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"A pile of excretement called by any other name still smells and sticks to the bottom of shoes"

A very good description of the NRST.

A very good description of the NRST.

Ot any tax, for that matter. But the redeeming thing about a NRST is that it's frontloaded, right there at the point of sale so everyone can see it. That's what the control freaks don't like about it. Including the ones on FR who drink the kool aid of the GOPs big government agenda.

A sales tax where the citizen controls their level of taxation, and the tax rate is transparent, is anathema to power hungry politicians.

"A pile of excretement called by any other name still smells and sticks to the bottom of shoes"

A very good description of the NRST.

There are obviously those who hold such personal opinions.

OTOH, there are those who come to a much different conclusion rooted in economics and the Constitutional basics:

Federalist #21:

"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.
Impositions of this kind usually fall under the denomination of indirect
taxes, and must for a long time constitute the chief part of the revenue
raised in this country." (Emphasis added).

Ludwig von Mises as Policy Analyst: Monetary Reform, Fiscal Policy, and Foreign Exchange Controls by Richard M. Ebeling
Heritage Lecture #754

http://www.heritage.org/Research/PoliticalPhilosophy/hl754.cfm#pgfId-1023417

"Austria, Mises said, would be a poor country. The destruction of war, the consumption and misuse of capital, the destruction of a large portion of the Austrian entrepreneurial class due to the expelling or murder of so many Jewish businessmen and financiers, and the debilitation of the labor force from death and permanent injury in battle would require Austria to turn its back on its socialist, interventionist, and welfare-statist past. Only economic freedom and hard work could restore Austria from a condition that we might nowadays loosely refer to as "third world" status.
Fiscal policy, therefore, would have to be designed to do everything possible to unleash private sector incentives and opportunities for investment, capital formation, and entrepreneurship. Virtually all taxes, Mises suggested, should be skewed toward consumption and away from production. What type of broadly based consumption taxes? He proposed:

(1) excise taxes on alcoholic beverages, tobacco, and related tobacco products;
(2) a sales tax exclusively on the sale of goods and services to the final consumer; there should be no explicit or hidden value added taxes;
(3) a progressive consumption tax based on housing expenditures, but with an exemption for housing expenditures for those in the lower income brackets;
(4) a tax on luxury automobiles for private or personal use;
(5) a tax on lottery winnings;
(6) a stamp tax on playing cards;
(7) administrative fees for certain government services, such as issuing patent rights, brand name registrations, determination of weights and measures, and "official stamps" to cover the cost of providing various types of documentation;
(8) a wage tax paid by employers that was not deducted from the employee's salary to fund existing social insurance programs; and
(9) a moderate net profits tax on shareholders and limited liability partnerships when annual disbursements exceeded 6 percent of the enterprise's capital assets; retained earnings by the enterprise would be exempt from taxes so as not to discourage capital formation.

Except for the net profits tax and the wage tax for social insurance costs, all income and business earnings would be completely tax-exempt. And a perusal of Mises' proposed list of taxes clearly shows that he thought that, besides the general sales tax, the fiscal burden should primarily be in the form of what nowadays would be classified as "sin taxes" and a narrow selection of "luxury" expenditures. Mises' long recognized advocacy of "laissez-faire" did not mean a hands-off indifference to the path taken by the market economy. What would be produced, where and how goods would be produced, and for which segments of the consuming public would be determined by the pattern of market demand and the profit-driven entrepreneurs. As Mises expressed it in the early 1940s, "If there is any hope for an new [economic] upswing [at the end of the war] it rests with the initiative of individuals. The entrepreneurs will have to rebuild what the governments and politicians have destroyed."

***
It should be mentioned that Mises' apparent concession to the welfare state in his listing among his fiscal suggestions of an employer's tax for social insurance expenditures did not mean his belief in their desirability or necessity. This was clearly an admission that, given the political currents, not everything could be reformed at once. For example, in 1942 Mises was invited to lecture in Mexico for six weeks during which he had the opportunity to studying the economic conditions in the country. The following year, in 1943, he prepared a lengthy monograph for an association of Mexican businessmen on "Mexico's Economic Problems." His recommendation was to not establish social insurance programs in the first place. If part of the cost of such social insurance schemes falls on the shoulders of the employers, it would only succeed in raising the cost of employing workers, with the negative effect of pricing some members of the work force out of the job market. At the same time, such government-mandated insurance policies restricted the freedom of the employee to weigh the opportunity costs of allocating his income in various ways more reflective of his own preferences and that of his family.

Alan Keyes: Taxes & Government Spending:

"The income tax in effect makes us vassals to the government – the politicians decide how much income we can keep. No mere “reform” of this slave tax, such as flattening the rate, can correct its fundamental denial of control over our own money. Only the abolition of the income tax itself will restore the basic American principle that our income is both our own money and our own private business - not the government's."

"Replacing the income tax with a national sales tax would rejuvenate independence and responsibility in our citizens. True economic liberty and moral revival go hand in hand."

"A national sales tax would also put the American citizen back in control of national fiscal policy. The best way to curtail government spending is to cut taxes, because they can’t spend what they don’t get. But with a sales tax, we could deny funds to a spendthrift government – and give ourselves a tax cut – whenever we make the private choice to alter our spending and saving habits."

"A very good description of the NRST."

I ask seriously, why? I have yet to see any objector to the NRST come up with a valid point to counter the supporters arguments. If you have one, put it on the table for all to see.

Justify your claim that the NRST is crap.