Originally Posted By DyGDisney Thought we could talk about something besides religion What do you think of a Value Added Tax, or National Sales Tax? Here's a link to an article in the Washington Post about the idea: <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/26/AR2009052602909.html?wprss=rss_business/economy" target="_blank">http://www.washingtonpost.com/.../economy</a>
Originally Posted By Sport Goofy I guess I would have to know more about how foreign countries implement their VAT. Do local governments also use sales taxes abroad? In my mind, that would be the big hindrance to adopting a national sales tax in the U.S. -- the fact that states already use this tool to collect revenue. I don't know if this is the same in Europe and other foreign countries or if the central government is the only tax authority using the VAT.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip I would be STRONGLY OPPOSED to this. A low income person by necessity has to spend virtually their entire income and would therefore be taxed on 100% of his income. A wealthy person can easily get by just spending 50% of his income and saving the rest and would therefore be taxed on just half of his income. It would be a terribly regressive way of collecting tax. I've read various versions where everyone would have the first XXX dollars of spending exempt from the tax. That would make it slightly more progressive, but would still greatly benefit the wealthy. Besides, if you start making it that complicated we might as well stay with the present income tax. You will note it is almost always Republicans who bring up the issue of a national sales tax. It's no mystery who would benefit most from it!!
Originally Posted By Sport Goofy ^^ I agree with your arguments, but if you read the article it discusses implementing a VAT on top of the current income tax structure. The progressive income tax would not go away. The bottom line is this: we are spending too much and we either raise taxes to pay for all of our government spending or we severely cut back services that government provides.
Originally Posted By DyGDisney It's funny you say that, RT, because the e-mail I got about it was from my mom, who is EXTREMELY conservative. She was freaking out that "our current administration" is going to add another tax to pay for the trillions of dollars of debt they are running up. I looked into it and noticed Mike Huckabee has been a proponent of this idea, and I know he's a conservative. Also, it seems a lot of European countries are taxing this way, the ones that run more Socialist. It seems to run the gammet with supporters AND proponents for one reason or another.
Originally Posted By DyGDisney >>>It seems to run the gammet with supporters AND proponents for one reason or another.<<< I meant it seems to run the gammet with supporters AND those OPPOSED for one reason or another.
Originally Posted By fkurucz <<I agree with your arguments, but if you read the article it discusses implementing a VAT on top of the current income tax structure. The progressive income tax would not go away.>> Oh well. So much for soaking the rich.
Originally Posted By EighthDwarf <<I don't know if this is the same in Europe and other foreign countries or if the central government is the only tax authority using the VAT.>> In Europe (the EC), the price you see at the store is the price you pay. Consumers generally don't know what taxes they are paying when they purchase something - they just see the final tax-adjusted price. So an increase in a product's price could either be from market forces or by increased taxation - generally speaking you would never know. But increased prices lead to to decreased demand. Therefore, the higher the taxes, the more dead-loss in the economy. Can we really afford that right now? I have a lot of things on my personal wish list but I realize it would be irresponsible of me to buy them right now. I hope our leaders realize the same thing.
