My view is that you will have less to spend. Less than now, with income and sales taxes combined. With a consumption tax, government has no incentive to promote your income, only your spending. Filling out a 1040 may be mandatory now, but under a national sales tax, if you don't spend enough, you will be fined.
There's a huge paradox here that is understandably difficult for some to comprehend. Reform the progressive tax, including a Taxpayers Bill of Rights (that is federal and state), have the states do the collection and no federal filing. Taxes. They'll never feel good, just hurt less.
"You are ignoring the fact that your paycheck will not be reduced 25%-40% by state and federal income tax withheld. So you will have more money to spend and some of it will go to pay the sales tax."
State taxes aside, they will not be abolished, in fact they will have to rise as during slow economic or depressed business cycles finds less people buying things, the states will have to raise their tax rates to make up the differences in lost federal allocations for things etc..
Point I wanted to make and thought perhaps I did at least partially, was that those that fall below a certain level of income, will have to sign on to a federal controlled program to monitor their income intake, and in so doing will put in place a system that can later be expanded as required to bring more into the "fold of control", to encompass more people. For instance, if this new taxing device was found to be inadequate due to the actual amount of taxes collected per sales. Then the federal government would be forced to either decrease the exempt status of those that formally qualified for exemption from paying the sales tax, or further restrict those that currently qualify.
In so doing it would place a further burden on those, AGAIN,
that are retired and on fixed incomes.
And please don't believe for a minute that corporations will lower the price on large ticket items such as cars, because they are no longer federally taxed. That is just ridiculous. They will simply reep the extra bucks. It always works that way. So then some of you are going to say, well hells frigen bells......why doesn't the Federal Government force them to lower the price of their cars by the amount saved per car, due to the new system. So now you will suggest the USA further control our free enterprise system.
What about the retired living on a fixed income from savings? They would suddenly be faced with a 23% increase in the cost of living with no proportionate increase in income reduced taxes.