National Sales Tax?

That's the worst idea anybody's had since Hitler's father said to Hitler's mother, "C'mon, Brünhilde, let's go upstairs and make whoopee!"

I live in a state where there is a 6.5% sales tax, and the local communities add their own percentage to that. In Seattle, the total sales tax is it's 8.8%. Which is to say, whatever the list price is for something, you have to add 8.8% to that price. People here don't like it much and want the state to levy an income tax, provided they repeal the sales tax. But so far, no politician who advocates a state income tax wants to do away with the sales tax, so whenever the issue comes up, the voters say "No way!" Not unless the sales tax is done away with.

Think!

To those whose income level is way up there, sales tax seems negligible. If you're able to shuck out $75,000 to buy the kid who's going back East to an Ivy League college the Jaguar XK he says he needs, the extra $6,600 in sales tax isn't going to bite that much. But those with the lowest income are the ones who pay the largest percentage of that income in sales tax because they have to spend most or all of it just to survive. Discretionary income? They don't have any. And that extra 8.8% bites like hell.

And as far as a National Sales Tax is concerned, the figures being bandied about range from 23 to 56%!! That means the price of everything goes up by around a quarter to a half. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. But that seems to be the whole idea of a National Sales Tax.

Taxes don't get much more unfair and regressive than that!

Don Firth