Washington Post: Lawmakers Consider Implementing National Sales Tax

[Bishopknight]

Warning: This might make you angry...

A VAT's Bottom Line

What would it cost? Emanuel argues in his book that a 10 percent VAT would pay for every American not entitled to Medicare or Medicaid to enroll in a health plan with no deductibles and minimal copayments. In his 2008 book, "100 Million Unnecessary Returns," Yale law professor Michael J. Graetz estimates that a VAT of 10 to 14 percent would raise enough money to exempt families earning less than $100,000 -- about 90 percent of households -- from the income tax and would lower rates for everyone else.

And in a paper published last month in the Virginia Tax Review, Burman suggests that a 25 percent VAT could do it all: Pay for health-care reform, balance the federal budget and exempt millions of families from the income tax while slashing the top rate to 25 percent. A gallon of milk would jump from $3.69 to $4.61, and a $5,000 bathroom renovation would suddenly cost $6,250, but the nation's debt would stabilize and everybody could see a doctor.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/26/AR2009052602909.html

[peternap]

Warning: This might make you angry...

MIGHT?

[Squirl]

The only part that makes me angry is.

"Still, Orszag has hired a prominent VAT advocate to advise him on health care: Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and author of the 2008 book "Health Care, Guaranteed." Meanwhile, former Federal Reserve chairman Paul A. Volcker, chairman of a task force Obama assigned to study the tax system, has expressed at least tentative support for a VAT. "

This is more telling.  This just means that someone got a cushy job "consulting" because their brother was the whitehouse chief of staff.  Just plain old corruption.

[phalynx]

Nothing like some good old fashioned taxes to stimulate the economy.  Who elected this bafoon anyway?

[peternap]

Who elected this bafoon anyway?

It was not I !!!

[glenn kangiser]

Time to improve your barter skills.  Work toward buying nothing.

[ScottA]

We already have VAT. They are called corporate taxes. The idea that corporations actualy pay taxes is stupid in the exteam. They simply raise the prices of the goods and services they sell to cover them. in the end the consumer pays them. If you doubt this take some business classes. One of the first thing they teach is that when figuring pricing to calculate taxes into the price before you add your profit. Next thing to remember is taxes never go away. They may promise to eliminate the income tax in order to pass some version of a VAT but I doubt it would really happen. We'd get the VAT and still end up paying income taxes too. I would go along with a VAT if all other taxes where repealed by the same law that created the VAT. And then only if food, medicine and fuel was exempt from these taxes.

[Virginia Gent]

Hey guys I have an idea! Let's try to squash any possibility of our economy recovering, and at the same time steal even MORE money by placing even more taxes on an already over-taxed populace! This is a brilliant idea and can not fail. Nope. No way can it fail.

It won't matter anyways because by the next election, we will all be making 200K a year because of the inflation. Might I make a suggestion for everyone here ... by stock in wheel-barrels because everyone is gonna be buying them to lug around their money when they go to buy bread.

[Phssthpok]

I always did wonder where the name 'value added tax' came from since, as far as I can tell, it isn't adding a damn bit of value to anything I buy.