Wrong.
The 23% tax rate is when you calculated it 'inclusively' (as all income tax is now caculated by the IRS). The 30% number is arrived at when you calculate it 'exclusively', which is how common sales tax is calculated. In either case, so long as you do not change the definition and meaning of the Fair Tax as it is described in HR25, you arrive at exactly the same dollar value. The difference is mainly semantic.
Second, what you call a "cult" is a position on taxes that has been studied by the Economics Dapartment at Harvard, not to mention many other economists. This is no pie in the sky proposition. Further, its already being done... Both Florida and Texas already use the Fair Tax model for their own state taxes. By your definition the legislatures of Texas and Florida are 'cultists'.
Including the item and the tax and the tax on the tax, etc.
Do the math.
Economics: The only profession where you can be wrong more often than the weatherman, and still get paid.
The cult has a new falsehood! I almost missed it.
Florida sales taxes are NOT applied using a dishonest "inclusive" model.
Really? When the Governor's secretary orders a stapler for the office, does the state pay the sales tax? Or are they exempt?
If they're exempt, then they're not really using the Fair Tax model, are they?
Not at all. There is no prebate like the fairtax. There is no tax on services like the fairtax. They don't tax federal and state expenditures like the fairtax. They certainly don't add a 30% tax like the fairtax. They don't tax the sale of new homes like the fairtax. Hardly the model for Florida and Texas. A tax like this has never been done like this, and countries who have tried a high sales tax rate have never been successful.
As you've seen by the replies to your post there are many cultists on the anti fair tax side:
The municipal bond cultists.
The life insurance cultists.
The tax-deferred annuity cultists.
The IRS cultists.
The tax shelter cultists.
Etc.
I like my cult just fine. My fair tax "cult" wins hands down in every pole, every straw vote. My "cult" has at least 700,000 petition members from every walk of life, from every state.
Many of the studies you refer to, were bought and paid for by the FairTax organization - hardly objective.
Texas has a sales tax rate of 6.5%, and Florida, 6%. Texas has a host of other taxes you might want to check out:
http://www.window.state.tx.us/taxinfo/taxrates.html
But what do the relatively low state sales tax rates have to do with the FairTax?