Transforming the Tax Code: An Examination of the President’s Tax Reform Panel Recommendations

My name is David Burton. I am a partner in the Argus Group, a small public policy firm based in Virginia. I have a particular interest in, and awareness of, the problems of small businesses for a number of reasons. I worked for many years in my family’s furniture and pool table manufacturing business stopping only once I was well into law school. I worked as the CFO and general counsel of a small 80 employee multinational manufacturing company. I also regard small businesses and farmers as the greatest source of dynamism, innovation, upward mobility and community strength in this country.

I appear today on behalf of Americans for Fair Taxation, also known as Fairtax.org. It is the nation’s largest grass roots citizens’ organization dedicated to fundamental tax reform. We appreciate the opportunity to present our views regarding the proposals offered by the President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform and on fundamental tax reform generally.

With the exception of tax lawyers, tax preparation firms, tax software firms and more than a few tax professors, almost everyone supports tax reform. However, without establishing criteria describing what constitutes genuine and constructive tax reform, it is impossible to assess the relative merits of the various plans or even to decide whether a plan would be constructive. This testimony sets forth criteria we believe that policy-makers should adopt for purposes of assessing fundamental tax reform plans, including the Tax Panel’s proposals. These criteria are not exhaustive but they are the most important.

In general, a reformed tax system should be fair and should minimize the adverse economic impact of raising the revenue that Congress decides is necessary to fund the federal government. A tax reform plan that meets the following twelve specific criteria will accomplish the twin goals of being fair and maximizing the economic prosperity of the American people. The FairTax best meets these criteria and, indeed, was designed to do so. Assuming the Tax Panel’s proposals were enacted as proposed, they would constitute only a modest improvement over current law and would likely degenerate quickly into something barely distinguishable from the present system.

1. The plan should not be biased toward consumption and against savings and investment but rather it should be neutral between different types of consumption, savings and investment.

2. The plan should have the lowest possible marginal tax rates, removing to the greatest extent possible the disincentive to work, save and invest and providing the greatest opportunity for upward mobility.

3. The plan should be neutral between whether to produce in the U.S. or abroad; it should not provide an artificial incentive to move jobs and production overseas.

4. The plan should impose the same tax burden on all forms of productive activity and should tax each activity at a uniform rate.

5. The plan should treat human capital formation and physical capital formation alike.

6. The plan should dramatically reduce the administrative and compliance burden on the public.

The plan should exempt the poor from tax and allow everyone to meet the necessities of life before paying tax. Once the necessities of life have been met, however, the plan should treat people equally with favoring one set of taxpayers over another and by taxing the same proportion of goods and services they purchase for their own personal use. The plan should not play favorites or reward the politically powerful or well connected.

The plan should be transparent and understandable so the public understands the tax system; it should not hide the true tax burden or obfuscate. The plan should be politically stable, so that the reform will last The plan should have a manageable transition

The prosperity criteria are those that will maximize economic growth and prosperity. The fairness criteria are those that we believe most Americans accept. The civic criteria are those that promote a healthy body politic and improve our political process.

The Tax Panel’s Simplified Income Tax Plan (chapter six of the report) The Tax Panel’s Growth and Investment Plan (chapter seven of the report) The FairTax (H.R. 25, S. 25) A business transfer tax (BTT) The flat tax (of the Hall-Rabushka type)

The FairTax has been introduced in the House and the Senate. It replaces the individual and corporate income tax, all payroll taxes and the estate and gift tax with a 23 percent national retail sales tax on all consumption of goods and service without exception. A rebate would be provided monthly in advance to all households equal to the poverty level times 23 percent. An extra amount is provided to married couples to prevent a marriage penalty.

The Business Transfer Tax is a subtraction method value added tax. The overall tax base is the value of all goods and services produced minus investment. It is collected from businesses using administrative means similar to the corporate tax. It is border adjusted. It has the same tax base, in principle, as a retail sales tax.

The flat tax is a form of value added tax where the tax on capital value added is taxed at the business level and labor value added is taxed at the individual level. Since investment is expensed and savings are accorded Roth IRA type treatment, it is a form of consumption tax. It is, like the income tax, an origin principle tax; thus imports are exempt from tax and exports are taxed. The administrative means used to collect the tax is similar to the current tax system.

