Herman Cain for President 999 Economic Plan

Herman Cain 999 Plan for President 2012

Every CEO says the reason they’re not hiring is because they’re not seeing demand,” says Rachelle Bernstein, a vice president and tax counsel at the National Retail Federation, a lobbying group, in Washington. "An additional tax on consumer spending will negatively impact that already weak demand."

Some economists worry the plan would result in national tax cheating since retailers might offer items for sale at two different prices: one with tax and one without tax for people paying with cash. “The incentive to cheat is huge,” says Nigel Gault, chief US economist for IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Mass.

Mr. Gault says this is the reason why most countries have enacted a Value Added Tax (VAT) that gets tacked on during the different phases of producing a product. As each tax gets added on, there is an incentive to pass it on.

Since Cain would eliminate the business deduction for labor but not investment, the plan would most likely cause distortions that might add to the unemployment rate, says Mr. Silvia. “This would favor heavy industries that use lots of capital and penalize companies where labor is significant and capital is small,” says Silvia. The entire service sector would be disadvantaged, he adds.

Herman Cain

But probably the largest economic impact would be shifting the tax burden.“It's a huge tax reduction on the very top and a huge tax increase for moderate and low income people," says Michael Graetz, a professor at Columbia University who has testified before Congress on taxes.

For example, economists have a measure called marginal propensity to consume. Low income people tend to spend about 98 percent of their income, middle income people spend 97 percent and high income people spend 90 percent.

Thus, Cain’s proposal would result in an individual who makes $20,000 per year, paying $1,800 in income taxes, plus another $1,605 in sales taxes, assuming they spend 98 percent of their income. The combined income and sales taxes would amount to 17 percent of income.

And, a high income earner who makes $300,000 per year would pay $49,113 in taxes, which would amount to 16.3 percent of their income. But, today, that individual would pay $83,897 or 27.97 percent of their income in taxes.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/President/2011/0930/Herman-Cain-s-999-plan-long-overdue-tax-reform-or-job-killer/(page)/2