Acting IRS commissioner resigning after agency reaches data-sharing deal with immigration authoritie

Don't know. I do know that white knighting for the tax man isn't my bag.

 

why do you think there are no examples in the world, or even recent history AFAIK, of very high sales taxes?

There are lot of examples of VAT taxes - they are workable, but can be complex and burdensome.

 

Knowing how things work is important if you are going to propose radically changing them.

 

• No clue the risks of black market for consumption tax avoidance
• No idea what regressive means in terms of taxation (standard ignorance of anyone who supports sales tax over income tax)
• No clue about any downstream impacts as the result of taxing consumption (e.g. disincentivizing purchasing)

Yep, you are checking all the boxes for a typical consumption tax enjoyer

 

I'm going off memory since it's been 15+ years since I read it but Neal Boortz FairTax book addresses a lot of these issues:

• The onus to collect taxes will fall on businesses, and since the vast majority of purchases flow through major corporations, the likelihood of significant tax avoidance is low. IRS could retain staff to enforce compliance by businesses.
• To address regressive taxation concerns, everyone would receive a monthly "pre-bate" equivalent to the amount of taxation for which they are currently exempt.
• As far as disincentivizing consumption, there would certainly be an adjustment period but the math roughly works out that everyone should be on equal footing to where they are with the current tax system.

Other benefits:

• Everyone's paychecks immediately go up and savings can be made tax free
  
• Closes the numerous loopholes available to the wealthy as they'd be taxed on all purchases
• Increase in tax revenue since the current black market of drugs, etc. would now be taxed when any of those proceeds are spent.

That's not to say it's perfect and there would be other issues like people who don't currently file taxes potentially missing out on the pre-bate. The math would also of course have to work out correctly, which I wouldn't trust this administration to do.

 

I don't disagree that you can make a flat tax work. But most that support it don't like what it takes to make it work: demogrants.

I do think that you are underselling the issue with consumption though. Taxes always change how we consume. Consumption tax definitely will increase the savings rate.

Also...man how I do miss old school talk radio. Neal Boortz was so much fun to listen to. I also really miss pre-Obama Rush