re: #430 lostlakehiker

But if the tax is invisible then the taxpayer won’t have any incentive to think about the implications for his own finances of voting for higher taxes. Sales taxes, excise taxes, social security taxes, and a VAT should it be enacted, all fall into that category.

But the cruelest regressive tax is the state lottery. Almost everyone loses. The poor buy most of the tickets. And the winners’ lives are ravaged by the unexpected wealth. Clinical depression and all sorts of other woes are commonplace among “winners” of the big prizes. Those who win little prizes are just sucked into “trying” harder, that is to say, squandering more of their already scant cash.

How is a sales tax or VAT invisible if it is levied and collected from the purchaser at the point of sale of the goods or invoiced to the recipient of the service as a separate item on the bill?