re: #571 ClaudeMonet

Bad idea IMO. The poorer classes, who of necessity must spend all or almost all of their income, would wind up paying a higher percentage of their income compared to those who are able to save.

This is precisely why I’ve never supported a national sales tax or any sort of flat consumption tax.

As someone who spent my 20’s living where every single dollar made the difference between things like eating and paying rent and with few luxuries, I’m not sympathetic to the argument that an income tax is unfair, but that a consumption tax would be. The people advocating it tend to be those who would see their tax burden decline. Not so at the other end. For the people that are barely scraping by from paycheck to paycheck, and who don’t have the luxury of investments or deep savings to fall back on, a consumption tax would devastate them, making things that much harder.