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[Final-Fan]

Actually, although I have several ongoing criticisms, this one is about aligning the 22% vs. 23%.

You said earlier, "Currently there is an embedded tax of about 22% in every thing we buy. This embedded tax is the Corporate Taxes, Payroll Taxes, etc. that the government collects from companies already. They want to make a profit so they pass the costs of the taxes and the cost of tax compliance on to the customers in the form of higher prices. This 22% is already an INCLUSIVE tax and would simply be replaced by the FairTax rate of 23% INCLUSIVE. Therefore the prices will stay about the same as they currently are."

Above (01/04/08 19:08), you say that aside from personal income taxes, estate taxes, etc., already 22 of every 100 dollars consumers spend is ultimately going towards taxes. That enables you to claim that the 23% FairTax will simply slide into place where all those bad old hidden taxes used to be, leaving sticker prices about the same (1% bigger).

Of course, this happy little scenario ignores the elephant in the room: If the FairTax is only barely larger than the embedded tax, how can its revenues be equal to those taxes AND the personal income tax?

That is the question I want you to answer, Eomund. Then we can move on to whether 23% is correct for revenue neutrality.