Quote:
Originally Posted by tripods68
What's wrong taxing people on what they buy? Consumer tax covers everyone and cannot avoid it as supposed to underground economy who hides from paying taxes. This is not just a right wing idea but a fair tax idea for everyone period.
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"Fair' is inherently a judgmental term. The right tends to find that sort of idea fair.
The left believes that sales taxes take a higher percentage of income from poor people. If you have to spend spend 90% of what you make with a 20% sales tax, you will be taxed at 18%. If you make a little more and can spend only half, you are being taxed at 10%. And that's even before you start getting into the relatively higher burden (10% from a poor person hurts more than 10% from a rich person).
There is no universal definition of "fair." I'm not trying to make a political judgment on the idea of a national sales tax (I've certainly heard worse ideas), I'm simply stating a fact: It is an idea that has far more traction on the right than the left.
And no, it would not eliminate tax avoision (Simpson's reference). It would simply drive it from hiding income to black market goods.