national sales tax

I believe that taxes are both necessary and ridiculous. In a free-market system that is consumer driven, an income tax is not only the single biggest economy buster, it is the most complex and inefficient way of collecting taxes.

I don't believe that we should tax the rich because they have lots of money. I want to have lots of money one day, and when I do, I don't want to be taxed more because I do. But, something that most people don't think about when it comes to taxes and the rich, is that the rich already have the money. Income tax doesn't tax you on the money you already have! It does, however, tax you on the money you earn. So, lets think about this -- if you are poor or middle-class, you likely don't have alot of savings, so you get taxed on a larger percentage of your money, because a larger percentage of your money is recently earned. In fact, if you have no savings at all, you get taxed on 100% of your money (not taking into account deductions and credits, which rich people get more of anyway.) That sounds fair, doesn't it! The truth of the matter is that the rich will always pay more monetary taxes than the remainder of the population, and will always pay taxes on a lower percentage of the money they have. I would much rather pay a national sales tax, exclusively.

In a scenario where I only pay sales tax, I can better save. I can, for instance, decide to delay purchasing a new car. By doing so, I not only save the tax, but I also potentially make interest on the money I didn't spend. The rich buy nice cars, far more expensive than I the vehicles I purchase. They will be paying more taxes than I do. However, that will be their choice. In a national sales tax scenario, do you really think that Jay Leno is going to buy a Yugo because it will save him on taxes? Really?

There is the corporate area to consider, as well. You know, those big, greedy, evil corporations that get all those tax breaks! Guess what, when expenses (including taxes) go up for a corporation, so does the product price. The consumer pays all corporate expenses, including taxes, or the corporation goes out of business. So, even if the consumer prices don't go down (directly due to tax liability being lifted), they will more than likely stay at the current level longer than they would have otherwise.

What about illegal aliens? They are not just people, they are consumers. Even those who work for cash, would pay through the national sales tax. What about the seedy underbelly of our society, most (if not all) of which deal in cash only. They too would contribute through a national sales tax.

Folks, a national sales tax, at worst, would only be as bad as what we already have. It couldn't possibly be worse. Furthermore, in a consumer-based society such as ours, the national sales tax is likely to cut-back on government spending (90% of IRS employees can go to the private sector), lower individual tax payouts (you decide how much tax you pay, by your spending habits), and raise the federal tax collections (due to fewer, if any, loopholes and the entire population contributing.)

I fail to see how what we have to loose and there seems to be so much to gain!