[ancient_geezer]

Gee, sorry to burst your payroll tax saving bubble using (as usual) your own source of facts....from the authors of the bill no less.

You figure you'll get a takehome pay increase over the gross specified by contract if a business sees better ways to sustain profits? LOL, I got a bridge to sell you. Better you I would suggest you make yourself very indispensible if you figure on getting that raise.

When lacking empirical measurements,

"economists generally believe"

8 magic assumptions by economists about dollars paid to government by businesses:

1) Paying corporate income tax to government only reduces shareholders capital/earnings, and wages, but never increases consumer price.

2) Paying corporate property taxes to government only reduces shareholder capital/earnings and wages.

3) Paying any excise tax(except the employer's excise) to government only increases consumer price.

4) Paying the corporate employer's excise to government only reduces wages.

5) Paying a vat to government only increases consumer price.

6) Paying retail sales tax to government only increases consumer price

7) Paying sales tax on manufacturers or distributors products to government only increases consumer price.

8) Paying tariffs to government only reduces earnings of foreign producers.

Many many ASSUMPTIONs of convenience and ideological bent, rather than rules arising from evaluation of market behaviours or empirical analysis of economic data:

 

Tax Incidence, Tax Burden, and Tax Shifting Who Really Pays the Tax

 

Inconsistent Attribution and Sloppy Theory.

Furthermore, the conventions used in tax analysis are often inconsistent from one tax to the next and fail to do a good job of demonstrating even the initial incidence of the taxes. In standard JCT burden tables, and in Treasury and CBO analytical work, consumption taxes are usually assumed to be “passed forward” to consumers in the form of higher prices.

*** Snip ***

Meanwhile, income taxes and other taxes on factors are assumed to be “passed backwards” to workers and owners of capital in the form of lower take-home pay and after-tax incomes from saving and investing.

*** Snip ***

Customs fees are an exception to this pattern. They are consumption taxes but are assumed (by the Treasury) to be borne by the suppliers of the foreign labor and capital that produced them.

Consumption taxes, such as a retail sales tax, a VAT, or excise taxes, whether imposed on consumers or on manufacturers, are routinely described as being paid by consumers in the form of higher prices because it is assumed that consumers are less flexible than producers, so that consumer prices increase by an amount equal to the tax, with none of the tax borne by the producers of the taxed goods. It is as if the supply of goods and services were totally elastic, such that production would dwindle to zero if there were any reduction in the price received by the producers, so the consumers must foot the entire bill.

*** Snip ***

The distribution of the corporate income tax is so uncertain that it is left out of most burden tables but is thought to be borne mainly by either shareholders (at least in the short run) or workers (in the long run, as capital adapts). These taxes are described as if workers, savers, and investors offered their labor and capital in totally inelastic supply, undiminished in quantity, when the tax cuts their compensation. It is assumed that they make no demand for an increase in compensation in response to the tax, so they swallow the entire burden of the income and other factor taxes that they pay.

*** Snip ***

In effect, the analysts pretend that producers can shift consumption taxes onto their customers but must absorb income taxes placed on their own earnings. Supply is infinitely elastic and infinitely inelastic at the same time. This is an inconsistent approach to tax shifting that is at odds with both economic theory and real-world experience.

In addition, neither approach deals with any further adjustments that occur in the real world when taxes are imposed and resources are shifted in response from one use to another.

[lewislynn]

You figure you'll get a takehome pay increase over the gross specified by contract if a business sees better ways to sustain profits?

What "gross specified contract" would that be exactly?...I'm self-employed so it doesn't matter to me anyway.

Sustain profits?...I'm sorry, maybe I misunderstood. Isn't the whole idea of the sales tax supposed to eliminate business taxes to increase their profit(s) by shifting their tax burden directly to the consumers? What do they want...blood?

The point you're trying to avoid by posting your irrelevant spam is the paper I posted was written by the authors of the fairtax to dispel some fairtax myths...

I'd say their intent is very clear....

[38] This is not the end of the advantages, however. Our family's disposable income would probably go up by the 7.65 percent employer payroll tax.

A taxpayer who is in a 28 percent bracket, and pays a 15.3 percent payroll tax, would have to earn $177,000 to purchase a home of $100,000

If we properly consider the buyer to pay the "employer share" of the payroll tax, or the buyer is a small business person, we will reduce further by $97,335 the amount our family has to earn to make just the interest payments over the course of the loan.

Your usual AFT tact of shooting the messenger won't help your case.

[Your Nightmare]

You figure you'll get a takehome pay increase over the gross specified by contract if a business sees better ways to sustain profits? LOL, I got a bridge to sell you. Better you I would suggest you make yourself very indispensible if you figure on getting that raise.

Funny, I didn't see LewisLynn doing any figuring in that post. It looked like Mastromarco and Burton were doing all the figuring.

When lacking empirical measurements, "economists generally believe"

Welcome to the Wacky World of Academic Economics. It's a wonder you put so much stock in what these guys say. Oh, right, I forgot, your economists have it all figured out. They use an economagical model that tells precisely what the economy will be doing on any given date in the future.

[Your Nightmare]

8 magic assumptions by economists about dollars paid to government by businesses:

1) Paying corporate income tax to government only reduces shareholders capital/earnings, and wages, but never increases consumer price.

2) Paying corporate property taxes to government only reduces shareholder capital/earnings and wages.

3) Paying any excise tax(except the employer's excise) to government only increases consumer price.

4) Paying the corporate employer's excise to government only reduces wages.

5) Paying a vat to government only increases consumer price.

6) Paying retail sales tax to government only increases consumer price

7) Paying sales tax on manufacturers or distributors products to government only increases consumer price.

8) Paying tariffs to government only reduces earnings of foreign producers.

---

8 magic assumptions by economists FairTaxers about dollars paid to government by businesses:

1. Paying corporate income tax to government only never reduces shareholders capital/earnings, and wages, but never only increases consumer price.
2. Paying corporate property taxes to government only never reduces shareholder capital/earnings and wages, it only increases consumer prices.
3. Paying any excise tax (except including the employer's excise) to government only increases consumer price.
4. Paying the corporate employer's excise to government only never reduces wages, it only increases consumer prices.
5. Paying a VAT to government only increases consumer price (and it was invented by the French).
6. Paying retail sales tax to government only increases consumer price
7. Paying sales tax on manufacturers or distributors products to government only increases consumer price.
8. Paying tariffs to government only never reduces earnings of foreign producers, it only increases consumer prices.

So, whose assumptions do we trust? The economist's or your's?