More so than the authors of the fairtax bill.
Here's a reflection of their confidence in Jorgenson's accuracy from the same paper I posted above:
[51] Research by Harvard economist Dale Jorgenson shows that producer prices will fall 20 to 35 percent under the Fair Tax plan since the income tax and payroll tax is embedded in the price of everything we buy. In this case, new housing prices will be approximately the same, even including the sales taxes, as they are today, and the relative prices of new and used housing will remain roughly comparable to what they are today. If Jorgenson is wrong and the sales tax causes prices to rise, then existing home prices will rise immediately to reflect the fact that they are not subject to tax. Although this would result in a one-time, quick windfall gain to owners of existing houses, the relative price of new and old homes will be comparable.
Of course no one here has seen that elusive research...at least no one will admit they've seen it.
On the one hand the authors include the employer portion in the gross wages but Jorgenson forgot to read the plan telling him the emploees would be getting their income taxes and both halves of the payroll taxes in their checks.
I think everyone agree's those taxes are paid out of the gross sales of products as opposed to "embedded in the price" but they can't even agree amongst themselves to what the affects would be or even if the entire tax burden is removed.
If push comes to shove and if there's ever a legitimate, legal, debate about who owns the employer portion of the payroll tax I put my money where every economist and government study says it is...the employee.
And therein lies a huge problem with the whole NRST plan. If employees keep all the taxes, the after tax prices of goods and services will have to go up substaintially. The only way for the price of goods to fall 20-30% is if all employees agree to take a pay cut, and I just don't see how that happens. Having the price of all goods and services increase 10-20% overnight can not be a good thing.
Ahem... where do gross sales come from?... that would be prices. There is no other continous source of revenue.
Sales revenue is the only indefinite income stream for business survivability.