Sales tax and VAT are equivalent assuming everyone plays by the rules, this is economy 101. The difference is in the implementation and where places for abuse a

Sales tax and VAT are equivalent assuming everyone plays by the rules, this is economy 101. The difference is in the implementation and where places for abuse are. With VAT you charge it everywhere in the chain and then apply for refunds if the total you paid is higher than the total you collected. The argument is that this makes VAT more difficult to game but this doesn't sound very convincing seeing how the whole criminal industry was created around gaming governments for fraudulent VAT returns. This caused the governments to create more and more reporting requirements making life more difficult for honest businesses. VAT also causes liquidity problems if you rely on fast refunds. This makes it difficult for small businesses because liquidity is a bigger problem for them. What often ends up happening is that they just have higher prices to make up for delated VAT returns. Living in a VAT country I am not a fan of it. I think taxing consumption is a good idea in general but the burden of the current implementation is too high.