Dale Franks, in More on Taxation, complete with a shameless plug, examines a national sales tax (shortened to NST) and finds what he likes.
Read the original and then examine this excerpt:
Equally disturbing is that the income tax allows the government to pick and choose between favored groups or desired social outcomes by alterations of the tax code. Large businesses that are able to spend money on lobbyists can collect all sorts of tax breaks and loopholes through manipulation of the tax code.
Politicians seem completely unable to resist monkeying with the tax code to produce politically desired social or financial outcomes. As a result, the tax code is a compendium of special interest tax breaks, arcane finance rules, and an impentrable [sic] mass of regulations. Call the IRS two separate times asking the same question about the same tax problem, and the chances are, you’ll get two different answers.
As a result, it is almost impossible to fill out a moderately complicated tax return without violating some arcane tax provision that government can use, if they desire to do so, to bring you to heel. In my view, the personal income tax is a potential tool of tyranny.
I am far more comfortable with the NST. It immediately liberates the citizenry from any personal financial oversight from the government, which automatically makes it more conducive to personal liberty. The need for citizens to obtain accountants, tax attorneys, or the services of H&R Block would be completely eliminated. More importantly, the temptation to call down audits upon unpopular government critics would be ended completely.
Moreover, it completely–or, at the very least, substatially [sic] –eliminates the government’s ability to use the tax code to produce political or social results desirable to the government.
And these are the same arguments that will be used against the passage of any sort of National Sales Tax.
BTW, excellent article on supply-side tax cuts here. Have we reached a sub-optimal point on the curve? I don’t know.