Capital formation promotes greater productivity and output, higher rates of economic growth, and improved competitiveness. More capital per worker, embodying the latest technical innovations means more output, greater competitiveness and higher real wages. The current tax system, however, is very biased against savings and investment, often taxing the returns to savings or investment three or four times. This results in slower economic growth, reduced competitiveness and lower real wages. The solution is to adopt a tax system that is neutral toward savings and investment. The FairTax, the flat tax, a business transfer tax would address this issue decisively. In all three plans, labor and capital output is taxed equally and one time. In the flat tax and BTT this is accomplished by expensing capital investment and treating all savings effectively as if they were in Roth IRAs. In the FairTax, this result is achieved simply by taxing only final consumption and not taxing business inputs. Unlike in most state sales taxes, the FairTax does not hide taxes and impose a tax on a tax. It taxes goods and service once when sold to consumers.

The Tax Panel’s Growth and Investment Plan reduces the bias against savings and investment. However, the imposition of an extra 15 percent tax -- over and above the 30 percent business tax -- on dividends, interest and capital gains and the retention of the estate and gift tax constitutes a significant bias against investment and savings. The Simplified Income Tax Plan reduces the double taxation of corporate income but otherwise retains much of the bias against savings and investment inherent in current law.

High marginal tax rates reduce the incentive to work, save and invest and therefore reduce the amount people choose to work, to save and to invest. As tax rates are raised, overall economic output declines. Conversely, reducing marginal tax rates has dramatic positive economic effects.

The FairTax has the lowest marginal tax rates of any plan and is the most pro-growth of any plan considered. It has the broadest possible consumption tax base and a single tax rate. The FairTax base is equal to that of the BTT. It is larger than the flat tax, primarily due to the fact that the U.S. current imports dramatically more than it exports. The FairTax is unique in that it replaces the 15.3 percent payroll tax and since the FairTax base is broader than the payroll tax base, it reduces marginal tax rates further than any tax plan being considered.

When comparing the FairTax to other tax plans it is important to remember that the FairTax repeals the 15.3 percent payroll taxes (both Social Security and Medicare employment taxes and self-employment taxes). A flat tax with a rate of 17 or 20 percent, for example, is really a 32.3 or 35.3 percent tax on labor or self-employment income. Similarly, the Tax Panel’s two proposals have top tax rates on labor income of 45.3 percent. In some cases, the Tax Panel’s plans raise marginal tax rates. In most, the reductions are quite minor.

The current tax system imposes high income and payroll taxes on U.S. producers and workers whether they are selling in the U.S. market or abroad. The current tax system imposes little or no tax on goods imported into the U.S or services provided to U.S. consumers from abroad. Compared to our OECD trading partners, this places American producers at a roughly 18 percent competitive disadvantage, courtesy of the U.S. tax system.

It is no wonder that firms that remain in the U.S. find it difficult to compete. It is no wonder that manufacturing output and employment have fallen roughly since our competitors started adopting border adjusted taxes. Even our agricultural surplus has largely disappeared. The U.S. government, through its tax policy is telling American firms that they are idiots to continue producing in the U.S. since the U.S. government will tax them heavily if they produce goods here but impose no tax on goods purchased abroad.

In contrast to the U.S., every other significant trading country in the world raises a large part of its revenue from destination principle, border adjusted consumption taxes. Most use the value added tax but some (for example Canada) rely to some extent on sales taxes. These taxes are not levied on exports from those countries to the U.S. but are imposed on U.S. goods imported into their country.

The FairTax would by the very nature of a sales tax remediate this problem by taxing foreign and U.S. goods alike when sold at retail. It would, for the first time, eliminate the advantage accorded to foreign producers by current federal tax policy. A BTT would also address this issue by excluding exports from its tax base and by imposing the tax on imports. The Tax Panel’s Growth and Investment Plan would also be border adjusted. However, since the WTO only allows indirect taxes to be border adjusted, it is doubtful whether the Tax Panel’s plan, which is structured like a direct tax, would survive a challenge at the WTO. Sales taxes are explicitly permitted under WTO rules. Neither the flat tax or the Simplified Income Tax Plan would address the problem. Even the Tax Panel itself recognized that its proposal would probably fail WTO scrutiny.

