http://www.atr.org/obama-floats-vat-taxbr-pay-socialized-a3302  -link     What do you think about this article? Obama floats the idea of a vat tax for America. Let's keep the disscusion civil please. I want a honest debate on this.    

I guess I made this post to early. lol

It depends, if it means he can start throwing out the tax system and rewriting it from beginning to end then yes, hes probably onto a good thing.

I'm against it.

1) why change, there is little benefit over VAT vs. whatever we call the American version of sales tax (can't remember). Either way the end consumer pays the tax, it is just hidden now. We forget we are taxed.

2) All this does is hide the tax allowing the government to tax more (20% vat tax in most of Europe is huge compared to ~8% our sales tax) I doubt any state or county will drop their local tax and therefore our sales tax will have a universal bump across the entire United Sates.

3) increasing taxes hurts the economy, as it reduces the amount of money people have to spend on actual products. The economy started to go down the tubes when everyone realized that they couldn't pay their mortgage or credit card bills. More tax would just make economic recovery harder, as people who are living on the edge of their income won't be able to pay their bills any more.

4) Obama should have moved to Europe. He seems to want everything we do to match what they do. But hey, Americans wanted change!! just not these changes...

Also, I'll throw this in here - Until 2010, there had never been a federal sales tax in the United States; however, the 2010 health care reform law now imposes a 10% federal sales tax on indoor tanning services.

Sales taxes hurt the poor the most, yet Obama is trying to increase these taxes everywhere. Who we really should have elected into government was someone who actually wanted to reduce the size of the government, get out of the health industries way (remove state border restrictions), reduce taxes, and improve everyone's lives (in other words, get out of them) all at the same time.

I really liked how online shopping often doesn't have taxes in the US. Though sadly I was in NY, and that didn't apply there (but newegg still sent the stuff without taxing it...)

And yeah, it's enviably low compared to Europe's VAT.

edit: so he wants to introduce a new tax just so it doesn't seem that he broke a promise not to raise (already existing) taxes?

I'm opposed, but that's hardly surprising since I find myself opposing pretty much everything Obama does. On the plus side, almost half of all households in the country aren't paying income taxes, so maybe this will have the unintended consequence of persuading some of that parasite class that empowering the feddle gubmint to take care of all your needs isn't such a great thing.

I am so disgusted with it all, I am no longer posting. You know what I think about the cesspool that people call Obama. We just need to ride out the next few years, and hope he doesn't fuck this place up to bad while he is in office.

Whoever thought he could run a country, needs to be slapped.

except in the US, we tax pretty much everything but food. I would agree with you if they drastically reduced the number of items taxed. Various governments (NY State for example) are trying to tax any drink that has sugar in it. Food is going to be taxed very soon. Sales tax hurts the poor, as they are the people that need to buy clothes, transportation, cooking utensils and other daily items like soap which are all taxed.

Rich people favor sales tax claiming it is "fair", poor people favor income tax claiming the rich need to pay. I can give $20 to a homeless guy to buy clothes for himself, and the government will gladly take 10% (note, you are better off actually giving the clothes to the homeless guy than money ) How that is fair, I really don't know. Tax is never fair to anyone, as it is other people spending your hard earned money. Heck, if you are going to be robbing people, I'd rather rob the rich than the poor. Why should the poor should pay 20% of their total income while the rich pay less than 1% of their income and put the rest into invesments? Again, I'd rather have a tiny government that doesn't rob you blind to control your lives and provide "free" services. I'd rather the poor are supported via charities. Heck, look at the list of billionairs who give so much money. If you stopped taxing them, I'd bet they would even increase their charity as it wouldn't hurt their bottom line.

Also, show me where Obama is actually talking about reducing income tax? I don't buy that this move by Obama favors anyone at all, and it hurts the poor the most. I know people who don't make enough money to actually have income tax, yet a sales tax directly effects them. I don't know how they manage to scrape by but they do.

The poor people will be hit the hardest by 10% or 12.5% or 15% or 17.5%. Every time a VAT is introduced it will be increased over time. VAT has been introduced and increased in eevry country it has been introduced.

VAT is based on how many goods and services you consume. Poorest people will be hardest hit having to pay 10% extra for everything. Obama needs to introduce a new tax because he is spendin g too much of hard working US tax payers money. Obama needs more money.

Once a tax is in it usually stays. Government hardly ever remove taxes which have been introduced.

Introduce a VAT in the US to help foot the bill of the Universal Medical system in the US.

All food is taxed at about 5.5% where I live.  Are you sure there are no taxes on food where you live?