Drudge is reporting that a centerpiece of Republican strategy may be to push for elimination of the IRS in favor of sales taxes, VAT and other forms of simpler taxation.
VAT taxes and sales taxes have drawbacks, but they have one great advantage. They expose consumers to the real costs of taxation that the current system shields them from. Currently, employers are required to be tax collectors through withholding. In addition, there is the little fiction that employers are required to "match" a portion of the employee's taxes and the employee doesn't really pay that part. What really happens is that the "match" is considered when salaries and wages are set and the end result is that people are simply paid less. The reason government likes this is that it fools people about how much they're really paying in taxes.
The same is true of so-called corporate taxation. Corporation supposedly pay taxes that the "public" then doesn't have to pay. But, they DO pay for these taxes, sometimes with their jobs, when taxes become burdensome and companies decide to leave a particular area as a result.
BUT, in the case of the sales taxes, then everyone sees how much they're really being taxed, and this places a limit on government's ability to raise taxes. Which is exactly why the left will come up with reasons not to do it. Although it would put the left in an interesting position -- defending the existence of the IRS, the one universally hated government bureau. Personally, I'm all for a flat tax. A flat tax on INDIVIDUALS only. No corporate hide-the-real-taxes shell games. Individuals pay taxes anyway, when it comes down to it. And if everybody sees the real bill, the left's "tax cuts for the wealthy" arguments all dissolve into thin air. EVERYONE will like low taxes. AND they'll actually understand the taxes code for a change.
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