Income Tax vs Sales Tax

But by making the "23%" an inclusive part of the price, all you see is the post tax price. Unless they recreated all of the cash registers to say "sale price $1.30, tax paid $0.30". If it just says "sale price $1.30", then the tax paid is concealed. And eventually large numbers of people will forget about it. While a sales tax says "sale price $1, tax $0.30, total $1.30". That makes it explicitly clear how much tax you pay. So to all appearances the fair tax people are in fact trying to conceal how much is going to be charged.

 

Somehow I think the fact that everything has inflated 30% overnight won't go unnoticed... but I think this has been argued to death in other threads and I've got no interest in resurrecting it here and now.

 

...you'd just be punishing people for making less.

The rich do not consume more as a percent wise as the poor, so you'd just be requiring n-tuple deductions such that you might as well just have a freaking income tax.

 

Well at least we can agree taxation is nothing more than punishment. xarthaz would be happy.

 

Thus motivating them to make more money. An all around good thing, yes?

 

You're kidding me, right?

 

I think trying to make a progressive sales tax is extremely cumbersome. And if you are trying to make it progressive, you are really just trying to make it a proxy for income. It would be far more effective just to skip the middle man and have an income tax. If you want to curb wasteful consumption, you can have sales taxes as secondary options where certain "luxury" items are "punished".

 

Or making it pointless for them to participate in the legitimate economy....

 

I hate sales tax, just the other day I was going to buy two folders for a dollar but then LOL SALES TAX and since I left all my change in my car I only could buy one.

 

I wish more after sales tax prices were designed to come out to "roundish" numbers. I hate pennies.

I don't have an exact definition for "roundish", but you all know what I mean. Numbers that are convenient with respect to currency denominations. Minimize the number of things that get put back into my hand.

 

You can always ban pennies and have businesses round to the nearest nickel.

 

That would work!

 

Income tax.

I'm moving to CA soon, so even with ordering online I will end up paying sales tax on many things. For high ticket items it's cheaper to have things delivered to my parents' house, then have my parents bounce it back over to me. That makes no sense!!

 

Nope. I'm being 100% serious.

 

I think he means they would have it calculated tax-exclusive like state sales taxes generally are rather than tax-inclusive like income taxes are now. IIrc, receipts are still supposed to list how much of the purchase was sales tax, so the real difference would just be that retailers can't list their products as 23% (or 30%) cheaper than they really are. I admit that pat of the reasoning may be because 23 is smaller than 30 and therefore a bit easier to sell though.

Personally I think all sales taxes should be tax-inclusive, so that consumers can just look at the listed prices and know how much we are spending rather than having to do the math to calculate how much they are actually spending once the tax is added. The fact that local sales taxes can vary from county to county can make tax-exclusive

 

Income tax. Progressivism and all that jazz.

Sales taxes only when in 5s, no decimals, and harmonized (no tax on tax ).

 

Given the premise that it all equals out for me sales tax. Since it's regressive it's like getting the joy of kicking the poor man down every time he makes a purchase, and that's a feeling you just can't put a price on.

 

fugettaboutit

so much more fun to club the poor man down, the exquisite sound a cracking skull makes