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Everybody makes purchases. Including the wealthy charities and endowments specified in the article. Get them all in a way they cannot hide. This is the most fai

Everybody makes purchases. Including the wealthy charities and endowments specified in the article. Get them all in a way they cannot hide. This is the most fair approach. The moment you invent a bunch of nonsense special cases to target the rich is where they can use special cases to hide. If you want to talk about how sales taxes disadvantage the poor what are some examples? School supplies, clothes, and backpacks? These are all generally low cost items. I am aware of how that works financially having once been poor myself.

CorrectHorseBat 6y ago
They are low cost items, but poor people also have less money to spend so that cancels out. Here's an example: Sales tax of 10%, poor person has an income of $1000 per month and spends it all. 10%/$100 of income goes to tax. Rich person has an income of $10000 per month. They spends $5000 and save $5000. 5%/$500 of income goes to tax. That's like a reverse progressive income, arguably very disadvantageous for the poor.
- austincheney 6y ago
  I already mentioned I have once been poor myself and know how this works. Your simplified arithmetic is not a comprehensive financial scenario. When I was poor we were dependent upon hand-me downs and school assistance programs to cover many of the essentials.
  - CorrectHorseBat 6y ago
    How does that change anything? You're just moving the burden to the nearly-poor who can't rely on those things. edit: don't forget that for your scheme to work we would need to increase sale tax. Unless you had zero income when being poor it would still negatively effect you.
- Turing_Machine 6y ago
  There are ways around this. You could minimize the accounting by setting a rebate level, then issuing a check to everyone (yes, even the rich people) for that amount. To use your numbers, if you issued a rebate check for $100/month to everyone, the poor person would pay an effective rate of zero, while the rich person would still pay an effective rate of $400/month.
  - CorrectHorseBat 6y ago
    That just means you're moving the problem up a bit. The poor pay nothing, the rich pay relatively nothing and the middle class carries the highest burden.

CorrectHorseBat 6y ago

They are low cost items, but poor people also have less money to spend so that cancels out. Here's an example: Sales tax of 10%, poor person has an income of $1000 per month and spends it all. 10%/$100 of income goes to tax. Rich person has an income of $10000 per month. They spends $5000 and save $5000. 5%/$500 of income goes to tax. That's like a reverse progressive income, arguably very disadvantageous for the poor.

austincheney 6y ago
I already mentioned I have once been poor myself and know how this works. Your simplified arithmetic is not a comprehensive financial scenario. When I was poor we were dependent upon hand-me downs and school assistance programs to cover many of the essentials.
- CorrectHorseBat 6y ago
  How does that change anything? You're just moving the burden to the nearly-poor who can't rely on those things. edit: don't forget that for your scheme to work we would need to increase sale tax. Unless you had zero income when being poor it would still negatively effect you.
Turing_Machine 6y ago
There are ways around this. You could minimize the accounting by setting a rebate level, then issuing a check to everyone (yes, even the rich people) for that amount. To use your numbers, if you issued a rebate check for $100/month to everyone, the poor person would pay an effective rate of zero, while the rich person would still pay an effective rate of $400/month.
- CorrectHorseBat 6y ago
  That just means you're moving the problem up a bit. The poor pay nothing, the rich pay relatively nothing and the middle class carries the highest burden.