A sales tax of any form has the property of catching and taxing almost all economic activity. That’s a major advantage to fund government spending. This broad

A sales tax of any form has the property of catching and taxing almost all economic activity. That’s a major advantage to fund government spending. This broad taxation is bad when it taxes staple food items. It is good when it taxes spending sourced from the underground economy. If you want to cover for the first case, I’d rather see us give direct cash transfers to the poor and then let them (and everyone else) pay the tax.