Thursday, March 31, 2005

A national sales tax

George Will (article)


His bill would abolish the IRS and the many billions of tax forms it sends out and receives. He would erase the federal income tax system -- personal and corporate income taxes, the regressive payroll tax and self-employment tax, capital gains, gift and estate taxes, the alternative minimum tax and the earned income tax credit -- and replace all that with a 23 percent national sales tax on personal consumption.


I am all for a national sales tax. I think that it would be the fairest way for the government to fund itself. A national sales tax would even be a better source of revenue than a usage tax (such as tolls on the highway).
What do you think?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Australia already has a thing called GST for 'general sales tax'. It is flat rate, is the only tax, and it is already included in the price of everything. Its very nice. Food, with the exception of junk food (like Iowa) is tax free. Its a 10% tax, but its isn't all powerful like what this article is talking about. It does not include things like income tax.

Big Red said...

Shannon,

I'm glad you found that article, too. The biggest opponents of this tax say that it will heart us in the trading game. Still, this is definitely something worth checking out.

Ookami Snow said...

How will it hurt us with trading?