Well, the table has four core rows: Input (cost), Profit Margin, Tax Rate and Selling Price. It also includes two rows that show running totals: Accumulated Tax, Tax as a percentage of Price. So, yes, I see the table exactly as it is labeled and subsequently portrayed by its poster: an example of how taxes cascade and accumulate throughout the chain. It attempts to show nothing else. It does not attempt to include "compliance costs" or any "tax-related" cost that is not a direct tax levied on profit.
Unfortunately as I and others have repeatedly pointed out, and as the poster and his allies have yet to address, the table is flawed in both its algorithm and its fundamental input data.
As for Dr. Jorgensen's work, I'm glad you now realize that he did not model what many are claiming he did. Many have and continue to represent things about the models and outcomes that are simply not true.
Please do not misinterpret what I am saying: I do NOT say that the cost to business resulting from the implementation of the current tax scheme is insignificant. I AM saying that the table and supporting arguments posted by pigdog and others does not model those costs at all, and what the table does attempt to model is done so incorrectly.
Other threads have attempted to include discussions of compliance costs, etc., (to little common ground), but THIS thread is principally about whether the magnitude of take home pay increases and price decreases as represented by the FairTax proponents are possible. As you apparently now agree, Dr. Jorgensen's work does not support the claims that have been made.
As you apparently now agree, Dr. Jorgensen's work does not support the claims that have been made.
What I agree with is that Dr. Jorgenson's work is incomplete on the subject as regards the effect of tax related overhead cost effects on wages and prices equally.
The Dr. Jorgensons work indicates little change in purchasing power of the individual citizen once NRST is included with the price received by the producer as consumer price the customer pays.
I agree that Dr. Jorgenson held takehome pay constant with respect to the income/payroll tax baseline as a simplifying assumption for implmenting his model, thereby saying nothing about where actual pay received in the real world will goes. As has been pointed out it is unlikely that contracted wages (i.e. gross wage on pay slips) can actually change in the real world outside Jorgenson's implementation.
Bottom line, assume gross pay will become takehome in any real situation, producer prices can fall by whatever proportion the business side of income & payroll taxes make up current prices.
Additionally it should be noted that producer prices can fall or gross income can climb by what ever tax related overhead costs (not accounted for in Jorgenson's simulation) are saved in going to a retail sales tax system would effectuate a net increase in consumer purchasing power to that degree.
What cannot be said definitively, is that Jorgensons IGEM results preclude the claims of NRST supporters as regards receiveing full contracted pay, and lower producer prices. The question that remains is how much is the gain from any full accounting of tax related business costs, and that remains a question for further studies on the bottom line thier.