1. Trying to evade a 23% NRST is a GREAT incentive to cheat.
Trying to evade a 24.2% income tax is not? Only takes one person to not report income. It take two in collusion to assure that a sales tax is evaded. And only one of the two, the seller, is held at legal risk for not remitting the tax, (i.e. the seller).
2. Apples to Apples comparisons? How do YOU calculate sales taxes?
As a retailer, I add up total retail sales receipts(gross), and multiply by a fixed rate. For the NRST with a state sales tax, that would be (.23 + statetax factor) * total receipts. Send the calculated amount to the state tax authority.
How do you calculate income taxes you remit to the government?
3. For every tax dollar collected and spent, Americans pay an additional 65 cents in collection and compliance costs!
In a $2 trillion federal budget, that would be $1.35 trillion in collection and compliance costs! In a $10 Trillion (?) economy, that would be 13.5% !?!? That seems to be a HIGH estimate of collection costs.
You have better data?
It isn't just collection costs, it is tax planning, litigation, law enforcement, accounting costs etc as a sum total impact on the economy:
Read Paynes book if you are actually interested:
Flatten the Tax Code before it Flattens Us, Lawrence W. Reed; Makinac Center April 1, '97
The work of economist James L. Payne is perhaps the most authoritative and exhaustive available on the cost of today’s federal income tax code. He has demonstrated that most of the expense of compliance does not show up on the government’s books because businesses and individuals in the private sector are paying it—in time and bills from tax preparers. In his 1993 book, Costly Returns: The Burdens of the U.S. Tax System, Payne assembled data from the IRS and other sources—public and private—and arrived at a startling conclusion: For every tax dollar collected and spent, Americans pay an additional 65 cents in collection and compliance costs!
Now you are being argumentative. I am NOT saying that the income tax is NOT being evaded. I am just saying that a 23% NRST would ALSO be evaded.
As a retailer, I add up total retail sales receipts(gross), and multiply by a fixed rate. For the NRST with a state sales tax, that would be (.23 + statetax factor) * total receipts. Send the calculated amount to the state tax authority.
Exactly! So what is the debate about?? The original post was about $77 in groceries. Now a 23% federal NRST on $77 is $17.71, totaling $94.71, not the $100 total that you originally claimed. State sales taxes would be in addition to the $94.71, and would be calculated based on the $77 purchase. For example, a 10% state sales tax on $77 would be $7.70, for a combined total of $102.41 ($77 + $17.71 + $7.70). Please re-read what you have written.
You have better data? (about compliance costs)
Your previous reply gave multiple answers. I myself don't know what the number is. This number is subject to wide estimates, and I believe that NO ONE knows the amount. As I stated in a reply to your other post, the size of the underground economy, by definition, is hard to calculate. But compliance costs of $1.35 trillion is WAY too high.