[mortehu]

Add the ~8% spent by the employer for Medicare and Social Security, and the 31% effective rate becomes ~39%, doesn't it? For income above $200K, there's also an "Additional Medicare Tax" of 0.9%.

[minikites]

I always hear this comical assumption that the employee would automatically receive the matching Social Security and Medicare tax amounts if they were repealed but do you honestly believe that to be true and it wouldn't just go towards padding margins or buying more office supplies?

Employers by definition want to pay employees as little as possible, only enough so they stay.

[mortehu]

I think you may have failed to think of freelancers, who are often employed by their own company.

Secondly, the specific effects of repealing a tax doesn't make it any less real.