The FairTax treats all goods and services alike. Thus, it does not distort the marketplace and allows businesses to adopt the most efficient economic means to meet consumer wants. A plan that taxes economic activity uniformly will promote the most efficient, productive economy. The flat tax and BTT would also do this (except, as mentioned below, as to labor income because of the retention of the payroll tax). Although the Tax Panel’s plans would reduce these distortions, they retain major distortions in the marketplace, including the health care, housing and investment markets.

Human capital is a critical element in productivity and innovation. The FairTax is the only tax reform plan to grant human capital parity with physical capital. The FairTax accomplishes this result by not taxing tuition or job training or educational wages in either the government or private sector. This is appropriate since the primary reason most people pursue an education is to increase their future earnings capacity and the expenditures generated by those future earnings will be taxed. Tuition and job training are an investment in human capital.

The flat tax does not address this problem. Education is treated like a consumption good and must be purchased with after flat tax and after payroll tax dollars. The Tax Panel’s proposals do not really address this issue; all they do is afford some savings for educational purposes consumption tax treatment.

The current tax system has major tax evasion problems notwithstanding billions of tax and information returns filed each year, roughly 6 billion hours spent figuring out the tax due, and an army of tax preparers, tax accountants, tax lawyers and IRS personnel. We waste nearly $300 billion annually complying with the current tax system. The time spent figuring our taxes is more people than the hours spent working in the auto industry, the computer manufacturing industry, the airline manufacturing industry and the steel industry combined.

The Tax Panel’s proposals would reduce this waste slightly. The flat tax would reduce it substantially, at least until the political process turned it back into something similar to what we have today. However, the flat tax does require all Americans to file tax returns and would retain withholding and payroll taxes rules.

The FairTax would radically reduce these costs and the complexity of the system. Individuals who were not in business for themselves would never need to fill out a tax return again. Moreover, the FairTax compensates businesses for the time required to fill out sales tax returns with a credit equal to ¼ of one percent of the sales tax remitted.

Under the FairTax, the question a business or auditor would need to answer is how much was sold to consumers. This is a simple question not that different from line 1 on a tax return today. Under the FairTax, that would effectively be that. All of the major sources of complexity today would be repealed. Gone would be payroll and income tax withholding, 1099 reporting, inventory tax accounting (including the uniform capitalization rules), tax depreciation accounting and recapture rules, tracking tax basis, the alternative minimum tax, qualified plan rules (including top-heavy, participation and vesting rules), international tax rules, capital gains rules, passive loss limitations, estate and gift tax planning and a host of other rules.

Small businesses are disproportionately harmed today by the large compliance burden imposed by the current tax system. They would disproportionately gain from implementation of the FairTax.

It does not make a great deal of sense to impose taxes on poor people. Neither, however, does it make sense to hide from them the cost of government. The poor cannot even meet their basic needs and are receiving financial assistance in many ways. Yet today, they pay significant taxes. Part of those taxes are the payroll taxes imposed on the working poor. But the poor also bear the burden of paying higher prices for the goods they buy because of the taxes imposed on businesses and the cost incurred by businesses to comply with the tax system. Businesses, after all, must recover all of their costs, including taxes, in the price of the goods they sell. If they do not, they will quickly go out of business.

Because of the rebate, the FairTax is progressive. The effective tax rate climbs as expenditures climb. The effective tax rate is negative or zero for the poor, it is quite low for the lower middle class. The effective tax rate for a married couple with two children with taxable spending of $51,320 would have been 11 ½ percent in 2005. The very rich would pay nearly 23 percent on their spending.

The FairTax is the only plan that entirely untaxes the poor. It accomplishes this by providing every household in America with a rebate paid monthly in advance equal to 23 percent of the poverty level (plus an extra amount in the case of married couples to prevent a marriage penalty). This, in effect, protects every household in America from paying any tax on spending up to the poverty level which means that no poor person is paying any sales tax and that no household is paying sales tax on the necessities of life.

By repealing the payroll tax, the FairTax eliminates the greatest burden on the working poor and reduces the cost of hiring new, entry level workers. By repealing business taxes, hidden taxes that must be recovered by businesses in the price of goods sold are repealed.

