Obama... Man Were We All Fooled...

[Kasz216]

akuma587 said:
A sales tax would discourage spending and hurt the economy. People are pretty shortsighted, but they do notice a 30% tax on their goods, so this would encourage people to buy things from abroad if the costs weren't prohibitive because there would be no tax. People would try to get around it on the internet as well, which would be a nightmare for the federal government to patrol since there is so much traffic.

Income tax is something they can't get around easily, and it isn't something people generally think about on a day to day basis. Same with property tax. You would notice the sales tax every time you went and purchased something, so it would shape your habits accordingly.

A flat tax would have to be at least 28-30% to actually work. It really wouldn't provide many advantages to the system we have now, and a society and economy with a progressive income tax is more stable.

The argument isn't that it will have any advantage.  It's that it's more fair. 

In general that money earned is directly a result of choices you've made and that taxing richer people more is basically taking more away from them because they made better choices.

For some people, fairness is more important then stability.

Of course this is why living expenses would have to be taken out of any "flat tax" since everyone should be provided with enough to live.

I mean... a similar comparison would be if in the NBA Kobe Bryant's field goals were worth 1 instead of 2.  And Ben Wallace's counted as 5.

Sure Kobe still will have more total points then Ben Wallace, but he has to work a lot harder to get it.