Posted on 08/27/2007 7:53:49 AM PDT by Turret Gunner A20
Your claim that over time prices go up.
The reason an inclusive number is used for the fair tax is that it is replacing the income tax, which is an inclusive tax. So to compare apples to apples, both must be quoted at an inclusive rate.
Then how does the actual Wal-Mart stores get income, pay their bills, and produce a profit?
Why not? Companies are not longer going to be paying business taxes. The $60,000 you see pretax does not also represent the real cost to employers of an employee because it doesn't include the social security taxes the company pays on the employee's behalf that are in addition to what the employee sees deducted on their paycheck. The employer's "contribution" is currently hidden from the employees because the government didn't want to scare people with what social security is really costing them.
That person that is thinks they are paid $60,000 is really being paid more than that.
The employer no longer has to pay out those social security taxes. They don't have to pay business taxes. Their accounting costs drop dramatically.
What evidence do you have that the savings to businesses don't cover the price reductions?
As you have been told numerous times before, prices will drop because corporate and other taxes will be eliminated up and down the supply chain.
Payroll taxes may or may not be fully credited in an employee’s paycheck. If FICA withholding is credited but employer’s FICA withholding is retained, the employer has a means to lower prices and the employee sees a full paycheck.
The amount of the price decrease depends on the depth of the supply chain in manufacturing and services. Price lowering estimates presently run in a two sigma band of 11% t0 36%.
But this is the umpteenth time you have been lectured on this. You did not listen before, you will not listen now. So what’s the point of responding to you?
You have no data, you’ve done no research, you have only hot air. Who needs that?
See post 93. If you own WM stock, how’s that working out the last ten years or so?
I don’t see much of a rise in value or dividends.
Your claim that over time prices go up.J.H.C.! I'm not claiming it -- they do go up!!!! That's what inflation is - PRICES GOING UP!!!! If every business was caught in a price war/death spiral/race to the bottom like y'all seem to think they would never go up.
WM last split in 1999, its price hasn’t kept up since, and dividend is maybe 2% per year. I don’t think they produce that much profit.
Contrast with Microsoft, which puts itself in position to compete in another way.
Glad to see someone is ‘still thinking’. Yes, market forces work.
WRONG!!!!
I have 4 gas stations within a half mile of where I work.
Whenever one drops the price, the others soon follow, at least to some extent. Two of the stations tend to be lower in price than the others. One of them always has long lines during busy times, so the others are happy with slightly higher prices and picking up those who are unwilling to wait.
The other with lower prices is a tiny local chain of a few stores that obviously scrapes by on low margins. They often have one pump that isn't working or a credit card machine on a pump that doesn't work. Their signs are cheap. Their store where they sell soft drinks, munchies, beer, and such is what used to be the garage area when it used to be a shell gas station.
There is definitely competition at the retail level in the area.
The first CD player I purchased somewhere around 1989 cost me around $200. You could buy one with far more features for $20 now. It is 10 times cheaper now and that doesn't even take into account that $200 would in general buy you much more than it will now.
As for questioning if some retailer will be the first to lower their price on things, have you ever heard of a sale?
What world are you in?
I'm in the real one. I work in the electronics industry, and I've seen the amount we can charge for things go down year after year.
WRONG!!!!
WAGES: It has been made clear by many proponents of the FairTax that they are expecting 100% of their current gross pay, and that many employer/employee wage relationships, including those for government workers are controlled by contract. So, we'll assume every wage earner gets to keep 100% of their current gross pay. Everyone can figure out for him or herself what that gives them in terms of a take-home pay increase.
BUSINESS COSTS: If we assume that businesses get to keep their half of the payroll taxes (7.65% of all payroll costs up to first $95k per employee), plus taxes on corporate profits (average <2% of Cost of Goods sold) and some tax compliance savings (being generous we'll call this 1% savings), this gives the business about 8% of cost savings with which to potentially reduce prices.
PRICES: For domestic goods, if we assume that the entire 8% is passed along to the consumer, this means that pre-tax prices will be 92% of present day prices. That $10 twelve pack will now be $9.20. Of course, the twelve pack of imported beer is still $10 pre-tax. Once the 30% FairTax is added, the price of the domestic beer will be $11.96 and the price of the imported beer will be $13.00 even. So, domestic prices will go up about 20% and imported item prices will go up about 30%.
GOVERNMENT EXPENSES: Since the government expects this plan to enable them to purchase the same things they purchase now, they will need to raise sufficient revenue in order to achieve purchasing power parity. Since they will be paying the 30% FairTax on every item, we can assume that for stuff they buy, they will see the same 20% price increase on domestic items and 30% increase on imported items as other end consumers. So they will need to increase their dollar intake by this 20%+ to enable them to buy the same amount of stuff. And, of course all government salaries will have the 30% FairTax paid on the salary, less the employer half of the payroll taxes, so this is a net 22.35% increase in the cost of the entire payroll of the US government (and states too, but that is another can of worms).
ENTITLEMENT COSTS: Since the social security payments are linked to CPI, when this 20%+ price rise slams through the economy all the social security checks will have to be raised to cover this massive FairTax caused inflation. They will rise by at least 20%, and a litle more because the basket of goods will include some imported items like oil. Medicare/medical expenses will have the FairTax added, for a 20%+ increase.
