I believe a NRST will encourage cash transactions.
The option with income taxes, to not earn money, is hardly an option to promote.)
I can say the same about sales taxes. The option with sales taxes, to not buy, is hardly an option to promote.
Furthermore, with those who want to resist paying the tax, it is hard to fault a person for wanting to keep the product of their own labor.
This is true of all taxation.
Finally, it is far better to have enforcement targeting non-corporeal businesses than real individuals.
That is a great insight! Let's get rid of the personal income tax, and increase the corporate income tax to make it revenue neutral.
And income tax hasn't created similar incentives for non-reportable income? Cash tips to waitresses (and exotic dancers for that matter), the cash transaction that my tow truck driver requested last year (expressly lowering my price in exchange, and stating why), the extra benefit of tax-free income encouraging drug-dealing (or any other illegal product)... and then we get to the fact the sales taxes are inherently fair. They are equal for all, and avoid the Communist ideal of a "progressive" tax system.
I can say the same about sales taxes. The option with sales taxes, to not buy, is hardly an option to promote.
Given the choice between the two - encouraging not working or not buying - the far better choice is the latter. Laziness should not be encouraged, because it fosters dependence and is difficult to "unlearn". However, if you're not buying anything, that means you have to make, grow, invent, create, barter, or build it yourself. This fosters independence, increases the number of skills you have, increases the competition in those fields, and rewards the hard-working.
Furthermore, with those who want to resist paying the tax, it is hard to fault a person for wanting to keep the product of their own labor.
This is true of all taxation.
No, it isn't. Not all taxes are income-based (a notion that is explcitily prohibited by the Constitution... that is, it was, until the 16th Amendment came along in 1913). If a seller, after including taxes, charges me $20 for a $15 widget, then he tries to keep the extra $5, he is fraudulently overcharging me, and he is stealing the government proceeds that he collected by invoking their name. He is clearly in the wrong for trying to keep this money. On the other hand, I cannot fault a working American who has been hired to do a job for $100 and who wants to keep all $100 that he has worked so hard to earn. The difference is clear. The justifiable, honest, moral, and fair position is to tax purchases, not labor.
(I see that my phrasing in my previous post was probably poor. Yes, the seller did get this money by the product of his labor... the "labor" of lying to me and to the government. I should have probably said "honest labor".)
That is a great insight! Let's get rid of the personal income tax, and increase the corporate income tax to make it revenue neutral.
In otherwords, a VAT, so the voter doesn't have any measure of how much he pays in taxes, and saddle the corporations with even heavier burdens of tax compliance costs. Sounds like a great idea NOT.
You are being anticpated by the way, that is the ultimate direction the movement to WTO and European Union compatability is going, along with the encouragement of the so called Flat Tax with large personal exemptions(Under the Armey "flat" tax, HR1040 introduced 3/15/2001). Just a slight change at the corporate level in how capital equipement is expensed and we have you full fledged VAT with all the complexities of the current corporate tax law to play with already built in.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/foundationmessage03-00.html
"Under the WTO definition of the term, a sales tax is an indirect tax, as is an European-style VAT. The economic equivalence of an European-style VAT and a subtraction-method VAT is well-established. A subtraction-method VAT is essentially identical to a business income tax except that all purchases of plant and equipment may be expensed, rather than depreciated as under current U.S. law."
And every man woman and child in the nation, ends up paying federal taxes through that VAT with no idea whatever of the burden placed on them by ever growing government. Just take a look at what is happening with the EU & it's VATs. Just think we to can have an economy just like France.