3 ms·
(Admittedly without putting any real thought into this,) it seems like it could be made less regressive by excluding necessities that make up the vast majority
by marcus0x62 4y ago
(Admittedly without putting any real thought into this,) it seems like it could be made less regressive by excluding necessities that make up the vast majority of a low income family’s budget, having a “medium” rate on some other categories like consumer electronics, and a “high” rate on luxury goods. Quotes because I have no idea what “medium” and “high” would need to look like for the numbers to work.
Some states with sales tax (Texas and Florida come to mind) already do something like this by excluding groceries from their sales tax program.
- lotsofpulp 4y agoThese kinds of roundabout ways to help the poor always end up with complications that waste time and resources at best, and open up avenues for corruption at worst. https://taxfoundation.org/sales-tax-grocery-tax-exemptions/ https://taxfoundation.org/sales-tax-grocery-tax-exemptions/ I always try to advocate for KISS, keep it simple, stupid. Want to help poor people? Give them cash. Want to prevent political fighting about who constitutes poor people? Give everyone cash. And then take back based on marginal income/property/sales taxes.
- benj111 4y agoIs vat actually regressive at all? The more you spend, the more you pay. I see the wisdom of removing tax on necessities. But after that it's essentially everyone's choice what they buy. The issue seems to be that things that only the wealthy can take advantage of are under taxed.