Landsteiner posted:With any luck this will be the beginning of the end of sales taxes for everything but luxury goods (say over $1,000). Sales taxes are regressive and hurt the poor, working class and lower middle class most in almost all cases. Sales taxes often apply to food, clothes and other necessities (diapers, toy trains, etc.
). A simple, national, mildly progressive income tax on everyone (above a certain base level of income), proportionally returned to the individual states, no deductions whatever, filed on a postcard as in some Baltic states, would lead to many of us doing more productive work. It would avoid creating protected classes of taxpayers (e.g., homeowners), and monstrously large and wasteful bureaucracies that produce absolutely nothing of concrete value to society (the IRS, tax professionals--sorry folks). Could be phased in gradually over a decade or two if we had the will, to avoid causing unemployment and economic disruption. Probably won't happen, but worth thinking about.
Now I've done it, probably will be banned from the forum
I suspect the banning party is being formed in Ohio as I write. 
First, all toy train sales should be tax free. Why not?
Second, dump the income tax and institute (as Landsteiner says) a VAT that acts as a brake on consumption and encourages saving and other good things. Time to do ... but there is no political will to make anything rational happen.
