Yup, you're right of course ... and they also throw out that wages will go down but that's just to scare wage earners and those of us who have to work for a lining.
Not to mention their oft stated canard that there has to 100% compliance to make the FairTax sale tax rate work that is one of the favorite bugaboos thrown up by Brookings Institute and their main spokesman on taxes, William Gale.
Of course in so doing they ignore the clear points made in:
And of course they never get around to noticing how calculating a tax rate using a taxbase derived from data which does not include any non-reporting transactions nor provides any estimates of such, results in a taxrate that does not assume the same level of tax evasion as is going on under the income and payroll tax systems today.
When a tax base does not include the current underground cash economy , transactions involving illegal trades or tax evasion for which there are no reports of sales or income to anyone in government for obvious reasons, it totally takes into account same amount of evasion that is going on under the current tax system.
The NRST tax rate is calculated using Bureau of Economics Analysis NIPA data series which has no estimates or inclusions for the underground cash economy, transactions involving illegal trade or evasion at all. As a consequence the tax rate specified in HR25 totally assumes the same amount of tax evasion under the FairTax act as is occurring under the current tax systems it replaces.
You know that might be the first explaination from a fair taxer that makes sense. Gale may be wrong. I assumed Gail was correct because there were no factors in the calculation for evasion, but if NIPA numbers don't include any of the evasion economy, your tax base has effectively been reduced by the current tax evasion rate. That was one point I was unsure about, but trusted Gale's opinion. I still however believe that a 29.870129% sales tax will lead to more evasion especially in the service sector. I am very confident your numbers can only work if employees take a pay cut.