Posted by burnsy483 on 6/9/2014 1:33:00 PM (view original):
Posted by MikeT23 on 6/9/2014 1:29:00 PM (view original):
I'd prefer a federal sales tax. I guarantee the guy making 2b spends more than the guy making 400k who spends more than the guy making 40k. Spend a buck and it's $1.33(or whatever).
My immediate reaction to reading that was that less people would spend their money, overall, which sounds like a bad thing. Is that fair? Unless we're lowering federal income taxes overall as well?
Actually that is precisely the idea behind a federal sales tax.
Give people 100% of their income each week (no income tax) and then have a national sales tax in it's place.
The idea is that there are several people who are very wealthy but do not pay any income taxes now because they don't earn income any more, but they DO spend a lot. So this would be basically like mike said, you spend more $ you pay more $.
As to the lefts argument about it being regressive, I don't really agree. The idea as I had read it some years ago, was that they would create a line in the sand @ whatever the national poverty line was or a bit higher, and then issue vouchers or credits for all income at that level. So the people making the least wouldn't pay ANYTHING on their necessities.
I would also like to see, in a system of that nature, different sales tax rates depending on what the product/service is. Obviously food should be taxed less, and jewelry or flat screen TVs should be taxed more. I have never seen that scenario promoted but it seems like it would make the national sales tax far more workable and realistic.