Replacing the Current Tax Code With A National Sales Tax Will Reboot the American Economy

Rezamee states the following: "For one a 13 % tax on all American citizens would be good. .. for the wealthy, if that were to take place you would only be widening income inequality; making the rich richer while the poor get poorer" (Rezamee, Round 1, Paragraph 2). Frankly, outside of total wealth distribution, it is impossible for the government to affect income inequality directly. Income inequality is caused by market conditions, which may or may not be directly affected by government policy. Instead, government"s responsibility within an economy is to create a stable economic environment where everyone has a fair chance to improve their economic situation. How does this concept relate to tax policy? There should be one tax policy (rate) that applies to everyone. While a policy that might be good or tolerable for the rich is most often not good or tolerable for the poor, a policy that is good or tolerable for the poor is almost always good or tolerable for the rich. For the purposes of the tax policy, the logic behind it is simple. The poor will not have to pay as much to the government under a national sales tax as they do under the current progressive income tax code. I think Rezamee was trying to say that it is not fair that the rich should pay the same percentage of taxes as the poor should. However, there is one important fact that should be noted. Use the following example: A person who spends $100,000 per year will pay $13,000 in total sales tax while a person who spends $20,000 per year will pay $2600 in total sales tax. They are paying the same percentage of taxes but the rich person is paying $10,400 more in taxes than the poor person is. Rezamee also mistakenly misinterpreted my position in the following quote: "Like I said earlier, taxes on products would be raised by a large margin causing consumers to avoid spending as much" (Rezamee, Round 1, Paragraph 2). The title of the debate begins with "Replacing the Current Tax Code"", meaning that there won"t be another federal tax levied besides the national sales tax. There would be no other taxes that the federal government could raise. The single tax would create a simple, stable tax policy that would enable consumers to boost the economy through increased sales activity. I would also like to touch briefly on the point that Rezamee made regarding budget cuts. This point strayed from the topic somewhat as the debate is supposed to be on the economic effect of a national sales tax and not on budgetary policy. However, the new tax policy does provide budgetary help. According to The Heritage Foundation, federal spending was $3.5 trillion in 2014 and its revenues were about $3 trillion (. http://www.heritage.org...). Furthermore, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the federal government spent almost a trillion dollars in subsidies in 2014. The majority of these subsidies were tax subsidies. Eliminate every government subsidy and you will adequately compensate for the short term drop in federal revenue. The resulting market expansion will increase revenue in the long term. A national sales tax would definitely require some work to get it properly implemented in terms of the federal budget. However, it would stabilize the American economy and provide potential for extraordinary growth.