Do you know how much of your $1.78 per gallon unleaded is tax?
Far too much as the greater portion currently is made up as a combination of fuel excise taxes, state and federal, as well as 33% income & payroll taxes all up and down the line of production chain.
Under a pure National Retail Sales Tax like the Linder proposal, those excise, income & payroll taxes would be repealed and replaced by a single rate, single stage tax at the retail pump bringing the total tax plus shelf price much lower that that current $1.78.
So what exactly is your point?
Your answer:
Far too much...[it]is made up as a combination of fuel excise taxes, state and federal...all up and down the line of production chain...[in other words, we can't tell].
So what exactly is your point?
The point:
1) A "pure" retail sales tax becomes a VAT eventually, for reasons I outlined in a previous post.
(2) A VAT is an invisible and insidious tax. Just like gas taxes, you do not know how much of the cost of a product you purchase consists of taxes. The Government will tax the manufacturers' or the shippers' "added value," which is opaque and obscure.
(3) The point is, we just like we don't know what the tax on gasoline is, we won't know the VAT tax rate. Taxes will sneak up on us in the dead of the night, and we'll wake up with a Euro style social state.