Thread: Would you be willing to pay higher sales tax, for no income tax?

Oh hell yes; although I wouldn't mind the income tax if the higher taxes for the rich were actually properly allocated to help the poor and less fortunate.

Voted Yes

and I am looking at Draco's post and I have a few counter points.

Second, a national sales tax would discourage spending and depress the economy; if we assume that there is some basic breadbasket of goods that everyone will buy regardless (like food, etc.), then the markets hit worst are luxury and convenience: stuff like cars, appliances, electronics, travel, and the like. Given the unstable nature of the current economy and the shakiness of the dollar, doing anything to discourage investment into the system is a bad idea.

Good point but look at it this way. Say you made $7.50 an hour. You work 50 hours a week on average. Like a lot of people who do manual labor. Your gross pay is about 400 bucks a week. But you will probably take home about 300 on the current tax system. A national sales tax will put this money back in the hands of the people. Prices will go up, but people will initially be shocked at the larger amount of money being put back in their pocket. Eventually tax revenues will stabilize.

Third, a national sales tax essentially amounts to a flat rate tax, which unfairly advantages the top earners while placing most of the burden on the middle class. If the percentage of salary spent remained equal throughout the earning range, then it would make sense, but high earners need spend a much smaller percentage of what they earn, and so a national sales tax would mean that much larger proportions of their money are untaxed and not necessarily invested (more likely put into savings accounts or bonds), which is another big no-no for the health of the economy.

I don't follow your logic here. You are assuming that high earners only spend as much money as they need to spend. Which is how the ultra-green hippy party thinks they would, but they don't. You know it and I know it. If you have 100 grand to spend on a car, you don't go buy a ford focus. You get a caddy, or a beamer. You buy a bigger house, why? because you can afford to. So no, this isn't comparable to a flat tax except in one very unlikely scenario.

Fourth, I think the rise and prevalence of electronic filing software has made a lot of the "nightmare" of taxes disappear; people can now be walked through the entire return step by step and asked a series of no-nonsense questions to fill out the forms properly. And, if you've done your W-4's right, you shouldn't have to worry about paying anything (or waiting for a refund check). Withholding is in place for the same kinds of reasons that a national sales tax would work, to pay tax in as you earn it so you don't have to pay at the end. I think a lot of it comes down to people's reticence to do the planning and make the effort to use the system correctly (kinda like their reticence to plan for retirement, or save some damn money, or not spend themselves on credit into oblivion...).

Well, for a lot of people, yes, you can do a w-4 pretty easy. But have you seen the tax return for someone who runs their own business? Or a Farmer? I have. Back home, we have boxes and boxes of tax documents. It takes my dad a week to sit down and compile the information our accountant needs to know to do our taxes. It may be easy for someone who works a job, who gets a steady paycheck to do a return, unless you want to go digging for deductions. There is so much stuff you can deduct on your taxes it isn't funny. But most people don't look for them, because it isn't worth the hassle.

A national sales tax is the fairest way to tax.

Socialism works well in other countries but I don't believe the American mentality would allow for it on a grand scale unless a huge social change came about. As with all forms of government it works better in a smaller population group but socialism especially.

I am a person who really loves the core ideas behind socialism, communism, and democracy, but I feel that they are never utilized correctly.
Working together as a whole is a great idea, making decisions as a whole is an awesome idea as well. However Socialism and Communism retards economy and government services (especially communism.)

In a Socialistic society you will be paying a lot more out of pocket than you would in any other system of government. YOU are paying for EVERYTHING your government provides including healthcare for someone you don't know, and leads into abuse of free services.

Communism makes tyrants, look at any communist leader if you don't believe me. Here is a good example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pol_Pot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge

I vote no your proposal makes no sense

Originally Posted by Cecil900

...if the government would eliminate sales tax, but start charging higher sales tax...