30 percent.
The Fraudulent Tax
Besides the misrepresentations of Professor Jorgenson, there are other reasons the FairTax should be called the Fraudulent Tax.
The FairTax does not abolish the IRS. Changing the name and some of the functions of the IRS does not mean that it will go away. The FairTax simply exchanges one federal agency for another. If there were no IRS or other enforcement bureau to enforce the collection of a national sales tax, then why would anyone bother paying or collecting the tax? Actually, the Fair Tax Act of 2005 sets up a "Sales Tax Bureau" in the Department of the Treasury. With a bureau comes an army of bureaucrats. And what Jorgenson said in his report on "The Economic Impact of the National Retail Sales Tax" shows that these bureaucrats will still have plenty of work to do:
Any definition of a consumption tax base will have to distinguish between consumption for personal and business purposes. On-going disputes over exclusion of home offices, business-provided automobiles, equipment, and clothing, and business-related lodging, entertainment and meals would continue to plague tax officials, the entertainment and hospitality industries, and holders of expense accounts. In short, substitution of the NRST for the existing tax system would not eliminate all the practical issues that arise from the necessity of distinguishing between business and personal activities in defining consumption.
The FairTax will abolish the IRS in the same way that it will abolish the income tax — by replacing it with something else.
The FairTax is not cosponsored by Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX). Every month or so since I began writing against the FairTax I have received an e-mail insisting that Congressman Paul is a cosponsor of H.R. 25, the "Fair Tax Act of 2005." Although there are fifty-eight cosponsors of this bill, Ron Paul is not one of them. Why is it that no one bothers to mention the names of the actual cosponsors of the FairTax bill?
FairTax supporters know that it is Dr. Paul who consistently votes to lower or abolish federal taxes, spending, and regulation. His support for the FairTax bill would further their cause more than any number of cosponsors or anything Boortz could ever say or write. The Americans for Fair Taxation website lists Congressman Paul as a " supporter" of the FairTax. This is strange since Dr. Paul has not taken an official position in support or opposition to the FairTax. His priority is reducing government spending and taxes, not getting sidetracked in debates about which type of tax we should have. As he has made clear: "The real issue is total spending by government, not tax reform."
So what about these cosponsors of the FairTax bill? Are they interested in reducing total spending by government? Out of the fifty-eight cosponsors, forty-four of them voted for the Medicare Prescription Drug and Modernization Act of 2003 — the largest expansion of the welfare state since the Great Society. Only six voted against it [6] (eight cosponsors were not members of Congress at the time of the vote. [7]) The sponsor of the FairTax bill, John Linder, also voted for the Medicare Act. No wonder the FairTax has to be revenue neutral now with adjustments every year! How else will the government come up with the billions of dollars it will need to pay for all these prescriptions?
The FairTax is not a voluntary tax. Calling the FairTax a voluntary tax has got to be the most ridiculous thing ever said about it. Boortz maintains in his book that "there is nothing coercive about the FairTax." In Congressman Linder's testimony before The Joint Economic Committee on "Rethinking the Tax Code," he stated: "The FairTax plan is a voluntary tax system. Every citizen becomes a voluntary taxpayer, paying as much as they choose, when they choose, by how they choose to spend."
Well, could we not also say that the current tax system is a voluntary tax system? Every citizen becomes a voluntary taxpayer, paying as much as they choose, whey they choose, by how they choose to work. Under the present system, if someone doesn't work then he doesn't pay any income tax. Sounds voluntary to me. Rather than being voluntary, the FairTax is a "permission-to-live" tax, as Murray Rothbard has described consumption taxes.
We know that retail prices will increase by 30 percent under the FairTax plan; we don't know how much prices will decrease because of the elimination of "embedded costs" in the price of goods. Because it is embedded with fraud, the FairTax plan is not the answer.
The income tax should be repealed, not replaced. The IRS should be gotten rid of, not renamed. Tax reform should reduce taxes, not be revenue neutral. Government theft of the wealth of its citizens should be abolished, not adjusted. The FairTax should be called the Fraudulent Tax.