All other plans keep the payroll tax, which is the largest tax paid by poor Americans. No other plan is structured to ensure that no poor person will pay any tax. No other plan ensures that all households may meet the necessities of life without paying tax.

The FairTax treats people equally on spending over the poverty level. It does not favor one set of taxpayers over another or one type of producer over another. It taxing everyone at a uniform rate on goods and services they purchase for their own personal use.

The flat tax moves in the right direction but retains the payroll tax which taxes labor income at different tax rates depending on the level of their income and does not tax capital income. The Tax Panel’s proposals retain many tax preferences and treat people differently depending on the degree to which they are willing to structure their lives in a way approved of by government. In addition, the Tax Panel retains graduated tax rates which punish people who choose to work hard, study hard, save and invest.

It is unfair for the government to play favorites, rewarding certain politically powerful and well-connected interests over others that do not have the same political pull. The tax system should be about do what is right and just rather than what will help fill campaign coffers and satisfy interest groups. The FairTax treats everyone alike and does not exempt any person, any good or any service from tax. The rules are simple and clear and apply to everyone.

The Tax Panel’s proposals continue the practice of rewarding certain interests, although the proposals do reduce the scope of tax preferences compared to current law. The flat tax would largely eliminate the favoritism of current law. It does, however, retain on major favorite. Foreign produced goods are favored over U.S. produced goods. A BTT would not play favorites either and would treat foreign and U.S. produced goods and services alike.

The FairTax is the easiest of any tax reform plan to understand. That is its virtue and its vice. It is a simple sales tax with a single tax rate.

It does not divide up the public’s tax burden among four or five “low” tax rate taxes, some of which are hidden from view, that add up to very high tax rates. The FairTax has one very transparent tax rate which, in reality, is the lowest marginal tax rate by far of any tax reform plan. Yet because the FairTax is honest and transparent and the current tax system is anything but honest and transparent, FairTax detractors are able to obfuscate, demagogue and confuse by misrepresenting the facts.

Who knows who pays the corporate tax? Most people – small businesses and self-employed people being obvious exceptions – do not even know about the massive employer payroll taxes that drive their wages down. Most people have only the vaguest idea of what they pay in income taxes today and why since the taxes are withheld and, as often as not, they used paid preparers or software to figure their tax.

The Tax Panel’s plans are complex and retain most of the complexity of the current system. The flat tax is relatively simple, yet even many of its most vocal proponents seem to think it is an income tax rather than a consumption tax. They do not even understand their own proposal.

Only the FairTax is simple and can be easily understood by anyone. Under the FairTax, people will understand for the first time in their lifetime how the federal government is actually paid for and who is paying for it.

If the flat tax is kept as it is but with graduated rates, it becomes what is often called the X-tax, a graduated rate consumption tax. The flat tax can be easily changed by to an income tax. Starting with the flat tax, if we depreciate capital rather than expense it, make inventory purchases deductible when the inventory is sold rather than when purchased, make interest taxable and deductible, then we have largely converted the flat tax into an income tax. Add a few special interest deductions, credits and exclusions and when are very nearly back to where we started. That is a very real problem with the flat tax. It is very easy to corrupt its design and eliminate many of the gains to be had from adopting the proposal in the first place. The entire administrative apparatus of the income and payroll tax system is retained and it would be very easy to go back. Attempts to do so would start immediately.

If the FairTax were enacted, it would much more difficult to go back to an income tax system. The entire massive and expensive administrative apparatus built up over nine decades would be dismantled. It is doubtful that people would want to go back. It is doubtful that they would want to invest the massive resources necessary to do so. The FairTax, then, is a stable reform. There will, of course, be the necessity to fend off those who want to exempt one category or another of goods or services. But if the rebate system is in place, the most commonly used line of argument (we need to help the poor) will fall flat. There will always be better ways to help the poor than exempting some category of goods.

The flat tax sidesteps transition issues. It is, however, unlikely that in the final analysis Congress will force businesses to lose trillions of dollars of basis on capital assets if the income generated by those assets remains subject to tax. To do so would amount to wealth loss for existing capital owners of well over a trillion dollars to American businesses. Addressing this transition issue, will force the flat tax rate (or a BTT rate) to climb considerably.

