[RobFromGa]

The employer's portion of the social security and medicare tax must be paid on all wages and salaries, failure to do so can result in imprisonment. The fact that a company loses money does not mean that they pay no taxes. The fair tax proposes to eliminate this tax, doing so would allow the employee to take home his current gross with no tax deductions while still giving a substantial tax reduction to the employer,

This gives the employer a 7.65% reduction in the cost of his labor costs (up to the first $94k salary per employee). A far cry from 22-23%.

as I understand it unemployment taxes would also not be required any longer,

You understand wrong on this point, but it is negligible anyway.

Under the FairTax, either salaries are cut to about current takehome levels and prices can stay about the same, or salaries and prices go up when the 30% Fairtax is included.

[RipSawyer]

This gives the employer a 7.65% reduction in the cost of his labor costs (up to the first $94k salary per employee). A far cry from 22-23%. >>>>>>>>

I never said otherwise, I only said that you seemed to be ignoring that any taxes which are contained in prices would be eliminated, 7.65 percent is also a far cry from zero. There would also be enormous savings in compliance costs, whole armies of computer systems analysts, bookkeepers, accountants etc. could turn their talents to more productive uses, the cost to the government to collect taxes would be greatly reduced. There may be real problems with this tax but the arguments you are using don't hold water in my opinion.

What do you think would be the effect on retail sales of this tax? I can imagine a sharp drop, at least in the short term, due to the fact that taxes are not paid until money is spent. If I can postpone a purchase for another ninety days and draw tax free interest wouldn't I be likely to delay buying anything until I must have it? Would the resale value of the car in the drive way go up? Apparently the tax would not apply to sales between individuals and if so it would seem that the value of all used merchandise sold by individuals would go up by some percentage of the tax on new items.

I admit that it seems to contain an element of socialism in that the tax rebate would apparently go to families who have little or no visible income, this could mean that drug dealers and others who operate on a strictly cash basis might be collecting a monthly stipend from the taxpayers. This is the sort of question that concerns me a lot more than some of the other things I see mentioned.

[RipSawyer]

Begging your indulgence, it seems that in my reply to you I inadvertently quoted something that was not said by you at all but by someone else, apparently you have about the same opinion anyway so I suppose there is not too much harm done but it was careless on my part.

[pigdog]

It's you who "understand wrong" - but that's no news since you have always favored the present tax system since you began appearing on these threads (mendaciously claiming you "favored" the FairTax, BTW)