[Remember_Salamis]

Everything you said is meaningless if you addressed my other reason for quoting it inclusively: how it will be collected:

On the retailer side it will be 23% as well. In it's simplest terms, the NRST will tax 23% of a retailers TOTAL SALES. Make $10,000 in sales this month? Remit $2,300 to the government. Retailers charge whatever the hell they want to make up for the tax burden. State and local sales taxes can be taxes this way too; their rates would have to slightly adjust. Most states are going to modify their tax system to accommodate the new federal system anyway.

In fact, it will make tax collection streamlined to the point where it's painless.

OK, you're Bill the Retailer. The Feds say they want 23% of your sales, the State wants 3%, and the City/County want 1.5%. You (Bill the Retailer) then raises his prices enough to cover these costs. 27.5% of your sales get remitted instantly from the register.

Quick. Simple. Easy.

As for the receipt printed off, it looks like this:

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Sticker price: $100
23% FED: $23
3% STATE: $3
1.5% CITY: $1.50

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Total Taxes: $27.50

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Item X: $72.50

---

Total Paid: $100

---

Customers are STILL reminded every time they buy something how much of that item was taxes.

It's not hard to use subtraction instead of addition.

It may be easier to think about it as a "Single-Layer VAT".

-- Remember, our $100 sticker price is merely the hypothetical final price after the retailer raises his prices to compensate for the tax burden. If Bill the Retailer needed to raise prices to $110 instead, then there would be a $110 sticker price.

[Your Nightmare]

Quick. Simple. Easy.

As for the receipt printed off, it looks like this:

Sticker price: $100
23% FED: $23
3% STATE: $3
1.5% CITY: $1.50

Quick. Simple. Easy. and WRONG!

You charged the customer $23 in federal sales taxes for a $72.50 item when you should have charged them $21.65 (unless you are trying to tell us the feds are going to tax state and local sales taxes). As I was trying to explain, you can't add individual tax inclusive sales tax rates. Every tax rate you add or change affects the "gross payment" thereby changing the amount of tax the different rates collect.

Example. A $100 dollar item bought in Austin, Texas:

Austin, Texas
	Statutory Individual Inclusive Rate	Exclusive Rate	Dollar Amount	Real Inclusive Rate
Item Cost			$100.00
Federal	23.00%	29.87%	$29.87	21.63%
State	5.88%	6.25%	$6.25	4.53%
City	1.96%	2.00%	$2.00	1.45%
Total	30.84%	38.12%	$138.12	27.60%

Drive 1 mile south to Pflugerville, Texas (yes, that's a real city):

Pflugerville, Texas
	Statutory Individual Inclusive Rate	Exclusive Rate	Dollar Amount	Real Inclusive Rate
Item Cost			$100.00
Federal	23.00%	29.87%	$29.87	21.70%
State	5.88%	6.25%	$6.25	4.54%
City	1.48%	1.50%	$1.50	1.09%
Total	30.36%	37.62%	$137.62	27.34%

Notice how the real inclusive rates have to change when you modify the city rate? When you change that rate you change the "gross payment" and your 23% inclusive federal rate is now collecting 23% of a different amount than the other city. Also notice how easy it is to add the tax exclusive sales tax rates. It's the natural way to express the additive sales tax.

Again, using the tax inclusive rate for sales taxes is not a matter of preference, it's flat out wrong. Just as it would be wrong to use exclusive rates with an income tax (similar things would happen).

Y'all can be reasonable, realize the error, and make a change; or continue to hang on and go down with the "tax inclusive" ship. I really don't know why y'all are so insistent on the tax inclusive rate anyway.