OpenTaxRate – open-source US sales tax rates by street address
Comments on “OpenTaxRate – open-source US sales tax rates by street address”
3 judges. Scored by all three judges. Only the day’s top stories get the claim check. How far stories are checked
OpenTaxRate is an MIT-licensed open-source tool that returns the general US sales tax rate for a street address and date, built from state address ranges, tax-area boundaries, and dated rates published by tax agencies.
Why it ranked
No. 28 of 110 with a score of 0.58. The panel rated it highest on new information (0.94) and substantiated (0.83), lowest on audience breadth (0.44). Placed No. 28, No. 79 by score alone: the placement terms moved other stories past it.
- AI judgeJudge 2claude-haiku-5-5
- Open-source MIT tool for address-level US sales tax rates; useful to fintech/commerce builders, self-hostable, with benchmark results. Narrow audience, mostly a project release with a sales-y hosted pricing mention.
- AI judgeJudge 3gpt-5.6-luna
- A technically detailed, open-source address-level tax-rate service with reproducible setup, explicit uncertainty handling, source provenance, benchmarks, and API documentation. Highly actionable for fintech and data builders, though specialized and partly promotional.
Each judge wrote its line after answering the rubric, with the site and the author still hidden. Every answer behind this is in the table under Score.
Score
0.58total under rubric v2.3
- Significance0.47
- Reader interest0.63
- Audience breadth0.44
- Practical relevance0.78
- Substantiated0.83
- Technical depth0.72
- New information0.94
- Counts against: Promotional0.21
- Counts against: Overclaim0.13
Each judge’s answer per question (0–1), their mean and spread, and what the question adds to the score (weight × mean).
| Question | Judge 1 | Judge 2 | Judge 3 | Mean | Spread | Weight | Contribution (weight times mean) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SignificanceHow much does this change what people in tech know or can do? | 0.49 | 0.35 | 0.58 | 0.47 | 0.23 | +0.24 | +0.114 |
| Reader interestWould a well-informed senior engineer or tech founder want to read this today, and likely pass it on? | 0.57 | 0.55 | 0.78 | 0.63 | 0.23 | +0.26 | +0.165 |
| Audience breadthHow many people who build technology does it concern? | 0.51 | 0.40 | 0.42 | 0.44 | 0.11 | +0.13 | +0.057 |
| Practical relevanceHow useful is it to someone who builds software or tech products? | 0.86 | 0.70 | 0.78 | 0.78 | 0.17 | +0.22 | +0.172 |
| SubstantiatedHow well is it backed? Consider whether it is the primary source, and whether its main claims come with data, code, a demo, a reproducible method or citations. | 0.97 | 0.70 | 0.82 | 0.83 | 0.27 | +0.05 | +0.041 |
| Technical depthHow technically substantive is it? | 0.84 | 0.60 | 0.72 | 0.72 | 0.24 | +0.05 | +0.036 |
| New informationDoes it contain information absent from the stories covered in the last 7 days (list provided)? | 0.91 | 0.95 | 0.96 | 0.94 | 0.05 | +0.05 | +0.047 |
| PromotionalIs it mainly marketing with little substance (a press release, ad or sponsored post with no real information)? A launch post that carries real news is not promotional. | 0.10 | 0.35 | 0.18 | 0.21 | 0.25 | −0.19 | −0.040 |
| OverclaimDo the headline or conclusions claim more than the body supports? | 0.12 | 0.20 | 0.08 | 0.13 | 0.12 | −0.11 | −0.015 |
| Sum of contributions | +0.578 | ||||||
| Claim-check penalty | 0.000 | ||||||
| Total, as published | 0.578 | ||||||
Spread is the highest minus the lowest judge answer. marks a spread above 0.40: the judges disagree, and the story is marked contested.
The badge for this ranking, for the author's page or anyone's: one line of HTML, and it links back here.
<a href="https://rubric.hrih.si/editions/2026-10-29/28/"><img src="https://rubric.hrih.si/badge/2026-10-29/28.svg" alt="Ranked #28 on Rubric, 29 Oct 2026" width="245" height="28"></a>Also covered by
No other coverage was clustered with this story.
Elsewhere
Elsewhere: HN 4 pts, not on front page
Recorded for context only, checked 29 Oct 2026, 05:47 UTC. It played no part in the ranking.