[ancient_geezer]

I can see someone showing up on your doorstep, flashing a badge, and demanding to see proof that taxes were paid on that Cadillac in your driveway.

Perhaps you will explain the probable cause for the warrant to allow state retail tax authorities to so demand? Vinnie your favorite fence or black market supplier?

In light of #416

`SECTION 1. PRINCIPLES OF INTERPRETATION.

`(a) IN GENERAL- Any court, the Secretary, and any sales tax administering authority shall consider the purposes of this subtitle (as set forth in subsection (b)) as the primary aid in statutory construction.

`(b) PURPOSES- The purposes of this subtitle are as follows:

`(5) To provide for the administration of the tax law in a manner that respects privacy, due process, individual rights when interacting with the government, the presumption of innocence in criminal proceedings, and the presumption of lawful behavior in civil proceedings.

[Always Right]

Principles of interpretation are nice, but the law is still the law, and what the meat of the bill says is what counts.

[Iwo Jima]

O.G., just because the law requires probable cause doesn't mean that the "authority" will have or need to have probable cause to question you. Witness the BATF, etc. They will have "gut feeling" that the required taxes were not paid on your newly acquired Cadillac (your noisy neighbor having told them that you told her that you got a "good deal"). This will be enough to satisfy a court, should you be so bold as to take the matter to court.

They will go over your financial records with a fine tooth comb and "prove" that you could never have or in fact did not pay the cost of a Cadillac plus the additional 30-40% of the market price called for by the NRST.

Nothing will be all that different. The terms and the steps of the dance will change, but not much else.

It is the fact of, not the mode of, taxation that is so detrimental.