Ezra Klein and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good Tax Calculator

[n2doc]

The website Vox (3/25/16) has what editor-in-chief Ezra Klein describes as an “excellent tax calculator” that, in its headline’s promise, “Tells You How Each Presidential Candidate’s Tax Plan Affects You.”

Actually, it does no such thing; it’s a gimmick that is entirely useless except as a deceptive advertisement for Hillary Clinton.

As a gimmick, it’s pretty simple. You put in your annual income (actually, your “expanded cash income,” which you probably don’t know even if you know what it is), whether you’re single or married and whether you have no kids, one kid, or two or more kids. And then it tells you what Donald Trump’s, Ted Cruz’s, Hillary Clinton’s and Bernie Sanders’ “plans mean for your federal tax liability.”

Let’s try it out with the US median household income ($43,585), married, two kids. You get a graphic that looks like this:


“Pay $5,110 more”—holy smokes! Stop the revolution, I want to get off! Why didn’t someone (besides Vox’s Alvin Chang) tell me that “Sanders wants to implement massive increases across the board, including on the poor”?

Maybe because he doesn’t—and you wouldn’t pay $5,110 more, or anything like it.

more

http://fair.org/home/ezra-klein-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-tax-calculator/

[Scuba]

1. K&R

[Stardust]

2. The Vox article is ludicrous in its omission of offsetting benefits.

[eridani]

3. Please respond to this! Tips from Health Care for All Now

Vox just released an “excellent tax calculator” that, in its headline’s promise, “Tells You How Each Presidential Candidate’s Tax Plan Affects You.”

In reality, it calculates an individual's tax burden in a vacuum, without taking into account the savings on private healthcare premiums and other costs. This is a right-wing tactic meant to undermine support for just, efficient, public programs. Shockingly, the estimates always indicate that you'll pay thousands more in taxes under Sanders's plan while saving money or paying almost the same under every other candidate.

But not only does this calculator reflect 0 savings to individuals who no longer have to pay private premiums - it even overstates the taxes that one would have to pay.

Plug in your income. Surprised? Most of this estimated increase comes from the payroll tax levied on businesses to pay for Sanders's single payer proposal, which Vox includes because it assumes the tax will be passed directly onto employees.

What the calculator leaves out is that businesses will no longer have to pay healthcare premiums for their employees anymore. The payroll tax will replace the private premiums that businesses currently pay for their employees.

Tell Vox you are onto their game. Not only does the calculator ignore that you'll no longer be paying private premiums, it also produces faulty tax estimates by "omitting spending programs" that would offset the costs of the taxes.

Ask them to fix the calculator to reflect ALL the public and private costs - or take it down.

Email Ezra Klein, editor-in-chief of Vox: [e-mail]
Comment on the Facebook post;
https://www.facebook.com/ezraklein/posts/10154114724013410
Tweet Vox: https://twitter.com/voxdotcom/status/713496945424084995
Reply to Alvin Chang's tweet: https://twitter.com/alv9n/status/713349930190970884


My tweet: @voxdotcom Anyone who would rather pay $16K in premiums than $6K in taxes shouldn't be running around loose without adult supervision.