For a NRST to be fair, all individuals would pay proportionately based on their consumption. Do you think earned income tax credit recipients (the new welfare) aren't going to whine and scream when they loose their tax credit? Do you think low income taxpayers currently exempt from paying any tax won't do the same? Do you think politicians will ignore these screams and tax them fairly. I don't! Now you've either got sales tax exemptions, sales tax refunds or a new income tax on high (as yet to be defined) earning taxpayers. This will reintroduce compliance requirements and tax preparers. You can throw your fairness right out the window. Or you can say, "yea but it won't be me" but we can't even be certain about that.
I'm not saying our current system can't be improved upon. I'm just saying that waving a wand to change the income tax to a sales tax isn't the panacea everyone dreams it to be.
Well you seems to be saying that the NRST would be a fairer system and becuase it is a fairer system it will not be adopted. You might be right but that is not the fault of the system. Re earned income credit. As I understand it everyone gets a rebate of several thousnad dollars to compendsate for taxes paid on thier first 20,000 or so of income. The idea being to lesson the tax burden the first 20,000 or so of income which in the case of poor people is thier only income. So the system bends over backward to protect the income of poor people from taxes. Also I would tink that it would be possible to apply for earned income assistance, maybe not in the same way, but still possible.