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TGoody

Did you copy both lines of the link and paste them together? They should have worked if you did. If you don't break them up they stretch the column and make it hard to read. Just paste the second line onto the end of the first.

Compliance costs are rising rapidly for many reason but Sarbanes-Oxley are one of the main ones. It is listed as one of the main reasons companies aren't listing more on the NYSE.

Also, I am not sure what you are using tax revenues as a guide for? You have to include all taxes paid by business. That means State and federal. While can't get rid of all taxes that will be in a price, we can get rid of payroll (social security and Medicare 15% alone) Corporate income taxes, excise taxes, and of course tax compliance costs.

Most of these studies were done awhile back but here is a site that shows the breakdown of hidden taxes better.
http://www.ipi.org/ipi%5CIPIPublications.nsf/PublicationLookup
FullText/A9A7AA39F78128BB86256AB700627702
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Don't forget to use both lines pasted as one line

Don't underestimate compliance costs for just doing payroll. Compliance costs don't show up in tax revenues but do show up on the bottom line and reduce profits and raise prices.
quote:
he U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Department of Labor, and the Small Business Administration estimate that for a company with 10-50 employees, the cost of non-productive time is 6%-10% of gross payroll, with the national average at 8.45%. Few employers recognize this "hidden cost" of doing business.
http://www.vision-hr.com/payroll.html
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quote:
Economists Mark Crain and Thomas Hopkins did a study for the Small Business Administration and found that in the year 2000, federal regulations cost us $843 billion. That’s $8,000 per household -- almost half the amount collected in federal taxes that year.
http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed020405b.cfm
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Again, you are trying to use that 35% without including compliance costs. Are you including all payroll taxes that "Fair Tax" or VAT or Consumption tax could eliminate.

Quote:
Finally, let's look at a low-income couple under the FairTax: they pay no federal tax at all. Today, under the income tax system, they not only pay 15 percent in payroll taxes, but they also pay at least 20 percent in hidden corporate taxes, private sector compliance costs, and payroll taxes buried in the cost of every product they buy.
http://www.geocities.com/cmcofer/faq-all.html
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Show me any reputable study that say that with compliance costs, we aren't over 30% in higher prices.

Quote:
Some of these taxes are inadvertently hidden, but others are consciously designed that way to disguise the cost of government. It's easy to see why: the total U.S. tax burden is equal to 40 percent of annual personal consumption spending.(3) If Americans recognized this high level of taxation, there might well be a second American Revolution. To maintain support for so many programs, it's often in the interest of governments to keep their costs hidden.
http://www.ntu.org/main/press.php?PressID=310&org_name=NTUF
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It continues with more information
quote:
# Taxes account for 35 cents of the cost of a $1.14 loaf of bread.
# 18 cents of a 50-cent can of soda go toward taxes.
# 72 percent of the cost of a 750 ml bottle of liquor goes toward taxes.
# Taxes for an $80 hotel room average 43 percent.
# Taxes account for $63.60 of a $159 airline ticket.
# A $153.09 monthly utility bill consists of $39.35 in taxes.
# Over half the cost of a $1.33 gallon of gasoline is due to taxes
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Again, this is an older study and things have got worse with Sarbanes-Oxely.

quote:
According to Financial Executives International, an association for accounting and finance professionals, companies spent more than half of the money that went toward SarbOx on auditors—$2 million on average. Gartner estimates that audit fees are up as much as 35 percent from a year ago.
http://www.cioinsight.com/article2/0,1540,1846782,00.asp
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I am sure you remember some of the testimony in the Tax Reform Panel a couple of year back and how much they talked about the damage of compliance costs and how they inflated prices along with all the taxes. Remember prices include phone and energy taxes like the tax we were paying for the Spanish American War.
quote:
Rep. Gary Miller, R-Calif., recently introduced legislation in the House — supported by 98 co-sponsors — aimed at repealing the tax, which was imposed in 1898 to help pay for the Spanish-American War. The war was over in six months, but the tax stayed.

The general excise tax has so far cost consumers about $300 billion, says the Congressional Research Service. The entire Spanish-American War cost only about $6 billion, adjusted for inflation.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/telecom/
2005-06-30-taxes-usat_x.htm
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That and many other taxes are in the price. That 35% tax includes state and local taxes too. Look at the list of taxes in prices. Most find there way into the prices we pay as some stage of business.
quote:
Accounts Receivable Tax,
Building Permit,
Capital GainsTax,
CDL license Tax,
Corporate Income Tax,
Court Fines - (indirect taxes),
Federal Unemployment Tax - (FUTA),
Fuel permit tax Gasoline Tax
Inventory tax, IRS
Interest Charges - (tax on top of tax),
IRS Penalties - (tax on top of tax),
Local Income Tax
Medicare Tax,
Property Tax,
Service Charge Taxes,
Social Security Tax,
Road Usage Taxes - (Truckers),
Road Toll Booth Taxes,
School Tax,
State Income Tax,
State Unemployment Tax - (SUTA),
Telephone federal excise tax,
Telephone federal universal service fee tax,
Telephone federal, state and local surcharge taxes,
Telephone minimum usage surcharge tax,
Telephone recurring and non-recurring charges tax,
Telephone State and local tax,
Telephone usage charge tax,
Toll Bridge Taxes,
Toll Tunnel Taxes,
Traffic Fines - (indirect taxation),
Trailer registration tax,
Utility Taxes,
Vehicle License Registration Tax,
Watercraft registration Tax (shipping waterways),
Workers Compensation Tax

Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago and our nation was the most prosperous in the world,
had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.

Yes we need to pay taxes and even pay many of these. But, how they are paid and collected can increase compliance costs by a huge factor. Simplifying the 17,000 pages in the actual tax code and about 60,000 pages of instruction, IRS letters, decisions and rulings by courts, forms, etc. could go a long way in reducing the compliance costs in prices.