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If a poor person earns $100 and spends it, they're paying ~$9 in sales tax in my hypothetical world of 10% sales tax. The rich guy who earns $100 and invests i

If a poor person earns $100 and spends it, they're paying ~$9 in sales tax in my hypothetical world of 10% sales tax. The rich guy who earns $100 and invests it, spends $4500 and ~$409 (about 9%) of it goes to sales taxes. Sure, he gets 45x the value of purchased goods, but he also pays 45x in taxes. Did you lose track of the topic of conversation? It looks like you're just detailing the ways that it's better to be rich than poor. I was responding to ChrisSD's specific point many comments ago that: "Taxing spending tends to be regressive." To the contrary, it looks like it's neither regressive nor progressive. (I don't know the word for that. "Neutral", maybe?)

pedrocr 9y ago
You're ignoring my actual points to just restate your conclusion. Money you use to buy properties doesn't pay sales tax, money you use to pass on to your heirs doesn't pay sales tax, money you get to save because you have surplus only pays sales tax after you've gotten your initial capital out multiple times so the sales tax on the initial income is 0. But lets classify that investment gain as income as well and ignore that bit. Do you actually have any doubt that poor people spend a higher percentage of their yearly income on things where sales tax applies? That they buy less properties, invest less and then pass on less of a percentage of their lifetime earnings to their children?