Groups that support a national retail sales tax:

The Confederate Pary

Citizens for an Alternative Tax System

National Retail Sales Tax Alliance

Americans for Fair Taxation

The Great American Taxpayer's Revolution

And lest anyone think there is not another side to the debate....

The Case Against the National Sales Tax

-- Ken Decker (kcdecker@att.net), January 05, 2001

Answers

I am for it unless I am against it...

-- Uncle Bob (unclb0b@aol.com), January 05, 2001.

When it seems that those against always make the strongest case, you have to wonder. Armey is right -- a sales tax always becomes a VAT, and for good practical reasons. But a flat tax will look like the Chicago skyline by the time the social engineers are done with it. Remember St. Brian's sole foray into the tax protest mythology thread was to insist that taxes be used to achieve worthy (i.e. liberal) social goals, whatever revenues they may or may not raise being less important. What we have now is as flat as it's ever going to get.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), January 05, 2001.

I don't like a national sales tax because all the info I have seen points to businesses not paying any taxes at all any more. We the consumers and citizens must shoulder all the burden. If anyone looks at the figures, under the current tax structure, the top 1% of wage earners, including corporations I believe, pay over 40% of all the taxes.

-- Just passin through (nobody@nowhere.com), January 05, 2001.

Flint: "Remember St. Brian's sole foray into the tax protest mythology thread was to insist that taxes be used to achieve worthy (i.e. liberal) social goals..."

Here's the thread.

Here's "St. Brian's sole foray" (complete):

"I could see a minimal (2% or so) national sales tax, provided it exempted all food, medical care and prescription drugs. That would include restaurant food, just for the sake of simplicity. If you eat it, no tax applies. When any item is needed just to keep body and soul together, it should not be taxed. All other items should be fair game.

However, items already taxed such as alcohol, cigarettes and gasoline should be taxed at the present rate and not increased.

-- Brian McLaughlin (brianm@ims.com), January 04, 2001."

Got truth?

-- Recording Angel (recording_angel@heaven's_gate.org), January 05, 2001.

Ken,

I have enjoyed our debate on this subject, and will spend some time exploring your links (with an open mind too), thank you. I have a house guest, and being the proper host I will not be spending a lot of time on line over the next week. While one liners and catchy quips literaly pour forth from my brain, expressing myself seriously with the written word has always been a laborious process for me, thus long thoughtful posts from moi will be in short supply this week. (grin)

-- Uncle Deedah (unkeed@yahoo.com), January 06, 2001.

Recording Angel:

??? Thanks for showing us that Brian did *precisely* what I described. But what's your point? Rather than a simple, flat sales tax on everything (the whole goal here), he wants no taxes on some things, lower taxes on some, higher on some. He wants to use the sales tax to help the poor, and to discourage "vice", and generally engineer social policy. The 2% rate he suggests is not meaningful as a *revenue generating* source, ONLY as social policy.

Got comprehension?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), January 06, 2001.