I think so. There could also be a substantial conversion problem (i.e., buying things tax free for a business and using it for personal use, which should be taxed). I think a lot of the NRST advocates are basically honest people who can't begin to imagine the schemes that people are already using to evade much lower rates of taxation.
How would/could something like eBay come to fruition, considering the onerous bookkeeping a NRST would necessarily place upon it?
In fairness to the NRST, most proposals have excemptions for small informal sales (up to about $500, I think). And, trust me, the states are already very annoyed that they can't tax Internet and catalog sales.
I don't expect that you'd care to be a mouthpiece for such a system, just curious as to your thoughts...
I think that a lot of the economic benefits that the NRST people talk about are real. But I also think that enforcement could be much more complicated than they imagine. I also think they don't give enough consideration of the potential abuses of the rebate mechanism or about smuggling across the Canadian or Mexican border to evade taxes. I also have two other concerns.
Given the importance of consumption in our economy, I'm concerned with any tax that will discourage consumption (a reason why the Japanese economy has stagnated for the past decade is that the Japanese save too much). I also think that any NRST proposal is DOA unless the constitutional amendment allowing income taxes is repealed. If it isn't, we'll wind up with both types of taxes, which would make things worse.
Most of these problems could probably be solved over time. So I wouldn't say that the NRST isn't worth talking about. But I'm not holding my breath over the Constitution being amended to prohibit income taxes and I'm not willing to supprt an NRST until it is.