There is no need to be concerned with basis per se in the FairTax since income streams are no longer subject to tax. Businesses will not get far complaining that their tax rate has been reduced to zero. The analogous problem in the FairTax is the sale of goods subject to FairTax that were not deducted for income tax purposes. Collecting sales tax and failing to allow an income tax deduction would effectively be double taxation. The FairTax legislation addresses this issue by providing a credit to businesses selling inventory held on the changeover date to prevent the double taxation.

There is a general danger, however, when considering transition to want to compensate every loss. In fact, in most cases where there are losses, there is someone experiencing an equal and offsetting windfall gain on the other side of the transaction. These gains should be taxed to compensate losses (if they exist) because if the loss is unjust then so is the unexpected and windfall gain at another’s expense. Moreover, many of the claimed losses on capital assets will in reality be illusory because assets price will in general increase due to according consumption tax treatment to investment.

The current system has a disproportionately adverse impact on small businesses because of the high compliance costs that consume a relatively large share of small business income and because of the many ways the current system singles out small businesses for discriminatory tax treatment.

The FairTax addresses this issue by radically simplifying the tax law, reducing compliance costs and compensating businesses for their time complying with the system. The FairTax also repeals payroll taxes, which have a disproportionately negative impact on small businesses both because of administrative cost, the self-employment tax and the increased cost of labor. Finally, the FairTax will help small manufacturers and farmers compete against foreign goods in U.S. or foreign markets by taking the taxes out of exports and by taxing U.S. and foreign goods alike in U.S. markets. Many larger U.S. companies have already outsourced a huge portion of their manufacturing or are planning to do so. Small companies located here do not really have the option of outsourcing their manufacturing since they do not generally have both manufacturing and distributional divisions.

No other plan addresses these needs of small businesses as directly and effectively as the FairTax. BTT proposals tend not to address payroll tax issues. The flat tax does not address either payroll tax issues or level the playing field with imports. The Tax Panel’s proposals would only moderately improve the current system.

The analysis above demonstrated that the FairTax is the most pro-growth and most Fair tax plan being considered in Congress. It showed that the Tax Panel’s proposals were seriously deficient. It showed that the BTT and the flat tax would constitute a significant improvement over current law. The chart below is a summary of these findings.

The proposals offered by the President’s Tax Panel are a major disappointment. They represent modest progress compared to present law. But the progress they offer is quite small and unlikely to last very long given the nature of the political process.

The flat tax is a highly constructive proposal, but compares unfavorably where it differs from either a sales tax or a BTT. Moreover, because it retains the administrative apparatus of the income and payroll tax, it is likely to revert back toward an income tax. Finally, by retaining payroll taxes, its rates on labor income are unnecessarily high and the tax burden on poor and lower middle income persons is higher than the FairTax.

The FairTax is the best plan being considered. It is extremely pro-growth. It would cause dramatically higher investment, large productivity gains and higher real wages. It would improve the competitiveness of U.S. producers. It would improve the well-being of the average American dramatically. It would dramatically reduce the vast amount wasted each year on compliance costs. It would untax the poor and be progressive. It would tax people based on what they consumed for themselves rather than what they invested in the community or gave to charities. It would get the government out of the business of playing favorites and rewarding politically powerful interests. It is transparent and understandable. It will lead to a more just and more prosperous America. It is the best plan.

We urge you to cosponsor the legislation and to work with your colleagues to enact it into law so that the American people can, at last, have the tax system they deserve.

BTW, I'm still waiting for pages numbers where Payne, the political scientist, discuss the current system's affect on prices.

Are you now going to argue that costs do not have an effect on prices? If so, forget it as I have no interest in participating in such a silly debate.

If even HALF of the costs identified in the study are removed that alone would provide for the possibility of price reductions FAR in excess of any claimed by supporters of the Fairtax.

BTW, I could not care less about the specific area of Dr. Payne's academic credentials as they have no bearing at all on the validity of his work.

As you SHOULD know by this time, here ARE no "taxes on interest".

