[Always Right]

But a national sales tax will create a disinsentive to illegal immigration and collect more money from them than the income tax does.

How? You pay an illegal $1000 for some service, are they going to remit a tax? When they purchase goods legally today, they already pay embedded taxes in the costs of the goods to cover all the taxes of every employee and business owner in the chain. Besides a good portion of that money is going to be sent back to Mexico anyways, so neither system could capture it.

[AuH2ORepublican]

"You pay an illegal $1000 for some service, are they going to remit a tax?"

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Of course not, but neither do they pay the income tax today.

"When they purchase goods legally today, they already pay embedded taxes in the costs of the goods to cover all the taxes of every employee and business owner in the chain."

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Embedded, shmembedded. The income tax imposed on citizens and legal residents (and indirectly passed on to all purchasers) does not reduce the illegal alien's purchasing power anywhere near as much as if there weren't any income taxes and there was a national sales tax. A sales tax will be borne by illegal aliens in a more direct way and to a greater extent than the income tax paid by manufacturers and distributors ever could.

[phil_will1]

"Besides a good portion of that money is going to be sent back to Mexico anyways, so neither system could capture it."

Define "a good portion". I would hazard a guess that less than 40% of illegal wages earned here get sent back - probably FAR less. My reasoning is this: illegals aren't typically among society's more affluent and they (like most poor people) spend most of what they earn on basic necessities. Sales taxers hear this all the time as an objection to sales taxes being "regressive". Illegals still have to pay for a place to live, clothes to wear, food to eat, transportation, etc.