GOVERNMENT PURCHASING POWER PARITY: with the cost of Payroll, plus everything they buy, plus the entitlements, all going up 20% plus we can assume that the governement will need to collect approximately 20%+ more of the new inflated dollars in order to buy what they are today with today's more stable dollars.
FAIR TAX RATE: Assuming nothing else changes regarding purchasing behavior, size of the government, etc. this means that the 30% FairTax would need to immediately raised 20% (to 36%) just to bring in all the inflated dollars that are required to fund the govt at present level. The price of domestic beer is now $12.50 and the import is $13.60. This assumes no evasion and no reduction in spending by consumers on new goods and services when the large sales tax is imposed. (an unrealistic assumption by the FairTaxers)
SAVED MONEY: All dollars that are post-tax savings would be devalued by the FairTax inflation by 20% in terms of what they can buy with their hard-earned and saved after-tax money.
Does this sound like a utopia to anyone? Isn't it very likely that a 36% sales tax (or much higher like 50%) will cause consumption to suffer and/or transactions driven into a barter system or the black market where they cannot be taxed. And every dollar that is taken from the legitimate economy is another increase that is needed in the FairTax rate in order to feed the government the amount of money it needs.
Isn't is likely that we will end up with an income tax again on top of the FairTax when this all plays out?
And once people either stop buying, or buy used, or barter for services, or buy on the black market, or funnel purchases through their businesses for a tax exemption, it is very likely that the FairTax inclusive rate would be 33%-- which is an exclusive rate of 50%, making the problem worse.
The FairTax plan makes the false ASSUMPTION that 23% inclusive will be enough to fully find the government at today's level.
FairTaxers generally agree that the FairTax will cause higher prices and FairTaxers think that these will be ok because the purchasing power is what matters. Wage earners will receive a pay increase with their 100% paychecks to compensate for the higher prices.
Domestic prices will rise about 18-25% after a small (max 8%) price cut and then the 30% FairTax is added-- and rise the full 30% for foreign items.
Stick with me here for just one more minute. The government will also need a "raise" to pay the higher prices (because the government pays the FairTax on everything too), and it will take the form of additional revenue that needs to be raised. That additional revenue can ONLY be raised by increasing the FairTax rate, there is no other source to generate revenue. So, the 23% rate when multiplied by 1.18 is now 27.1% inclusive, which is 37.2% exclusive.
And that assumes no reduction in the base. If we assume just the very minimum that the base reduces 8% due to reduction in shelf prices-- ie. no reduction in unit volume of sales, just an 8% lower price for everything, then we need to divide the 27.1% by 0.92 to get a new inclusive rate of 29.5%, which is 41.8% exclusive. And this assumes ZERO evasion, and the same exact level of unit sales as now.
Most recently the FairTax commission found that the FairTax Rate was grossly understated by the FairTax people and that the actual rate would have to be MUCH HIGHER than 29.87% exclusive due to 1)government paying itself tax and 2) erosion of the taxable base due to all factors. Just a 15% erosion in base, coupled with a Federal government costing 20% more than presently (the cost with the FairTax added) makes the rate 33% inclusive which is 50% exclusive.
The FairTax people need to go back to the drawing board and plug in the new reality where prices go up 18-25% and stick that in their models and see what somes out the other side. It won't be pretty is my expectation.
I want to see elimination of corporate taxes, elimination of death taxes, additional reductions in the marginal income tax rates until we find that we are the Laffer optimal point.
In addition I want to see Social Security privatized, and I am willing to pay extra money to pay for those who were promised this benefit, and never receive a penny of it myself. I also want to see Medicare reformed from top-to-bottom. I also want to see Tort Reform to reduce the exorbitant costs of insurance on our medical costs. And we need to reduce the scope of the Federal Government to its constitutionally mandated responsibilities and get rid of the rest. The Golden Goose that is America is way too fat and needs to be put on a severe diet.
These are what we need to do, incremental improvements in what we already have. This is already working and we should keep at it...even Boortz seems to think so. Boortz (9/20): "...the economy continues to go like gangbusters. We are right in the middle of an historic economic boom. Don't let the mainstream media or the Democrats tell you otherwise...we've never had it so good...
This is a ridiculous statement, I would like to see the link and workup on this. It sounds like a hoot.
Wow, you are good! When you are not articulating deep intelligent arguments such as this, you are calling people stupid.
I have done more research and understand the issue better than the paid for whores who do the research for the fairtax.
"While Wal-Mart, which has been struggling with slowing U.S. sales growth, posted a 1.9 percent rise in July same-store sales, Target reported a 6.1 percent rise, topping analysts' expectations." sourceIf everyone knows Wal-Mart is cheaper, why are Target's same-store sales increases so much higher than Wal-Mart's? And why isn't Target lowering their prices to match Wal-Mart's?
Can you work out equations to tell you the optimum price point? No, except in economics class. However, you should be able to negotiate a volume pricing structure with your suppliers, so that the cost/sales function is known. The sales/price function can probably only be found empirically, by moving the price and measuring the impact on sales. And no, even once you find it, it won't be static; you have to constantly be figuring it out. But if you don't make the effort to find out, you might as well be "giving away money".
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