[rwfromkansas]

blah blah "I don't know what I'm talking about" blah blah

[undeniable logic]

A flat income tax is a good idea, except for the fact that as soon as the democrats win the executive and legislative branches it is easy to make the flat tax progressive all over again. The flat income tax is a temporary solution. We need to switch to a NRST and here is why.

First, we abolish the IRS and all information relating to people's income. Once this is done, it will be difficult to reimplement because of the cost to start it up all over again. Put the switching cost to our advantage.

Second, almost all businesses are already having to pay a sales tax, although it is to their respective states. It should be relatively easy to ramp up a national sales tax system.

Third, compliance costs will be much smaller. Instead of having to collect from 200 million taxpayers, you collect from however many businesses there are. Also, we the taxpayers will save time and money in completing tax returns.

Fourth, no individual fears of being audited.

Fifth, there is no doubt that there is a ton of unreported income, sitting idle for fear of getting caught with tax evasion. This money is not buying products or being invested.

Sixth, no more class warfare - you cannot implement a progressive system here. And if you try to increase taxes on a higher class of item to penalize the "rich," workers will lose jobs because of decreased demand. Remember what happened with the yachts?

I think wise states would abolish their income taxes and replace them with sales taxes as well.

Now I can add a little bit of my personal dream. I would like the sales tax to be paid separate by law. For instance, if you go buy groceries for $100, the cashier would first collect $100 for the groceries and in an entirely separate transaction collect the sales tax. This way, everyone would be completely aware of how much they are paying in tax. In the VAT system, the taxes are included and for the most part hidden. When you buy something, the total you pay is the sticker - it becomes easy to forget that you are paying any taxes at all.

Undeniable Logic