Also, the prebate is a refund of tax, not an entitlement and the "cost" of the prebate (which is less than $500 billion rather than the $600 billion misused by opponents) is already encompassed in the 23% rate of the FairTax. S/S payouts can increase (or decrease) under either tax system and are more related to inflation than anything else - and the FairTax does not trigger inflation since it is revenue neutral.

Imports will indeed be taxed for the first time - that, along with removing tax costs from US goods exported - is part of the benefit of the FairTax in helping the products US firms. As the world economy presently stands, our goods cost more - and foreign goods cost less due to the current tax law ... or perhaps you didn't read the lead-in article.

There is no "tax on taxes" nor have you ever understood what "gross payments" as used in the bill actually means. And as well, you certainly did leave out the fact that under the income tax you must typically earn considerably more to buy the $100 baseball bat" (which pricing ignores the income tax effect).

"I can't name one item or service that would be an increasd benefit as a result of an increased price due to a new tax..."

No doubt you can't - since you've never really tried - but the many examples of comparative purchasing power that show the FairTax benefiting far and away MOST taxpayers clearly show that to be the case. Sorry that you can't see that. Comparative purchasing power certainly increases (as shown) due to the FairTax and nothing the opponents have presented shows otherwise. Just as with your post, there are unfounded claims but no specific verifiable information. The comparative purchasing power studies are done with verifiable actual figures using simple arithmetic.

"... all the dishonesty that is done pimping it ...""

Unfortunate that you feel that way, but let's take your "3 major problems" and talk about them:

"The retirees paying additional S/S taxes". S/S is going to have to be "delinked" (your term) in any event as we're running out of wage earners and wages to support you and all the other "old folks" involved. Most retirees would have very low effective tax rates under the FairTax and, since prices will decline with the removal of income taxes, will do very well since their purchasing power will actually be increased under the FairTax. Actual examples of comparative purchasing power between the income tax and the FairTax have repeatedly shown this. Have you, somehow, missed seeing them since they use existing verifiable data and simple arithmetic?

"The fairtax prebate is a new $600 Billion entitlement program". Several things to note there. First - it's not an "entitlement program" and your claiming so has no effect on the actual fact that it's a tax rebate - and it says so in the bill. In addition it is not $600 billion cost; so claimed in the Tax Panel Report only because the staff drafting it chose to cut the actual FairTax base by something like 20%, thereby artificially (and without justification) boosting the claimed rate greatly. Based on this inflated rate and the HHS poverty level figures the "so-called" $600 billion cost" is also inflated. The actual figure using the rate the bill actually uses rather than the one that the Tax Panel declaims, is something like $429 rather than $600 billion as compared with loopholes and tax incentives of $715 billion under the income tax system.

"30% tax is too high and the way the tax is designed it can only result in an immediate 20% inflation". Both right and wrong. Right because certainly the "30% rate" IS too high and, in fact, does not exist except in the vocabulary of FairTax opponents who pretend that everything will be "inflated" by that amount. The correct rate is 23% tax inclusive as stated in the bill and on the required receipt and while a consumer will pay this at the cash register, the actual cost to him is much less due to his greatly lower effective FairTax rate. And wrong because the FairTax because does nothing to cause inflation - it's revenue neutral so there should be no more inflation than we presently have.

Actually, there's no "magic" involved at all - just mainly common sense. If you'd read the lead-in paper, what is being said is that the economy will expand since non-productive income tax costs are removed and almost every business should be able to improve it's bottom line. There's certainly no reason why any business should not do well and prosper under the FairTax unless, perhaps, they need new blood in the CEO position. That's why those guys make the "big bucks".

You'd be more than welcome to show how your business cannot increase its business volume or its profits (or at least maintain them) with an expanding economy as the FairTax will bring about.

Are you now going to argue that costs do not have an effect on prices?

For sure not economics costs, but other costs don't, either. Prices are a factor of supply and demand, not costs.

If so, forget it as I have no interest in participating in such a silly debate.

Silly? The theory of supply and demand is day one of Econ 101.

If even HALF of the costs identified in the study are removed that alone would provide for the possibility of price reductions FAR in excess of any claimed by supporters of the Fairtax.

Remember, much of Paynes "costs" are economic costs. And for the real costs, it appears the results of the ADL study he used might have been five times too high. So even half of his estimate might be way too high.

