As a resident in one of the most highly taxed counties inthe country, I have harbored mixed feelings about attending Tea Party rallies.In fact, the other day, I discovered a sign stapled to a nearby telephone polethat urged the local residents to attend a rally scheduled for next weekend.
After all, no one that I'm acquainted with enjoys havingtheir taxes raised on an annual basis as we have for the past seven years. Nordo they want to wait for the inevitable avalanche of levies that willundoubtedly cascade upon the citizenry as a result of health care reform andother monstrously expensive legislation.
But in fairness, it is my choice to live there and byproxy, everything that goes along with it, good and bad.
But that may change as a result of a recent groundswellcalling for the U.S. to adopt a value-added tax or VAT.
Like active volcanoes, the VAT is something thatthreatens to erupt periodically, but then appears to calm.
But with the current administration's propensity forspending, many have opined that a VAT or something similar may be the only wayto slash a galactic deficit and unbridled spending.
For those in need of a refresher course, a VAT, which wasfirst proposed in 1918, is a national sales tax that is levied on the value ofeach stage of goods production.
Again to be fair, a VAT - if adopted to supplant the 1million-word IRC - would be far less complex and eliminate many of the currentloopholes that have been traditionally a luxury afforded to only those in upperincome levels.
Unfortunately, what has been proposed by House and SenateDemocrats is adopting a VAT and keeping the IRC. This way, there's an extra taxas well as an avenue the size of Broadway to keep raising taxes.
In Europe the EU mandates its members to have a VAT of 15percent. But, according to figures from the Cato Institute, the tax burden forEU economies was nearly 28 percent of economic output prior to implementing theVAT in the mid-1960s and by 2006 that figure had swelled to roughly 40 percent.
Nor has it dissuaded the EU from hiking other taxes.
If the administration wants to talk about tax reform,then I'll keep an open mind. But if they want to take the discussion of VATadoption to the next stage, about all that I see happening is prodding thosecurrently on the fence aboutattending Tea Parties to take the plunge.
