The Tax Foundation is going to the mat with major news organizations over a statistic that it published, used by GOP presidential candidate Bob Dole in the first presidential debate.

The statement was that the average American today pays more in taxes than he or she does for food, clothing and housing combined. Some reporters challenged the statement, based on a Bureau of Labor Statistics report.

The Tax Foundation says that by accepting the BLS data as unimpeachable, the reporters made an error of substantial magnitude.

According to the Tax Foundation:

• The BLS report greatly understates taxes paid and does not even claim to be a comprehensive analysis of total taxes and tax incidence.

• Rather, it presents the results of a large national survey in which the respondents provide the best information they have as to their expenditures, including the taxes they pay.

• But the survey only covers individual income taxes -- federal, state and local -- real and personal property taxes, and an amorphous category called "other taxes."

• It does not, however, include Social Security Taxes -- which the Foundation estimates to be on average this year $1,100 for the employee's share of payroll taxes alone.

• Similarly, the BLS report does not include sales and excise taxes paid -- which the Tax Foundation estimates at more than $2,000 annually for an average household earning $50,000-$69,000.

The BLS statistics also ignore the effect of indirect levies, such as business taxes, including corporate income taxes, which must be borne by the general population somehow -- either through loser wages for workers, lower shareholder dividends or higher consumer prices.

The Tax Foundation says the BLS survey understates total taxes paid by four-fold. It stands by its statistics that the average American household spends $19,292 annually on food, clothing and housing -- and pays out $21,365 in taxes.

Source: Stephen Gold (Tax Foundation), "Taxes and the American Family," Washington Times, October 11, 1996.