BTW, I could not care less about the specific area of Dr. Payne's academic credentials as they have no bearing at all on the validity of his work.

His lack of education in economics has nothing to do with the validity of his work regarding economics? Sure it does. Besides, the validity of his work has been disputed regardless of his academic credentials.

What are your credentials as an "economist"??? Is FR only limited now to economists??

I think if someone is going to post professional study about economics, it is relevant if the author of that study has an education in economics or, as in this case, not.

Regardless, it the costs are removed - they're gone plainly enough and prices would certainly be lower. No "economist" required to figure that out.

Maybe an economist is required because an economist would tell you that, unless you change the supply or demand for a product, the price won't change.

The ADL study was a government commissioned report and the paper you quote from - as noted previously - is one of the better-know "pieces" by William Gale of the Brookings Institute - hardly an unbiased source since he has tried for years (and still does) to do anything required in base-shrinking and rate raising of the FairTax to defeat it. this is the paper where he quoted a 94% FairTax rate. Even a fool should recognize that as ludicrous ... yet there it is.

This study is a slight rehash of his earlier paper attacking a tax like the FairTax. The rebuttal to these points is in a paper on the AFFT website. Mr. Gale tries similar stunts with the ADL study, shrinking Payne's $500+ billion number by half with an arbitrary slashing of the amount - and that's just for starters. You may find such tactics "OK". Most people find them suspect and odious when backed by nothing at all.

Maybe an economist is required because an economist would tell you that, unless you change the supply or demand for a product, the price won't change.

That really is quite phunny! To hear you tell it there is no work being done at all to find cost cutting efficiencies which would allow price reductions and increased market shares in relatively static markets. I say BALONEY!!! and suspect that most every economist, and perhaps even some political scientists, would agree.

"So you can't address what he actually said? Frankly, in the economic world, Gale is respected - Payne isn't even in the economic world. "

OH, but I DID address what he said. If you perhaps overlooked post #77 you're welcome to go read it.

Speaking of "logical fallacies" (your term), the more correct statement should have been {modifications in brackets):

"Frankly, in [certain specific parts of] the economic world, Gale is respected - Payne isn't even in the economic world [of course not, he was never claimed to be so and is a "polysci" guy]. "

Mr. Gale is also well-known in other parts of the economic world as being a hot-eyed defender of the Beltway status quo from which he earns his living and he frequently (in papers he authors or influences) inserts little techniques that some might call "untruths" - things such as the "94% tax rate" in the paper at hand or the arbitrary slashing of a figure of Dr. Payne's to half its value while offering no valid reason for doing so except that "it isn't done". He nowhere shows that.

"... Joel Slemrod is an extremely respected economist. Why don't you address what he said instead of trying the "guilt by association" crap (oh, right, because that's all you got) ..."

Joel Slemrod may or may not be an "extremely respected economist" but should he continue to co-write things with equal credit to William Gale as he has frequently done, it will certainly paint him with the same brush of questionable veracity as Mr. Gale. And he has and does co-author these in views very like Mr. Gale and the Brookings Institute facade. Anyone with a computer handy can certainly find this out for themselves so your attempt at pumping up the reputations of the two is not required. It is public information --- as is the "94% tax rate".

PIGDOG: Several things to note there. First - it's not an "entitlement program" and your claiming.

By what definition???? Let's see what an 'entitlement program' means:

ENTITLEMENT

Princeton Web dictionary: S: (n) entitlement (right granted by law or contract (especially a right to benefits))

Wikipedia dictionary: Entitlement is the guarantee for access to benefits due to rights, or by agreement through law.

The Free Dictionary: A government program that guarantees and provides benefits to a particular group:

Answers.com: A government program that guarantees and provides benefits to a particular group:

Emery's Legal Definition: Right to benefits, income or property which may not be lessened or reduced without due process.

Entitlement: An entitlement is a particular type of authorization that mandates that the federal government pay benefits to any person or unit of government that meets the eligibility requirements that are established for the program.

The 'prebate' meets every definition of the word entitlement I can find. But I am sure you can twist lie and/or spin to find some way that it is not. Just add entitlement to the long list of words pigdog redefines.

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