You already ARE being taxed when you spend money after you save it. The nrst doesn't increase the tax you pay when you purchase things... it just makes the tax visible and apparent on the receipt.
You don't understand. The feds took a 25% cut off the top of my income a portion of which I then saved and now when I spend it I will only pay a 8% state sales tax (no state income tax). Now you want me to pay a 27% national sales tax in addition to the state sales tax. It's taxing money that has already been taxed. Of course future earnings will be exempt from the 25% income tax I currently pay, but that doesn't help me when I spend my already accumulated savings. You're taxing that when it came in and now you will be taxing it going back out again.
Listen Americans
the libertarian notion I believe to have a very low income tax as flat tax, no loopholes, you can fire half the IRS there
complemented by a national sales tax, I take it you all have state sales tax, we in Canada have been paying national sales tax since 1990
now others advocate no income taxes at all and a national sales tax
but because you get cycles of economic downturn I would argue the combination would work better so the government has more stable source of revenue......
now the good news in Canada our income tax rates have come down slowly (perhaps at the expense of the quality of our health care and military, what military) but we still pay too much income tax IMO and the reality is the reduction in federal and provincial taxes, over the last decade or so have been offset by higher property taxes and user fees as each level of government downloaded onto the next lower level
I cannot remember but I think there is one country in Europe that has a low flat tax on income combined with what they called Value Added Tax
now after a while you get used to and don't pay attention to the sale tax......
if you are paying half as much income tax then a reasonable national sales tax wouldn't be onerous at all and again the more people spend, the more expensive the item, yeah it's a consumption tax
the key is get the right balance, the right percentage, here so you don't slow down the market
in Canada they introduced the Good and Services Tax, effectively adding a 7 per cent tax on a number of items not previously tax in the same year as hard hitting recession (keep in mind though it also replaced an old tax on certain goods that was 13.5%)
we sell residential houses, we got double whammied in 1990
they brought in the Goods and Services Tax on new housing at the same time the municipality brought in development charges (to fund the cost of new infrastructure necessitated by new subdivisions) - with mortgage rates around 14 per cent we couldn't pass on the extra money to the consumer or we wouldn't sell anything and those two taxes almost eroded our net profit per unit......
but times improved, house prices have gone up tremendously, though costs have too, but the profit margins are nice again.....
the paperwork for the GST is a bitch, at least the provincial sales tax, they give you 5 per cent of what you collect as commission, so you can at least offset your increased bookkeeping costs.......
the other thing is for lower income people, they get a quarterly cheque from the Government called the GST Tax Credit to give them relief from the GST they have to pay on their purchases etc.......
Actually, it just makes it higher. I already paid taxes on that money when I earned it. I can see sales taxes when I pay them now.