"Fair Share"

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by Riot

Adding a national sales tax would financially kill people making less than $50,000 a year, just decimate them financially, worse for those making less than $25,000.

I agree that a progressive system in federal taxes is good, especially when you have regressive state and local taxes that hit the poor the hardest.

You can't get Congress to even consider eliminating a tax break, loophole or subsidy. See what just happened with oil company subsidies. I remember Bush laughing when they picked the expiration date for his unfunded tax cuts. We knew it was coming, and so did the GOP. And they calculated right: they wouldn't be the ones in office when they expired.

I think it is an exaggeration to say that a national sales tax would "kill people that make less than $25k a year". If a person makes $25k a year, I assume they are paying rent. There would be no national sales tax on rent. Let's say their rent is $500 a month. That means they would be left with $19k to spend. There would be no national sales tax on health insurance or car insurance or any of those things. After all those things were paid, how much would the person have left to spend, maybe $15k? If they spent every dime of that on things that had a national sales tax, they means they would have spent $750 total for the year on taxes. If you make $25k a year and your total tax bill is $750 for the entire year, that isn't so bad.

If you think that is too much I guess there could be an exemption on the sales tax for people who make under a certain amount.