employer as well as employee portions of the 15.3 percent FICA tax?
The complexity of our tax system makes it extremely difficult for any of us to understand the full extent to which we are taxed on working and saving. The need, in the end, to guess what incentives we’re facing further distorts economic choices. The costs of these distortions are significant. Indeed, they may far exceed the roughly 2 percent of GDP direct costs of complying with the current tax system. Thus, Vance has the issue of hidden taxes completely backwards. The FairTax is the most transparent of any tax system. The current tax system, in contrast, is specifically designed to and thrives on hiding its provisions.