Laurence M. Vance is a freelance writer and an adjunct instructor in accounting at Pensacola Junior College in Pensacola, FL. See his Mises.org archive. Send him mail. Comment on the blog.
Notes
[1]Congressman John Linder (R-GA) is Boortz's coauthor, but since Boortz has previous writing experience and his name appears in larger letters on the book's cover, I will refer to Boortz as the author of The FairTax Book.
[2]This report is unfortunately not available online.
[3]These reports are likewise not available online.
[4]Rob Northrup, to whom also I am indebted for bringing to my attention the new paperback edition of The FairTax Book.
[5]This appeared as chapter 11 of Frontiers of Tax Reform, edited by Michael J. Boskin (Hoover Institution Press, 1996), and was reprinted by the economics department of Harvard University as part of its Reprints in Economic Theory and Econometrics.
[6]Dan Burton (R-IN), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Jeff Miller (R-FL), Charlie Norwood (R-GA), Mike Pence (R-IN), Thomas Tancredo (R-CO).
[7]K. Michael Conaway (R-TX), Dan Boren (D-OK), Thelma Drake (R-VA), Michael McCaul (R-TX), Ted Poe (R-TX), Michael Sodrel (R-IN), Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), Tom Price (R-GA).
We've all been hornswoggled, then, eh??? Should we just stop paying into S/S??? Inquiring minds want to know.
Is that a "personal attack", perhaps???No it's not. Maybe if you figured out what a personal attack was, you wouldn't keep getting banned.
"I also favor entitlement reform and provatization [sic] as one of our must urgent tasks, and hope that we are able to make some progress in this area in the next Congress. "
No doubt you do - as do many other taxpayers - however it hasn't happened in the last couple of generations nor in fact for almost 100 years now (with respect to the income tax itself), so "hoping" as you do that the situation will magically correct itself within Congress is something like "... if wishes were horses then beggars would ride ...".
In fact, the only real likelihood of meaningful change in the tax laws or S/S & M/C that I see is to separate them from an income tax that can be (and is) incrementally manipulated at the whim of Congress to a tax form such as the FairTax where raising tax rates raises them on ALL taxpayers - something most congressmen would think long and hard about since Job 1 is getting elected again.
Such a change in S/S & M/C funding will be the most rapid possible demonstration to an individual taxpayer what the real cost of these entitlements is to him each and every time he buys a taxable thing ... and no, it's not the cost of the thing involved "plus 30%" as is so often seen in the demagoguery on these threads, but the cost of the thing plus the effective FairTax rate (normally much less than the 23% ti marginal rate).
"No it's not."
REALLY???
Really??? The ensuring of legally-required funding of S/S is not part of the S/S laws???Not by bureaucrats "determining" tax rates as the Fairtax law allows them to do without oversite or congressional approval.
Presently SS bureaucrats don't determine laws or tax rates, that would only come with the Fairtax.
Politically, if there is only one tax rate that everyone needs to think about and keep track of, there will be lots of interest in that one rate as well as opposition to raising it. One key objection to the FairTax is that it is too visible, meaning that it exposes the true costs of the government. This is at the same time its major strength and weakness. Exposing the true cost of the government ensures downward pressure on the size of government. But doing so makes politicians who like to hide taxes wary.
First, the true cost of government is hidden in the debt, not tax rates.
Second, Don't read further, don't think, just focus on the "one tax rate" that we need to concern ourselves with.
“Problem” #14 – “The FairTax doesn’t repeal federal excise taxes.”
True. But not a problem. We want to retain some flexibility to tax goods, like cigarettes, the consumption of which can impose significant costs on society at-large, at higher rates. These taxes serve a different purpose than general revenues. They are in effect taxes on externalities.
Don't worry, not a problem.
REALLY???yeah, really.
"Presently SS bureaucrats don't determine laws or tax rates, that would only come with the Fairtax. "No, not at all - but you're welcome to misbelieve anything you choose. Many posters have pointed out to you the flaw in your thinking ... but you're welcome to continue.
This is the first time its been suggested that the SS and Medicare portion of the FairTax will be called out on the sales receipt.
