Hey, Rob - no one that I know ever said that embedded tax costs were ever composed - even partly of income/payroll taxes (even the ER portion which certainly belongs properly to the employee).
Intellectually superior to you? - I suppose you think that's flattering, but I'm just a plain, old country boy ... but I am willing to read, study and learn form many different economic analyses. That's a mark against you since you are not and think you are "right".
Believe me there is no "corner" that you have or even could have "backed me into" - that merely shows you own arrogance. Perhaps if you'd really paid attention to much of the material you'd been directed to, you'd have a better realization that there are places other than employee wages/taxes where costs can build up.
And as I said you can stop the pretense about wanting to "find out" something. It's clear that's not what you're after at all.
How much do pre-tax prices for goods and services go down under the FairTax? All goods and services already contain the embedded costs of the current tax system in their prices. When these embedded taxes are removed, prices come down. Dale Jorgenson, Ph.D., former chairman of the Economics Department at Harvard University, has projected an average producer price reduction of 22 percent for goods and services in just the first year after the adoption of the FairTax. In addition, the FairTax lowers compliance costs by an estimated 95 percent and the removal of these costs will force prices down even lower.
"All goods and services already contain the embedded costs of the current tax system in their prices" sure sounds like they are talking about income taxes and payroll taxes. And this makes clear that they aren't counting compliance cost savings in their 22% expected reduction, any idea where the 22% is going to come from?
The FairTax.org site doesn't tell us.