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Friday, December 16th, 2005 11:12 pm
Huh. It strikes me that, with modern technology, one could have a progressive sales tax.
Saturday, December 17th, 2005 09:18 am (UTC)
It's unlikely — while you could certainly provide an income pro-rating for sales tax which would be a good step towards abolishing it, you can't deal with the discretionary vs. mandatory spending gap across economic classes, and you don't deal with savings in any way.  There's also the huge social economic information disclosure problem, although with sufficient technology, you could avoid that, too. (Sales tax would be paid as part of a seperate and opaque transaction, basically, which means that cash economies won't won't work, and life generally sucks)  Overall, better to not bother and just tax the fuck out of the rich on direct and indirect income, along with some nicely punitative inheritance taxes.
Saturday, December 17th, 2005 01:48 pm (UTC)
It seems like it would be better1 to simply issue weekly refund checks of overcollected sales tax to people who qualify. Then the merchants have to track ID2 but they don't need to know your income or deal with a separate tax transaction.

1 For values of 'better' equal to 'if this horrible idea were considered desirable at all'.
2 But only on the transactions they want considered for the refund, perhaps. Or alternately, you could simply have the tax bureau accept authenticated receipts and issue refunds on that basis.
Saturday, December 17th, 2005 08:45 pm (UTC)
Another option, less overhead-intensive, would be to exempt the poorest from all sales tax, and have a card you show the register to establish examption. A food-stamp card you're paying with would automatically qualify. Of course, groceries are already exempt from sales tax in any halfway sane jurisdiction, so never mine.
Sunday, December 18th, 2005 01:17 am (UTC)
Actually, everything is already exempt from sales tax in any halfway sane jurisdiction (there are just very few halfway sane jurisdictions). It seems to work fine for Oregon, so let's just eliminate it instead of trying to patch it. :)
Sunday, December 18th, 2005 02:02 am (UTC)
I heartily agree. Unfortunately, I live in Washington, which has sales tax and no income tax, and this is not likely to change anytime soon.

Pardon my typo in the previous comment; I'd fix it if I could.