[kevkrom]

claiming 23% when the article says it's 28%

It's how you calculate it. If you use the same mechanism as calculating income taxes (in order to make a more equal comparison), you would say that on $100 total spent, 23% of that ($23) is the tax and 77% ($77) is the price without tax. This would correspond to saying that an effective income tax rate of 23% would be taking $23 out of every $100 earned.

The other way to calculate is based on how state sales taxes are usually figured. An item that is $77 before taxes would have a 29.87% (I'm not sure where the article comes up with 28%) tax of $23 added to it. It still totals the same $100.

The tax is 23% of the total, or 29.87% of the pre-tax price. Both work out exactly the same. As I said before, the first number is used to compare apples-to-apples with income taxes.

[Willie Green]

The tax is 23% of the total, or 29.87% of the pre-tax price. Both work out exactly the same.

Heck, that's exactly the same as it was 4 years ago.

Posing as "tax reform", the NRST (HR 2525) also represents a "land grab" where business interests are favored over individuals purchasing for their own use:

• A family purchasing their own new home for $200,000 pays NRST at a tax-included 23% rate. This means that of the $200,000 paid, $154,000 goes to the seller, and the Gov't receives $46,000 in tax.

• A landlord/investor can exploit the business exemption of NRST and purchase the same new single family dwelling tax free as a rental investment for only $154,000. Tenants pay NRST on rent and Landlords act as tax collectors for the government

• The $154,000 vs. $200,000 purchase price advantage that landlord/investors enjoy over individual personal homebuyers can be expressed two ways:
  • Landlord/investors enjoy a 23% discount compared to the individual personal home buyer.

  • Individual personal home buyers must pay 29.87% more than landlord/investors.

This a significant inequity between individuals trying to buy their own new homes and landord/investors looking to buy the same single family dwelling as a rental investment. This disparity has long term implications affecting the distribution of private property. The American tradition favoring individual property rights is reversed. The NRST would discourage individual "consumption" of real property.

"... legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property, only taking care to let their subdivisions go hand in hand with the natural affections of the human mind. The descent of property of every kind therefore to all the children,...

But it is not too soon to provide by every possible means that as few as possible shall be without a little portion of land. The small landholders are the most precious part of a state."

-- Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, Oct. 28, 1785 -- PROPERTY AND NATURAL RIGHT

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So as you can see, I'm very familiar with the 23% vs. 29.87% disparity in how the NRST is presented to a gullible public.

The thing is, the article doesn't say 23%, and it doesn't say 29.87%
It says 28%.
28 is NOT 23 and 28 is also NOT 29.87.

So what IS the rate suppose to be nowadays anyway?
Surely you can't keep it at 23% all these years and still claim that it's "revenue neutral",
Not after all of Dubya's tax cuts...
So what happened?
Did they raise it from 23 to 28% without notifying you shills?
(Jumping the 29.87% method of calculation up to a whopping 38.88% ???)

What are the updated numbers anyway?
How're you gonna pay for Dubya's Medicare prescription drug giveaway?