Charitable giving

[kyounge1956]

OK, I should have said "most people" instead of "no one".
I'm with you. I would love to see the tax code simplified, and would have no problem giving up my favorite deductions if the system could be made really fair. Replacing the entire income tax with a simple VAT or national sales tax might work, but the devil is in the details. How do you keep it low enough to make groceries affordable, yet high enough to reasonably soak the buyer of a mega-yacht?

Putting a lot of IRS employees out of work would rank very low on my list of regrets.

The obvious way to make sure groceries stayed affordable under a VAT or national sales tax would be to exclude food from the tax. One of the flat tax proposals would replace the income tax with a national sales tax on (IIRC) new products only, then refund a certain amount per person. The refunded amount would, in theory, make the basic necessities tax free.

 

[Independent]

OK, I should have said "most people" instead of "no one".
I'm with you. I would love to see the tax code simplified, and would have no problem giving up my favorite deductions if the system could be made really fair. Replacing the entire income tax with a simple VAT or national sales tax might work, but the devil is in the details. How do you keep it low enough to make groceries affordable, yet high enough to reasonably soak the buyer of a mega-yacht?

Putting a lot of IRS employees out of work would rank very low on my list of regrets.

I'd also be happy to give up my favorite deductions in exchange for everyone else giving up their favorite deductions (and all tax preferences).

However, I can't imagine a "simple" VAT that raises as much money as the income tax. Over time, the VAT is just a likely to get riddled by exemptions and special deals as the FIT.
(... and don't forget that anyone wealthy enough to buy a mega-yacht can purchase and register it in some non-VAT Caribbean island.)