But who cares, the aggregate cost of the prebate is larger.
I'm sorry to see that you don't understand what the term "in practice" means.Well when you've finished with your usual attempts at ridicule you can define what it means in context of the quote you posted...Or maybe that would be too revealing.
Maybe "in practice" means things that "could" be done in your dream world like spending freezes and spending cuts to accommodate your 23% rate rather than practical applications.
It's more than just a little telling that you have to call for hypothetical dream world applications to accomodate your 23% revenue neutral rate since this is the first time I recall you or any other Fairtaxer, including AFFT, ever calling for spending freezes or cuts (Oh wait, don't tell me. Spending cuts have been called for by many Fairtax supporters on many of these threads..or words to that effect). Now you only want cuts and freezes to protect your lies about an arbitrary rate.
"First, the true cost of government is hidden in the debt, not tax rates. "Actually, it's hidden both places but the part that taxpayers can influence with the passage of the FairTax is the tax rate. Once the FairTax becomes law it will be more likely that the spending (debt) can be more readily influenced by taxpayers (voters) since it will no longer be possible to hide any part of the government cost in the tax rate without affecting all taxpayers and since most debt must be serviced by the tax revenue that will also become move visible and subject to taxpayer influence.
"Second, Don't read further, don't think, just focus on the "one tax rate" that we need to concern ourselves with."
Good thinking since excise taxes are a relatively small part of the total tax burden - and it is the greater tax burden that the FairTax addresses.
Oh, I see ... it's because you do it and say it's not??? A definitional thing???
"This is the first time its been suggested that the SS and Medicare portion of the FairTax will be called out on the sales receipt.But who cares, the aggregate cost of the prebate is larger. "
No such thing has been "suggested" by me or anyone I know so it's hard to know where you got that idea? If you think it's a good one, why not write to Congressman Linder insisting that he change the bill to incorporate that?
The aggregate amount of the prebate is actually incorporated within the 23% revenue neutral rate and is in fact less that S/S plus M/C, but you're welcome to present both your sources that definitively show that the prebate is a larger amount.
This actually contains most of the teeth the IRS has. It shows the FairTax is business as usual as far as tax collection goes. The FairTax does not do anything about eliminating the 800 lb. gorilla outside of renaming it.
"... I'm sorry to see that you don't understand what the term "in practice" means.Well when you've finished with your usual attempts at ridicule you can define what it means in context of the quote you posted...Or maybe that would be too revealing ..."
No "attempts at ridicule" involved. I'm very sad to see (as I said) that you don't know what "in practice" means as it is really quite clear in situ and needn't be clarified further. I think most people would understand what it meant but you don't seem to, that's all.
As are most FairTax supporters, I'm certainly in favor of reduced government spending on any level and think all governments spend far more than necessary since they have not been restrained enough by taxpayers. That may very well be because many taxpayers perceive that others, not they, pay the taxes. With the FairTax, that will change greatly and a tax rate change (up or down) will affect each taxpayer.
" Now you only want cuts and freezes to protect your lies about an arbitrary rate."
There are no "lies" involved and no "arbitrary rates" since the FairTax is a carefully-derived revenue neutral rate as shown by the paper - which also shows that the resulting rate when the bill is acted upon by Congress - will most likely be less than 23%.
You might as well make the arguement that there is no indication that bears crap in the woods. Kotlikoff is a paid for shill for the fairtax. Trying to pretend Kotlikoff is some neutral third party is just the typical honesty pigdog brings to the debate.
"... just the typical honesty pigdog brings to the debate ..."
Easy with the personal attacks.
I don't see that your analogy makes much sense however. There are actually five people cited as authors of the report in question. Do you find them all to be "paid for shills" - especially so since AFFT is not mentioned in the paper?
Are you going to deny that Kotlikoff has not been paid by AFFT for his work promoting the fairtax?
Whether paid or not, do you have some definitive disagreement with the arithmetic studies and conclusions done in the paper (whether by Kotlikoff or others - which origin I also don't know but perhaps you do).
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