tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post2896902443240691195..comments2024-03-06T06:34:42.881-05:00Comments on EconoSpeak: Does Economist.com Understand Incidence of the Payroll Tax?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-32594310552695417682009-03-04T14:13:00.000-05:002009-03-04T14:13:00.000-05:00Some pushback:http://www.economist.com/blogs/freee...Some pushback:<BR/>http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2009/03/tax_cut_silliness.cfmAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-75718763575792656702009-03-04T01:47:00.000-05:002009-03-04T01:47:00.000-05:00The big gains for the employer are the offloading ...The big gains for the employer are the offloading of health insurance and any form of retirement contributions as well as the FUTA and FICA. If the contractor that was an employee forms a sub-s corp, then the contractor can pay himself $100 a month in salary and take the rest of the income as profit distributions thus escaping the FICA tax on those distributions. The younger tech people often get group insurance through various technical organizations such as IEEE.<BR/><BR/>All of this bean counting and farting around could be eliminated by funding SS and Medicare for all with carbon taxes -- a very straight forward tax and rebate system, indeed.TheTruckerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10346127768102862741noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-6883446346953756372009-03-03T23:21:00.000-05:002009-03-03T23:21:00.000-05:00Never trust a standard model until you've seen the...Never trust a standard model until you've seen the empirical tests and understand the theoretical argument. Too often "standard models" are convenient fictions that eliminate bothersome uncertainties. Logically, I would suspect that the payroll tax incidence is highly uncertain and depends on the relative bargaining position of the particular employer and employees. <BR/><BR/>I did see a review of empirical studies many years ago that concluded the results were inconclusive. That conclusion was glossed over in the executive summary and substituted with a recital of the standard model. The exec. summ. version then was cited in another paper I read as verification of the standard model. This was 12 years ago, so I don't know if I can still dig up the citation.Sandwichmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-38640214601564266032009-03-03T18:27:00.000-05:002009-03-03T18:27:00.000-05:00But when this happens, does the wage rate being pa...But when this happens, does the wage rate being paid by the employer to the worker rises in an exactly offsetting fashion? This ought to be relatively easy to study, so what does the data say?<BR/><BR/>Unverified models are about as smelly as unflushed fecesAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com