I chose sales tax. I made my decision before reading the responses. Now I'd probably select other. I never thought of the implications for less commercial areas. My biggest concern when it came to instituting only a sales tax was hoarders. I thought it would be unfair to not tax people who weren't stimulating the economy.
I think the flaws in our taxation method here in America is we run our taxation process like its a business. Worse yet, it's a clunky obsolete business. It appears our government wanted to funnel money in, in as many ways as possible, rather than finding a way to funnel money in really well in one way.
To elaborate a little bit. Our government has numerous methods of income. Taxes, licensed privileges, judicial seizures, fund raising, among other means. Rather than our government finding a way to collect the necessary funds to sustain itself, and the best way to collect those funds, it operates in the same manner it has for generations which has become dysfunctional. I think our government should limit "who" pays the taxes, as I've seen other people suggest. The less people submitting tax forms, the easier it is for our government to hold someone accountable.
Let me put something into perspective. The
IRS initiated 3,800 investigations for the tax year of 2015. There are 160+ million people in America who are supposed to be filing taxes, and another
27+ million businesses in America that are supposed to be filing taxes. That calculates to 187 million+ taxes filed and only 0.003% suspicion of fraud. I personally don't think their is a lack of suspicion in fraud, only a lack in man power to find wrong doers, and the right process for our government to obtain the easiest and most fair streams of taxes.
I kind of agree with the idea of property owners and businesses footing the bill. Everyone knows the costs of the owner gets passed to the consumer, thus the consumer would still be paying taxes but the business and property owners would be the only ones submitting paper work.