Good to see reliable Bruce Bartlett knock the air out of Denny Haslert’s absurd national sales tax trial balloon.
Bruce notes the numbers flim-flam that is at the heart of national sales tax proposals, and that makes clear we’d never end up with a sales tax replacement for the income tax. Instead we’d get a federal sales tax in addition to a federal income tax.
Of course, the claim that drives me bonkers is that a national sales tax, or VAT, would somehow deep-six the IRS. The state is never indifferent to revenue collection.
