Taxing consumption is much harder to make progressive and achieve the presumed aim here. Consumption taxes start out heavily regressive, and require modificat

Taxing consumption is much harder to make progressive and achieve the presumed aim here. Consumption taxes start out heavily regressive, and require modifications to make them neutral or progressive. These might be excluding clothing and staple foods from sales tax or other tweaks to exclude the necessities of life, which lower-income people necessarily spend a greater portion of their income on. (Income taxes are quite easy to make progressive.)