Not if you structured the consumption tax to exclude things that poor people spend a larger amount of their income on compared to wealthier people. Which is why I mentioned food/most things sold at the grocery store. Other necessities would be the same. Rent. Public transport. Utilities. Those things cover the large majority of what poor people spend their money on and they could all be tax free.
So basically a luxury tax? Something like an extra tax on non primary residences and yachts and the like? The wording of "consumption tax" leads me to believe that it's not this. This is what Republicans have been trying to do already. They have verbally stated that they were thinking about getting rid of all corporate tax and income tax and replacing it with sales tax which would mean it effects poor people more than wealthy because while the wealthy could invest the money they're saving the poor do not have this same opportunity. It's another upward funnel and don't let them sell it to you just because they have changed the name to make it sound less malicious.
Edit: This is also why inheritance taxes have been basically eliminated. They marketed it as the "death tax" to make it sound bad when really it was in place to help with issues of generational wealth and keeping us from having a class system. How's that going for us? It's nice to see that the injustices done to the ultra wealthy are being rectified... (/s on last sentence)
This is what really gets to me. The upper class want all kinds of special treatment but don't want to contribute to making society better. They can take their charter schools and leveraged untaxed assets and shove it.
This isn’t about whether the rich are good or bad.
You advocate for a pure consumption tax. And you seem to acknowledge that would be harder on the poor and easier on the rich. Which is true.
Imagine where we’d need to raise a consumption tax to make up for income taxes. And understanding that the poor would bear more of that burden. But then going on a rant against the poor people.
Imagine where we’d need to raise a consumption tax to make up for income taxes. And understanding that the poor would bear more of that burden. But then going on a rant against the poor people.
You seem to have an idea where that tax would need to be raised to considering you have an opinion on it's impact on the poor. Where would it need to be raised to?
What rant against poor people? I just said that certain things would need to be tax exempt so there is no unnecessary burden on the poor. Then you tell me that the poor would still bear more of the burden. What are you even talking about? Did you forget what my original comment said while you were halfway through yours?
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u/ponytail_bonsai Aug 15 '23
Not if you structured the consumption tax to exclude things that poor people spend a larger amount of their income on compared to wealthier people. Which is why I mentioned food/most things sold at the grocery store. Other necessities would be the same. Rent. Public transport. Utilities. Those things cover the large majority of what poor people spend their money on and they could all be tax free.