The $100.00 item will only cost $77 if the seller is a fool. Since most Americans don’t know what proportion of the retail purchase price of what they buy is, you won’t know what the specific embedded tax is. When you buy a snow cone from the seasonal booth, do you think his burden is the same as a big corporation with expensive tax attorneys?
A more equitable change would be to eliminate the tax on dividends and interest and institute a two tier “flatter” tax with a large exclusion and no deductions.
Ah, the ol’ “market competition never lowers prices” argument.
No, the seller isn’t a fool, and if he can sell his product for $98 and still make a profit while his competition tries to sell it for $100, he won’t do that, now, would he? He’d maybe miss out on that 2 bucks per sale, even if he increased his sales by 50%. That wouldn’t be smart, would it?
Then his competition, knowing that he COULD sell it for $77 and still make the same profit, wouldn’t lower HIS price to $96, etc...
Is this what you’re arguing?