And Boortz/Linder's claim of 23% is just as fraudulent.
No, the 'FairTax' rate will be about 30%.
The feds spend 2.5 trillion. The GDP is over 12.5 trillion. Approximately two-thirds of that (8.25 trillion) is consumer spending. 2.5 trillion divided by 8.25 trillion is an inclusive federal sales tax rate of 30%. To say that government will pay taxes to itself is a circular argument.
Evasion will be massive at a 30% rate.
No, the 'FairTax' rate will be about 30%.
Actually the current revenue neutral calculations(i.e. taking the bush tax cuts into account) puts it at 23.8% tax-exclusive (expressed in the same manner as state sales taxes.)
As you might see if you'd viewed current derivations of the revenue neutral FairTax rate, the 30% you claim to be the rate (which is merely the tax-exclusive rate in the bill presenly; the t.i. rate is 23%) would be quite high as would the figure in the book.
As pointed out to you the present figure is 23.8% but, hey, a Squirrel being within 20% or so is "rignt on the money" as most of us have seen.
Your revenue neutral numbers are nonsense. Go look up some real ones.
This is true. No jurisdiction in the world has found a sales tax rate in the 10-15% range (non-tax-inclusive) sustainable due to evasion. The non-tax-inclusive rate of the so-called "Fair Tax" is, as you observed, 30%.
When sales tax rates get that high, sales taxes are converted to VATs. We've seen it in Canada, South America, Europe, Africa and most recently in India.
That's less than the 36.9% marginal rate now, which the truely wealthy never pay anyway. I bet it will be a wash anyway because there is already a large number of people from waiters to daycare providers to drug dealers who don't pay income taxes now, but will still have to buy a new car or new house or go to Walmart and pay the tax. But a stronger argument is, so what? I should be concerned about that? How about the pressure that will but put on goverment to cut back? This IS about showing people how much government costs.