And what is "non-tax data" that you refer to? From your post 477:
He doesn't mention business tax related cost factors, only tax per-se...
I attempted to simplify your terminology to "non-tax cost data." Said another way, it was my attempt to coin a term for all the costs related to tax but are not actual tax that you keep referring to.
And you're right, there's no bargin to be made, we aparently already agree. What puzzled me was your insistance on continuing to discuss Jorgenson's treatement of these costs as if to say "though I can't find them, they've got to be there somewhere! When I said they were not in the model, you challenged my assertion as though such a suggestion flies in the face of reality, even though you agree with me!
I would tend to agree, except "compliance costs" are only the accounting cost factors and but a portion of the total tax related overhead costs associated with the current system.
OK. So, pick a term we can all use to mean the same thing: everthing you want to include that is currently left out. Everything: The cost of printer ink that prints tax forms, the envelopes used to contact the tax attorney, the disk drives that hold employee withholding data, everything.
How big is it? $250 Billion? $650 Billion? $3 Trillion? $10 Trillion??? just what percent of the GDP are you claiming is eaten up by {term to be inserted here} costs anyway?
How much of that goes away and how quickly does all that cost go away?
Fully unrolled, these costs are all either Labor costs or capital costs. What is the split?
Perhaps you be willing to start another thread to discuss this? This thread has lost a bit of steam.
How big is it? $250 Billion? $650 Billion? $3 Trillion? $10 Trillion??? just what percent of the GDP are you claiming is eaten up by {term to be inserted here} costs anyway?
I'll accept James L. Payne's factor as representative of the total tax related overhead costs on top of revenues paid to government:
Where Have All the Dollars Gone?
How the government robs Peter to pay him back.
By James L. Payne, Reason Magazine February '94When the overhead costs are added together, (24 percent compliance costs, 33 percent disincentive costs, and 8 percent other costs), they total 65 percent of tax revenue. Although future studies may come up with slightly different numbers, there is no doubt that the overhead costs of taxation are substantial. This means that every act of self-subsidy entails a significant waste. When the government takes a dollar from Peter to give it back to him later, there is a huge loss attached to the transaction.
Unfortunately, the bad news doesn't end there. Peter is never going to see this dollar, even if it is destined for him, because of the waste in the system for disbursing subsidies."
Plunder Patrol
by Robert W. Lee, New American April 18 '94Counting the Cost
"Tax analyst James Payne pinpoints more than 30 separate burdens which the current tax system imposes on individuals, businesses, and society as a whole, including the costs of compliance and enforcement."
"When the visible and hidden costs associated with tax collection (the vast majority of which have been piled without remuneration onto the private sector) are totaled up, Payne estimates that it costs 65 cents to collect every $1.00 in taxes. For fiscal 1992, that expense would be more than $622 billion, making tax collection the most expensive of all government programs (more than double the defense budget and nearly five times the expenditures on Medicare). "
How much of that goes away
A recent paper I ran across suggests the costs associated with retail sales taxes to be one fifth those associated with the income/payroll tax system.[CATO -- Options for Taxreform PA536 (2005)]
and how quickly does all that cost go away?
How fast can busnesses change how they utilize their resources for productive use instead of in sterile tax avoidence/minimization schemes. How fast does it take businesses to quit doing things they no longer need to do? A year to two years undoing the worst of it? Your guess is a good as mine.
Perhaps you be willing to start another thread to discuss this? This thread has lost a bit of steam.
Don't see that it makes a lot of difference in terms of my essential reasons for going with an NRST, since those are primarily philosophical and not economic. That is in spite of the fact that these threads tend to bog down in economic minutia rather rapidly.
The main thing I look to clear up in this exchange is what the Jorgenson study actually implements, and how his numbers should best be interpreted in light of real world behaviour and tax overhead costs that he apparently simplifies out of his IGEM analysis.
From what I can see, any tax related cost savings would act to increase the individual's purchasing power over the findings of the Jorgenson studies and the wage thing is best interpreted from a sticky wage perspective due to contractual restrictions that prohibit much downward movement in wages in contrast to what Jorgenson allows in his implementation.