Rapid Response: Vox’s Tax Calculator

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: ezra@vox.com
• Comment on the Facebook post
• Tweet Vox
• Reply to Alvin Chang’s tweet

Thank you team!