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The remodeling business may boom and wealthier people will still want new houses, while people who weren't previously looking to buy would have a great opportunity.

Great point. In addition, it would encourage reinvestment in inner city(used) housing instead of creating ever expanding suburbs.

Your sales ARE your (gross) income.

Yes they are but you don't pay income taxes on your gross income, you pay it on your net income (sales - expenses) under an income tax.

...under the sales tax you'd still owe 23% of your gross sales in taxes even when you have "NO income".

Except that the business with those sales is collecting the NRST from the consumer. State sales taxes are not an expense to the business(beyond the paperwork). Whether you make money or lose money you still have to pay state sales taxes on your sales.

unless I ripped the employee(s) off for their withholding

How are you ripping off the employees? They still see the same take home pay. When do they get those "withholdings" now?

You need to compare the tax savings with gross sales to say how much you can reduce prices. But you don't like to do that because it shows how little those savings actually are

Gross sales have nothing to do with tax savings. Gross sales are only half of the equation. You can have all the sales in the world and have equal expenses and have NO income. You wouldn't have any tax savings and you also wouldn't be in business for very long.

Do you figure your tax liability on your sales or your income?

The question is not what percentage they pay of income, that has no bearing what so ever on how much they can reduce their price with the elimination of the tax.

If you pay over a third of your income in taxes, the elimination of those taxes would have no effect on the price you have to charge to still receive the same after-tax income?

I'll say it again. The savings from gross employee costs are part of the 20% savings. The percentage of employee costs to total costs would affect the percentage of your savings.

If income taxes are only 2% of revenue, if you remove the income taxes - how much could prices go down for WalMart? No more than 2%.

Since taxes are computed on income, not revenue, and income is what determines if a company is successful or not, you must compare income tax as a percentage of income. WalMart pays 35% of its income to income tax.

Revenue - Expense = Income.

$5.5 billion from $288 billion in revenue. So income taxes were less than 2% of their revenue.

Taxes are computed on income not revenue.

Never studied economics, eh? Oh, well, the employer collects those FICA taxes out of employee's compensation before passing them on to the feds. The employees pay those taxes, they always have, they always will.

And the 15% FICA tax is still part of gross employer cost. You have to pay your employee his gross wage, deduct part of that and remit it to the government and match the FICA portion. Whether you think the employer or the employee pays it, it is still part of the gross employer cost to have that employee work for you. If the employer pays for the employee's health insurance, the gross employee cost would increase by that amount.

I guess if "gross employee cost" is 100% of retail prices that could be true.

The controversy is the 20% price reduction and what has to be eliminated to achieve it...giving up wages is only part of it.

Of course employee costs are not 100% of retail prices. We are not talking about reducing costs by 100%

Gross employee costs are part of the 20% cost savings. Check out Wal-Mart's income statement to see what they would save by not paying income tax.

if you have a 23% income tax you pay $29,870 tax on $100,000.

To get $29,870 from an income of $100,000, the income tax rate would be 29.87% not 23%.

Why attempt to mislead people on something as simple as the rate people will pay?

If you have a 23% income tax on a $100,000 income, you pay $23,000 in tax and you get $77,000. Turn that around: if you purchased a $77,000 item and paid $100,000 for it including the tax you would pay $23,000 (29.XX%) in tax and $77,000 for the item. The percentage is compared to current income tax.

If the business owner reduced his prices by his savings from the gross employee cost, his "take home pay" or profit would remain exactly the same.

You're mixing employee costs with price reductions, they aren't directly related. The controversial possible 20% price reduction isn't entirely from the backs of labor.

Reduced expenses aren't related to increased profits? I also don't see how 20% is so controversial when the employer sees a 15% reduction in FICA costs alone in gross employee cost.

Business owners would also have to accept lower profits too in lieu of paying taxes

Please explain. Your gross employee costs go down by 20%. How would that result in lower profits?

To see a 20-30% reduction in prices, employees would have to take wage cuts

Thank you for saying wage that time. Do you agree there would be a 20%-30% reduction in prices if employee wages were cut?

Boortz has now admitted that prices can't come down like he says in the book (unless employees miraculously agree to a pay cut).

A wage cut, not a pay cut. Employees can agree or disagree(stay or quit) if they get wage cut and receive the same (take-home) pay.

The point is, these folks pay a huge chunk of the taxes being paid. If they wind up paying less (and they will), then someone else will be paying it.

If the share of taxes paid by the rich declines significantly (and it will under the NRST), and the poor continue to pay, effectively, no tax,....to stay revenue neutral, the middle class, especially the upper middle class, will pay more of the tax burden.

You never mention the burden of FICA taxes that the middle and lower classes have. Working poor people may not pay income tax but they do pay FICA, no matter what. As a percentage of income, middle and lower classes pay a much smaller percentage of income tax but they do pay a flat 15% (or 7.65% if you believe the employer match is a cost to the employer) of their income for FICA taxes up to the income cap. FICA taxes as a percentage of income for the top 1%(or even 10%) are miniscule.

A single taxpayer making $90,000 (gross pay not including employer matching) would pay almost $18,000 in income tax and nearly $7, 000 in FICA. That is 27% of his gross pay. A 23% NST rate would lower his burden not even figuring the pre-bate. This also assumes that this taxpayer spends 100% of income. How is that shifting the tax burden to the middle class?

If this then that, if that then this...

That's the definition of any model.... A description of a system, theory, or phenomenon that accounts for its known or inferred properties and may be used for further study of its characteristics

That is what we are discussing. If you disagree with my conclusions from the model, please explain how beyond simply stating that it is only a model in "a perfect world where everybody pays and there are no phoney rebates"

In a perfect world

Not a perfect world, just the world(Jorgenson's model) that has been debated here.