[cableguymn]

flat tax on all purchases..

lets stop penalizing income.

[camle]

so if you make an income large enough that you spend less a percentage on purchases, then you pay less a percentage taxes that a poorer person who must spend more of his income on purchases.

[OneWingedShark]

flat tax on all purchases..
lets stop penalizing income.

There's two obvious problems with a national sales tax, even if it starts out as flat:

1. The exceptions of tax-exempt organizations makes things non-uniform; get rid of taxes on sales and there's a big chunk of implicit extortion that the government cannot engage in.
2. There will be a push to have different rates on different items, say a %250 tax on firearms, (we already tax alcohol and tobacco additionally) — there could also be a push to alleviate the criticism that this burdens the poor more than the rich and given the ubiquitousness of computational machinery this might be corrected/addressed by having the sales-tax rate applied vary dependent on the income. (…that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name.)