There could be and they should be. There are better (more just, more enforceable, less hostile to businesses) and worse taxes (basically unenforceable easy to g

There could be and they should be. There are better (more just, more enforceable, less hostile to businesses) and worse taxes (basically unenforceable easy to game ones which only honest people fully pay). The problem is that increasing taxes in exchange of getting rid of bad ones is way more politically difficult than just introducing new ones or very slightly increasing existing ones. For example land value tax is widely considered a very good tax: it's just (the more valuable land you have the more you need the government), it's easy to enforce (hard to hide the land), it doesn't hinder business (you pay it no matter what you decide to build there), it discourages hoarding on valuable resource. Still, if you try to increase it enough to get rid of some very bad taxes you still get an uproar an be voted out even if the change is revenue neutral. That's because you will hurt one entranched group a lot and everyone else will benefit on average less (at least at the beginning).