My guess is that it was an early attempt to put things on an apples to apples basis. Let me backtrack for a moment.
Years ago when you financed a car or borrowed money the interest rate was was quoted as an 'add-on' rate meaning that the payment was calculated by adding on the interest to be paid each year. A 5 year loan for $10,000 at 6% add-on, the total payback would be $13,000 and the payment would be (roughly) $216.66.
Then, about 20 or 25 years ago, the feds stepped in claiming that the rate was deceptive because it didn't allow people to adequately compare loans and they instituted a stardardized way of disclosing the rate as an Annual Percentage Rate (APR). That same loan would then be quoted as (roughly) 11.50% APR. The totals would all be the same, but the higher rate had to be quoted. (Later, the Feds did the same thing with investment yields (APY).
The point of this was that everyone would be working with the same info from the same standpoint. In the above example, 11.50 APR and 6% add on sound wildly different but yielded the same cost.
The 23% versus 30% inclusive/exclusive rate stuff is pretty much the same framing things in terms of how the current tax system is calculated and expressing this in similar terms. Either way, the cost the same. I think that the planners thought the 23% rate sounded better and easier to sell to people. They didn't count on the ability of it's proponents to do the job and sell the program using the higher rate.
I hope that helps somewhat. I still get confused on the inclusive v. exclusive stuff. I just quote the 30% if I mention any rate. Generally, I talk in terms of the benefits of going this route and destroying the IRS. Often, that's enough to bring people on board.
The point I'm trying to make here is that hyping the lower 23% 'rate', when it is actually 30% is a pretty odd way to sell anything..
I still get confused on the inclusive v. exclusive stuff. I just quote the 30% if I mention any rate. Generally, I talk in terms of the benefits of going this route and destroying the IRS. Often, that's enough to bring people on board.
839 Badray
Thanks for your honest answer. I agree, our main effort should be to destroy the IRS.