Sure, when they are compounded on top of all other taxes. As I understand it, the proposed NRST removes all other taxes prior to implementation.
Of course the level of taxation on cigs in MI is $2.00 or close to 50% of the PP.
I am shocked, shocked to find that people are evading a high sales tax!
Just as they are evading even higher income/payroll tax rates.
The electorate's tolerance for ever higher rates on sales taxes is substantially less than when those same rates are pushed behind the scenes as business income and payroll taxes.
One of the virtues of a retail sales tax or any excise is that it tends to be self limiting because of visibility, much more so than corporate taxes which like VATs tend to get hidden from view.
That my friend is a good thing.
"Imposts, excises, and, in general, all duties upon articles of consumption, may be compared to a fluid, which will, in time, find its level with the means of paying them. The amount to be contributed by each citizen will in a degree be at his own option, and can be regulated by an attention to his resources. The rich may be extravagant, the poor can be frugal; and private oppression may always be avoided by a judicious selection of objects proper for such impositions. "
"It is a signal advantage of taxes on articles of consumption that they contain in their own nature a security against excess.
They prescribe their own limit, which cannot be exceeded without defeating the end proposed - that is, an extension of the revenue."
When applied to this object, the saying is as just as it is witty that, "in political arithmetic, two and two do not always make four."
If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so great as when they are confined within proper and moderate bounds.
This forms a complete barrier against any material oppression of the citizens by taxes of this class, and is itself a natural limitation of the power of imposing them.
Where in the article does it talk about a sales tax??? You just made that up.