Dear Bigun,
"When Fairtaxers talk about these things they are talking about the WHOLE package, NOT just the taxes themselves."
That may be, but a claim was made about THE TAXES THEMSELVES, and I merely showed that the claim was entirely unhinged from actual corporate reality. There are likely no C corporations that add no value, but enjoy 29% pre-tax profit margins. That there might be six such companies in a value chain shows a level of unfamiliarity with the world of business that belies and undermines the entire argument for the NSRT.
In 2000, the IRS reports that of 27 million business entities filing tax returns, only 2.2 million (8%), the C corporations, were liable for corporate income taxes at all. The remainder of businesses are subchapter S corporations, LLCs, proprietorships, various sorts of partnerships, that aren't liable for the corporate income taxe. Thus, it would be far more realistic to show cascading effects with more typical corporate income tax burdens in the range of 0% - 2%, with most businesses at most levels showing 0% corporate income tax. This would show cascaded corporate income taxes totaling perhaps 1% - 2%, not 17+%.
And, as a matter of fact, that is congruent with the overall reality that corporate income taxes at the federal level only account for 1.3% of GDP.
Of course, this also means that only 8% of businesses have corporate income tax compliance issues or costs, as well.
I suppose the reason why the initial claim was made is because even NSRTers recognize that proving actual embedded taxes is a lot more tangible than theorizing about possible changes in behavior due to the change in the tax laws, as individuals pursue their own interests.
I personally find the idea that the economic behavior of individuals and corporations is going to change significantly for the "better" to be, at best, a fuzzy and unproven argument, and at worst, entirely discreditable.
As an example, I've been told by some that "savings" will be rewarded and increased at the expense of "consumption." Oh, maybe. But I find that current tax laws already favor capital formation as opposed to final consumer consumption. In fact, that's part of the reason why corporate income tax revenues are so low, because companies can minimize their tax burdens by plowing profits back into capital formation.
On the other hand, the NSRT won't have that bias for capital formation, and American companies may wind up reducing their own internal funding of capitalization, which would actually be a bad thing.
In any event, as I said, I was responding to one claim made, not to an entire panoply of claims. And that claim is shown not to be congruent with reality.
sitetest
There is nothing in the cascading tax example in #154 that specifies any sort of business organization at all. It could even be individuals functioning as proprietors. The effect is still the same despite your fanciful reasoning s-test.
That example shows no effects from payroll taxes or compliance costs, either, so it is, if anything very low. Your claim of 1- 2% is nonsense. You better check your figures, since the IRS has stated that the typical corporation pays in the 25% bracket. The NIPA numbers show a different sotry altogether in that there were 5.3 million corporations (including 3.2 million S-corps) leaving about 2.8 million corps with net income and they paid taxes amounting to about $210 million.
There are many other types of business taxpayers other than corporations and I've no doubt there were net payments from them into the fed coffers also. Even the S-corps can figure into cascading taxes. You guys genuinely do not seem to understand the subject but keep flailing around trying to show taxes don't cascade,
The do, and a heck of a lot more that your 1-2% claim.