Yeah, it's so much easier to get people to buy your BS when you get them focused, as the author tries to do, on marginal rates rather than effective rates.
But thanks for pointing out another area where the author does his own misrepresentation. How many times does he go back to some variation on how everything will cost 30% more? He's trying to scare people with a marginal rate "sticker shock" rather than dealing with what the actual effect is.
Look, I can blow apart his "everything will cost dramatically more" thesis even with dealing only in marginal rates.
Example:
Today's item costs Joe Smith $100. We will accept Rob's thesis that prices will drop by 8% with the removal of corporate taxes and employer-side payroll taxes.And that's comparing the income/payroll tax's effective rate to the NRST marginal rate. When you actually figure in the NRST effective rate, even under Rob's numbers, "Joe" is paying less for that item in the post-NRST world than he was in the pre-NRST world.
Base item price: $92
NRST (29.87% exclusive): $27.48
Total Price: $119.48So, you're thinking, "see, the price went up by $19.48!" Not so fast, bucko. You see, Joe's current effective federal tax rate (income + payroll taxes) is 15%. That means he had to earn $117.65 to pay for that $100 item in the first place. Under the NRST, he has that entire $117.65 in his pocket.
So, that's a price increase in effective dollars of $1.83, or 1.83%. Given the rather vague nature of the assumptions, this is practically statistical noise, and quite consistent with the prediciton I've always made that effective prices will remain the same, plus or minus five percent.