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To: upchuck
This is one "big lie" the "Fair Tax" mavens are selling. Retail prices will fall such that the gross price for goods will not change - because the manufacturer will save the amount of taxes in the production of the good - in corporate taxes. This is absurd on the face - corporations do not pay the entire tax burden in this country, so they cannot reduce the wholesale price to that which would equalize the "Fair Tax". Gross prices would go up.

Now, a wage earner perhaps would not be bothered by this, because his gross wages would go up sufficiently to account for the tax, perhaps. Fixed income people, and those with savings would see an immediate 30% charge on their savings and reduction in their fixed income.

Its a "shaft the provident" tax, from what I see.

80 posted on 09/16/2005 11:50:29 PM PDT by GregoryFul
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To: GregoryFul
Better change your glasses.

It is not "corporate" taxes that are being saved, but business taxes. There are many other types of business entities than just corporations and they all pay taxes in some form even if it is via a 1040 in some cases.

And there's plenty of room for embedded taxes in busines income taxes for price reductions. Without even considering compliance costs or reductions of other intangible costs OR of payroll/withholding taxes (which shouldn't be considered as embedded taxes at all despite Boortz).

In the examples below, the "tax cost as % of revenue" represents the embedded tax that would be subject to removal when the income tax is ended. Take a look:

Most people realize that the present tax system causes prices to be inflated by what are called cascaded, embedded tax costs which increase with each level throughout the production/distribution chain. These costs are composed largely of business income taxes (not just corporate income taxes as some of you have claimed) and compliance costs with even intangible costs tacked on in many cases as well.

Let's take two examples, one with an income tax rate used by Scubhapter C corporations in 2001 (34.4% marginal rate) even though the example applies to a business in general and not just a corporation. In addition, we are not considering any payroll/withholding taxes or compliance or intangible costs ... merely business income taxes.

	      level	        1	2	3	4	5	6
initial cost  revenue	        $2.01	$4.05	$8.15	$16.40	$33.01	$66.44    
   $1.00      cost	        $1.00	$2.01	$4.05	$8.15	$16.40	$33.01
tax rate      profit before tax	$1.01	$2.04	$4.10	$8.25	$16.61	$33.43
   34.40%     tax       	$0.35	$0.70	$1.41	$2.84	$5.71	$11.50
 	      net profit	$0.66	$1.34	$2.69	$5.41	$10.90	$21.93
              net profit %	33.00%	33.00%	33.00%	33.00%	33.00%	33.00%
accumulated 		        $0.35	$1.05	$2.46	$5.30	$11.01	$22.51
 tax paid
tax cost as 	                17.31%	25.91%	30.18%	32.30%	33.36%	33.88%
 % of revenue

Note that in this example the intention is to get a 33% net profit and see how the "tax cost as % of revenue" builds up in only a few levels. In addition, let's say the example represents the classical "bread" example with: L1 = Farmer, L2 = Miller, L3 = Baker, L4 = Distributor, L5 = Grocer, L6 = Consumer. As can be seen, by the time we reach L6, the embedded tax ("tax cost as % of revenue") has reached 33.88%. This would mean that the consumer is paying a very healthy step-up in the price of bread due solely to embedded tax costs.

At any rate, taking the example and setting the net profit to 10% and using the very common (and perhaps even low) tax rate of 25%, you STILL end up with something like 14.4% tax costs as a % of sell price at Level 6.

	      level	        1	2	3	4	5	6
initial cost  revenue	        $1.15	$1.33	$1.54	$1.77	$2.04	$2.36
   $1.00      cost	        $1.00	$1.15	$1.33	$1.54	$1.77	$2.04
tax rate      profit before tax	$0.15	$0.18	$0.20	$0.24	$0.27	$0.31
   25.00%     tax	        $0.04	$0.04	$0.05	$0.06	$0.07	$0.08
              net profit	$0.12	$0.13	$0.15	$0.18	$0.20	$0.24
              net profit %	10.00%	10.00%	10.00%	10.00%	10.00%	10.00%
accumulated             	$0.04	$0.08	$0.13	$0.19	$0.26	$0.34
 tax paid	
tax cost as     		3.33%	6.22%	8.72%	10.89%	12.77%	14.40% 
  % of revenue

If we take the commonly-described "bread" example you can still easily see that bread would be a good bit cheaper for the consumer - not even counting compliance savings - were it not for these caxcading, embedded taxes.

This is really what the embedded taxes discussion is all about and it has nothing at all to do with income taxes on wages. So to pretend that a single economist was making such rash conclusions or that he was the only one used for economic information by the FairTax folks is simply not true. As can be seen here, there is certainly room within the business income tax area for a good bit of price reduction particularly when compliance costs and intangible costs are included as well.

96 posted on 09/17/2005 8:07:03 AM PDT by pigdog
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