Is a sales tax as fare to those who barely make a living, as an income tax?

logicmarty: Is a sales tax as fare to those who barely make a living, as an income tax?
With no sale tax those with high incomes and no income tax have it made. A $ 10 sales tax hurts low income people making say 6000 a year. But what is it to those making 50,000 or 100, 000 a
year. So you think if every poor person ‘puts their nose to the grind stone’ they too can make that kind of money. Ha!

Answers and Views:

Answer by kateperez
Sales tax is sort of a choice… You don’t HAVE to buy some of those things that are taxed, and many poor people do not buy them.

Rich people buy more things that cost more, so they pay more sales tax than a poor person.

Because it is a personal choice to buy a car, a big screen TV or a yacht, then it is not a burden on someone who does not buy the item…

Food is not taxed.. but unfortunately shoes, clothes and diapers are…

It does cost everyone… but it is how we keep this country running… At least we don’t pay TV tax (if we don’t have paid television) and we don’t have to pay to sit in a park….

Answer by Judy
Depends on your definition of “FAIR”. That’s one of the big problems I have with the “fair tax”, it hits the poor harder.

Answer by wartz
Fare is what you pay for a bus ride.

Answer by NAMELESS
Simple answer is No, If you’re refering to Fairtax…
It will screw our economy over in many ways I do not wish to outline, take away an automatic stabilizer from our economy due to the loss of progressive income tax, and encourage illegal and black market transactions since the tax is easily avoidable by not recording sales, thus the underground economy will flourish, government wont make enough revenue, and our economy may very well fall into a deep recession.

Answer by SG
Are you talking about Fairtax (a federal sales tax system)?

Every family unit would receive a “prebate” every month…in effect this would exempt are certain dollar amount of annual spending from being subject to tax. People below certain income levels will receive more in prebates than they pay in sales taxes. And the FICA taxes would also be eliminated, also.

So it is still a progressive tax system (people making more money would pay a higher percentage of tax). And a whole lot of people paying no federal taxes at all (except for those taxes already buried within items that are being purchased).

Now, whether this is “fair”, or more importantly, whether it would work or not, I have no idea.

The following link shows the amount of prebate each family would receive per month: