It is right there on every pay stub. At the end of the year, the total paid for the year is on the employee's W2. If the taxpayer has "little idea how much he pays", he is either impaired, or just doesn't care.
I wonder, is the employee who doesn't know how much is deducted from his pay check for SS going to have any interest in or ability to understand how much he pays in sales taxes? Will he save his receipts and add the tax every two weeks to see how much he is paying?
There seems to be no great rush in Congress to do much about S/S and it's pretty obvious that there will soon be one wage earner supporting many receivers - not economically healthy at all.
I don't think even the most pessimistic projections anticipate that.
The FairTax OTOH gives us additional time by funding the plan without making it a practical impossibility and it makes the tax costs very visible to each taxpayer with every taxable purchase. That will certainly ratchet up the political pressure to alter S/S and reduce tax rates unless you believe that taxpayers actually like higher taxes...
What happened to all that talk about lower effective tax rates and more disposable income you've been promising.
"If the taxpayer has "little idea how much he pays", he is either impaired, or just doesn't care."
I don't think I'd insult the taxpayer like that, but you're welcome to your opinion.
I believe the effect of a pay period notification (for those who actually get such ... and not every taxpayer does, you'll perhaps note) or a one time each year (after the withholdings have been withheld - and which you can do nothing about IAE) is quite different and far less immediate than paying the FairTax upon purchase. Buying, say, an item whose untaxed price is $77 and having to shell out $100 at the cash register will definitely be noticed more quickly. The fact that it's actual cost to the taxpayer is less due to his much lower effective FairTax tax rate will be appreciated by the taxpayer but he'll certainly note the tax-inclusive amount and be reminded how much (in addition to the item cost itself) "his" government costs.
And he'll do this time after time after time each and every time he purchases taxable things - and he need not save the receipts to notice.
"I don't think even the most pessimistic projections anticipate that."
Perhaps I should have included a smiley after that comment since it was intentionally ironic, but some of the projections are not greatly far from that. The point is S/S is going broke and that we'll soon be out of sufficient wage income to fund it. Originally with S/S, there were many, many workers supporting 1 recipient, now there are something like 3 or 4 and the number is rapidly dwindling.
Since S/S is not the topic of this thread I have no intention of pursuing the subject since it per se is not the point. The point is that the funding source is drying up - and quickly. Certainly Congress realizes this and this merely gives another reason to have the FairTax to give us some time to - hopefully - eliminate the whole thing and let people invest for themselves to obtain their own old folks income. You and I may not live long enough to feel the effects, but perhaps our kids/grandkids will, But then again, if Congress gets off its collective duff and brings the FairTax law into being perhaps we'll benefit too. I've noted that Congress CAN be slow to do things sometimes (there's an implied smiley there).
"What happened to all that talk about lower effective tax rates and more disposable income you've been promising."
Happened??? Nothing at all. It's still right there in bill form as HR25/S25 in front of the elected representatives of the American voter waiting for sufficient notice by the assorted politicians in DC to act upon it and give us the tax law we want and deserve rather that keep the abomination we now have which violates - AT THE VERY LEAST - the spirit (if not the actual practice) of FREEDOM. It'll happen!!!
I think you're omitting an obvious other choice; that he doesn't care because he can do nothing about it. It wouldn't matter to him if his stub showed he paid a bazillion in tax last week- he doesn't ever see it. Withholding works that way.
If, however, he had to pull green money cash from his wallet to pay his fed taxes, he'd notice.
I wonder, is the employee who doesn't know how much is deducted from his pay check for SS going to have any interest in or ability to understand how much he pays in sales taxes?
Maybe so, maybe not. It isn't the amount that interests people so much. As noted, paystubs have no effect. The difference maker is that he will have to pull extra money from his wallet to pay fed taxes.
EVERY projection puts SS bankrupt as a result of boomers retiring. Pessimistic projections just make it happen a few year sooner.
Under the nrst, the idea of SS privatization will be infinitely more popular as a pol running for election says "Listen, I can lower your rate from 23 to 15% by privatizing SS". That should be obvious.