The Objective Standard published my latest article, “‘Fair Tax’ Looks Ugly in the Details.”
I point out that, not only would the “Fair Tax” (a type of national sales tax) increase the cost of items by (at least) 30 percent, but it would also tax consumable services. While usually sellers must remit the tax, sometimes consumers must do so. The worst possible outcome is a sales tax added to the income tax.
I argue:
To a large degree, the debate over the sales tax versus the income tax misses the more fundamental issue of spending levels. How the federal government collects our money matters, but how much the government forcibly confiscates matters far more. So long as the federal government spends massive amounts of the citizens’ wealth on “bailouts,” corporate welfare, and handouts to individuals, any resulting tax necessarily grows onerous.