I have an issue with Eric Greenwell's calculations in his Oct. 25 letter, "FairTax skeptic." In his example of 77 cents plus 23 cents equals $1.00, the 23 cents is 23 percent of the $1 spent, but that is not the correct tax for the 77 cents. The correct tax should be 23 percent of the 77 cents, or 0.23 times 0.77 plus 0.1771, or 18 cents, so 77 cents plus 18 equals 95 cents, which is what should be collected. The ratio 23/77 is meaningless in this problem.

A second issue concerns persons avoiding paying Washington sales tax by going to Oregon. Since the 23 percent tax will be nationwide, one would still avoid the Washington tax by going to Oregon, same as now.

W.L. Woolbright, Kennewick

Editor's note: Considerable disagreement exists over how the tax rate under the FairTax plan ought to be calculated. For one discussion on the issue, see the Annenberg Public Policy Center's FactCheck.org analysis at tinyurl.com/FairTax-Rate.