Lets think out side the box for a moment. Most states that have a sales tax ALSO have an income tax. Probably a bad idea to have the two concurrent because lets face it neither will go the way of the dodo bird. There will almost always be some excuse to not get rid of one of the forms of taxation. In order to change from one type of taxation to another you HAVE to go cold turkey, otherwise no tax goes away and you just get taxed more.
The best tax there is that is the least regressive and captures the most money with the least attempts at fraud is a transaction tax at less than a percent rate. It hits everyone but hits those with the most money the most. Rich people tend to move money, a lot of money, a lot of times. A transaction tax will hit them the hardest while at the same time making sure EVERYONE has skin in the game but are equally impacted. It impacts the FLOW of money, its velocity if you will. That means its in the governments interests that the money flow is as maximum capacities, which is good for you and I, because the more we make the better off we are.
Pirate Mk1, you apparently hadn’t noticed and/or didn’t care that I’m a proponent of both an income and a sales tax. States that tax both sale and net incomes do a much better job of collecting their tax revenues. The purpose of taxes is to obtain sufficient tax revenue for operating the government; it’s not expected to please the taxpayers.
Collecting government’s major tax revenues base upon both net incomes and gross purchases enables lesser rates for each of those tax systems. That’s important because as the rates for a tax method increases, that tax exerts greater influence upon their tax-payers’ behaviors; lower sales tax rates do not effectively influence purchasing decisions but higher sales tax rates do that.
[This is also the great harm due to the many exceptions, inclusions, and other loop holes within our taxing of individuals and enterprises’ net incomes. The federal government is in effect choosing winners, and/or losers, and effecting the manners by which enterprises and individual conduct their financial and commercial practices. The consequences of decisions primarily determined by tax rates rather than what would have otherwise been chosen, too often are not to our nation’s and/or to the taxpayers’ best interests.]
We would be pleased if the wealthy paid more and we paid a lesser portion of our government’s tax revenues. But even if that occurs, we’d continue to need more equitable and effective taxing systems. Just taxing the transactions of the wealthy will not provide sufficient tax revenue.
I’m among those believing a federal tax upon general sales transactions would be an improvement.
Wealth’s abilities to directly or indirectly purchase preferential access to the ears of elected officials and administrators enables enactment of government regulations and laws that are more favorable to them.
They individually and in aggregate purchase more than we do and (proportional to their actual annual net incomes), it’s not their income tax returns but their purchases that proportionally more accurately reflect their comparative true incomes.
The extent of economic improvement due to replacement of any portions of our taxes based upon our net incomes or gross payrolls would be much dependent upon the accompanying modifications of our remaining taxes and other regulations. To the extent that we do it foolishly, we’ll accomplish less or possibly do ourselves net economic harm.
Respectfully, Supposn